A Spring Quickie

Here’s a few quick shots of some roses that I have taken over the last week or so.

This one is Gertrude Jekyll which I have growing as a climber along the fence. It isn’t a prolific flowerer at other times of the year but it puts on a great show in spring.

It’s being a little swamped this year by Heritage, also grown as a climber next to it. That’s probably my fault since I tend to favour the Heritage over the Gertrude Jekyll when I’m pruning since GJ is so incredibly thorny. I will have to let it go a little more.

And finally a shot of Abraham Darby. This rose is taking a long time to grow for me but it is beautiful and superbly fragrant. I do what I can to encourage it – maybe it’s the spot, maybe it’s that particular plant.

Happy gardening!

The end of Autumn

Lamarque

Depending on how you count these things we are either at the start of winter now or coming to the end of autumn.

The Crimson Glory Vine has great autumn colours even in Perth

And it’s been a warm dry autumn here in Perth with the temperatures only now starting to drop, along with the leaves.

I can’t rave enough about the performance of Duchesse de Brabant

I got my camera out and have taken some photos of what’s in bloom around the garden.

A Darcey Bussel bud starts to open

With the warmth the roses are still blooming well

My Camellia in flower

William Shakespeare

Iceberg with a few hips

Young Lycidas, still only a young plant, is putting on a good display

Bold seduction

Sharifa Asma

My new rose, St Cecilia

The truly gorgeous Abraham Darby

Floribunda Bridal Pink in bud

And full flower

And that’s it – happy gardening!

This is Lamarque

Have a look at the beautiful Old Garden rose, Lamarque.

This is a Noisette rose bred by Marechal in France in 1830. If you would like to delve further into the story of Noisette roses have a look at this article. Go on –it’s interesting.

Lamarque has white blooms with a pale lemon yellow centre and mine is moderately fragrant.

The flowers are produced from spring through to late autumn in heavy clusters, producing a spectacular display.

It’s a large climber that can apparently grow to 6 metres. Mine is a weeping standard which I bought from Roworths Rose Nursery (this is not a sponsored post by the way). Luckily for me it doesn’t mind a prune. I give it a light prune in early autumn and when the canes start attacking me as I walk past, along with a harder prune in winter.

You can see in the photo how it looks at the end of autumn and, below, how it looks at this time of year, post prune.

Last year I pruned it much harder, almost back to the support ring, and I wasn’t that thrilled with the result. It was still large by the end of autumn, but it took quite a while to get to an attractive size and shape and the spring blooms weren’t as prolific, probably because there was less plant for them to grow on.

Apparently this isn’t always the case with Noisettes. My Gardening Neighbour has several and he has pruned them with unfortunate results – a very slow recovery. Certainly my rose book recommends not pruning Madame Alfred Carriere, another of the Noisettes.

I decided to buy a weeping standard for this spot based on this photo in the coffee table book, Rural Australian Gardens. The book doesn’t say what rose appears in the photo but I later found an earlier photo of the same property in another rose book I borrowed from the library; apparently it is a rambler I had never heard of – Minnehaha.

So when I went along to the nursery I had this image in my mind, with either pink or white flowers. On site the choices were either Iceberg or Lamarque and the ever helpful staff recommended this one. It hasn’t let me down.

Thanks for reading. Happy Gardening!

Hello Roses!

Here in Perth we’re in the middle of the first rose flush of spring, and this year we are having a good season.

Red Pierre looking truly spectacular

So often it can be spoiled by wet or too cool weather, but not this year.

David Austin’s ‘Munstead Wood’

This year the warm weather at the end of winter has meant that most of the roses are looking well foliaged for a change.

Named for the ballerina, David Austin’s ‘Darcey Bussell’

Hybrid tea, ‘Bonfire’. The petals turn red in the sunshine as it ages

This is hybrid tea, ‘Granada’

You might remember, back in autumn, I was talking about moving my ‘Princess Alexandra of Kent’ rose. Well here it is in its new home and flowering much better already.

This one is hybrid tea, ‘Radox Bouquet’

The thorny, but beautiful ‘Gertrude Jekyll’

And finally, another Austin rose, Scepter’d Isle.

Sharifa Asma

I have 14 David Austin Sharifa Asma roses, so let me tell you just why I like them so much.

 

Firstly, because they are so stunningly perfumed. I started by buying two bare-root standards. I may have lucked out, but these two are amazingly fragrant, with a smell that is almost oily. You can imagine droplets hanging in the air.

 

Second, because they are upright and bushy, unlike some of the other David Austin roses which can be quite rounded and spreading. Sharifa Asma has more the upright growth of a hybrid tea, maybe even narrower and about 4 to 5 feet tall. They fit just perfectly into a relatively narrow space.

 

I was so impressed with the fragrance of the standards that I decided to make a hedge of them. I headed off to Melville Rose Nursery late one winter and picked myself up 6 Sharifa Asmas (I’ve since extended the hedge). Three are very fragrant, two aren’t at all and one was mislabelled and I think might possibly be a Glamis Castle (pictured below). Any other ideas as to its identity would be welcomed. It fades to white with age.

Which proves one thing, that fragrance in roses varies from plant to plant not just variety to variety. Nowadays I try and pick them up during flowering season so I can pick out the most fragrant ones.

And thirdly, because they are very heat and sun tolerant and do really well in Perth summers, flowering often and generously.

 

If they have a fault, at least in my eyes, it is in leaf form, kind of wrinkly. Apparently it is a rugosa style leaf (so the literature says). I’m not that fond of it but I find I don’t focus on it in the landscape.

Highly recommended!

Meet my Best Friend

Today I want to show you my Best Friend rose. Part proceeds from the sale of this hybrid tea go to the RSPCA, hence the name.

 

 Advertised as being a hot plum pink, this is a great rose to add a splash of colour amongst the other softer colours. I have three of these and I am considering more if I can find the space. This colour is surprisingly hard to find amongst roses. I have one other rose, David Austin’s new rose, Young Lycidas, which I bought last year that has similar colour, maybe slightly darker. I can’t give you a verdict on that at this stage because it is too new, although it seems to be a case of so far so good.

 

Best Friend doesn’t have too many thorns. It’s vigorous (by which I mean it doesn’t take too long to grow) and it flowers really well. Currently, as you can see, this one, a standard, is having a spectacular autumn flush. And yes it is very fragrant to boot. It’s an average sized rose which means it grows to around 1.5 metres (5 foot).

 

 

VERDICT: I highly recommend this rose. It’s readily available at local Perth rose nurseries and bare-root from interstate sellers, often as a standard.

Summer Series Eucalyptus ‘Summer Red’

This is the small flowering gum ‘Summer Red’ which is in flower now.

It’s a hybrid grafted form that was originally introduced to make it possible to grow these in the eastern states. I’ll let Angus Stewart from Garden Drum explain

The strategy [the breeder] chose was to hybridise Corymbia ficifolia, the red flowering gum from around Albany in south-west Western Australia with the swamp bloodwood, Corymbia ptychocarpa from northern Australia, which has the same spectacular terminal flowers common to all the Corymbias, but is obviously much better equipped to cope with the humidity and heat of northern Australia. By crossing those two species together, we get a group of hybrids which has been marketed as the Summer series – ‘Summer Red’, ‘Summer Beauty’ and ‘Summer Snow’, a white variety.

It’s a brilliant tree with spectacular clusters of red flowers that literally drip nectar when they first open. These fill the air with a fresh sweet fragrance that rivals any rose. New growth is red. It’s been extremely healthy too; usually native trees are a bit prone to scale in my experience.

It’s supposed to be a relatively small tree I think. I prune mine down to about 2.5 metres in autumn because I need to let light in to other plants on its southern side and for my frog pond (it’s called that but there are no frogs in it – yet. I’m confident one day there will be…) that sits below it. Over a summer it grows back to I guess around 4 metres. It never complains and bounces back to its usual attractive round headed form.