It's June- the month of the roses ! By pure coincidence both the blue iris , the red rose and also the white rose are in flower at the same time today in my garden- ( slightly too late for American Memorial day but still..pretty good ..) so I thought to send you this lovely red- white and blue to brighten your day. Ah!
The colours of roses...
Red-white and blue are not just the colours of the American and English flag, but also of the Dutch flag- so for a Dutch person like me, it's super cheerful and very apt. So I made myself a very patriotic nose-gay.
I have been tending and nurturing my roses- I wished I had many more than I have at the moment- but then, maybe not on second thoughts. Roses are enticing and alluring like a voluptuous 1950's Starlet with dark red velours Capri-pants, but also just as temperamental . This rose-arch here below , as you can see , is clad with two white climbing roses .These are really two yellow rose trees
.They
died off. The roots were left in the soil . Then the roses regenerated themselves and then the roses came back as
white climbing roses .
Here is a close -up of the rose.It has a lovely lemony scent .But it just goes to show that rose equals unexpected surprises .I still would have preferred the yellow.But then - the scent is lovely.So it's a keeper.
Just a tip in case you're thinking
" rose-arch" : if you want to put a rose-arch up, put the legs of your arch quite deep in the soil and then
secure with quick-setting cement. My last rose-arch - which looks perfectly fine here last year- see here
was not secured properly , fell over, and the metal was completely twisted and unusable because of the weight of the roses .It's not much fun having to completely untie a climbing rose full of thorns from an old rose-arch !So remember- in case of a rose arch :
dig deep and concrete in !
The dogs were quite helpful while I was digging the trenches for my arch and trying to get as much cement in my hair as I could in the space of 10 minutes, and kept me entertained, running around amongst all the fallen roses.
And Maud came out of the shrubbery looking like this:
N
o idea how she got this forget-me-not flower in her hair-this is how she came out - but I think it's adorable.
My other advice is : be kind to your roses and don't keep them in a pot , but
plant them whenever you can, in full soil ( with some nice and smelly manure).They love that and reward you with clusters and clusters of flowers.This climber is called
" Teasing Georgia" .It's getting so big and so full of roses now it's getting a bit scary.The rose-heads are so heavy they all droop down, like they are all looking at you and figuring out what they will do next.Grow some more I guess!!
It's a modern rose, but with the look of an old-fashioned rose..Here's a detail. Lovely and yummy.Almost so tasty that you want to take a bite out of it!Yum!
But I previously had it in a pot and was lucky to have three roses on it during the whole summer.So get those spades out and those bags of manure and start digging!!
Soon you will have a house covered in roses, and more sugar- coated rose-petals and self-made rose water , than you can shake a stick at !
I have high hopes for this rose I planted last year-called " Albertine " a real monster from a growing speed point of view.
I hope to goodness she hurries up and covers the whole front of my house with an explosion of pink bubblegum rose extravaganza and I will have to fight my way to the front door with an jungle-knife.
I am so looking forward to that day ! Sadly, the score at present it is...about seven roses on the whole thing .
All good things come to those that wait- that's especially true for gardeners!
Have a great rest of the week!
I am linking this to the following link parties ( the button is at the bottom of my page ):
Tuesday garden party. Wow us Wednesday .Show and tell Wednesday.Swing into Spring Wednesday.Tablescape Thursday. Transformation Thursday, Inspiration Friday.
