It's rose season, and lots of the inmates are doing their best to cheer up the view. This is one of my climbers which hasn't bloomed for the last three years, but it is covered this year. The blooms are a simply glorious, deep, velvet-ty red. It is Henry Kelsey, one of the Explorer roses. I moved it from the rose mound a number of years ago, and I think it has finally ceased to sulk and has settled in to be a stunner. It is away back at the east side of the property so you have to go for a walk in order to see it. I often forget about it when I am doing photos and have to make a special trip. It's been blooming full belt since about the first week of July.
The
rosa gallica Tuscan Superb is doing a lot of blooming also, and it's a slightly deeper deep red, or slightly purplish red. (This photo does it no favours.) I wanted to be able to paint our house the colour of this rose, but I don't think paint comes
in colours this subtle.
The rose Snowy Pavement has been great, both in blooming and in spreading itself about. This shot is of the one on the south side of the ring-around-the-rosey bed. Lovely subtle lilac shade and a terrific scent. I had pruned the original one on the rose mound last fall, and it is coming back well.
The rosa multiflora was NOT blooming for the wedding, but it bloomed very successfully since. I had pruned it very hard back in the fall and again in spring, and it took this as an excuse to become HUGE. I am leaving it alone for now, as the hips are a great addition to Christmas decorations, but I'll never again worry that I've been too harsh with it. It can take it very well. This shot is when it's in full bloom, and all that green on top is the next year's canes. It doesn't re-bloom (or at least not very much) on the old ones.
In addition to admiring the roses I have been trying to get all of the plants I've collected or sown into the ground. It has been a challenge to say the very least. For example, I planted rose campion from seed, and they have been very successful in both germination and in surviving being pricked out. As a result I must have planted out 7 or 8 dozen of them. They are biennials, so I put them into the cutting bed of the vegetable garden, to grow on, to be placed in the flower garden next year. However, I have some rose campion planted out two years ago, blooming now, and I'm not sure if they will survive to bloom again next year. If they do I shall be over-run with rose campion. I may have to sell them or give them away.
This week I've been developing "Primuland", a special area for my extensive primula collection (do you see what I did there?). It's facing south and quite near the road, and, in summer, quite shady, except at mid-day. The weeping purple beech and the chamaecyparis were planted there a couple of years ago.
I hope that before the trees leaf out the primulas will have a chance to bloom in the sunshine. I also put in a stephanandra, a creeping rhododendron, and some sedum, creeping phlox and erica carnera seedlings I generated this spring. And I stuck in a couple of pots of blooming things and some pinks for colour.
In the area below the yellow birch I am planning to add a bed of the orange flowers that are scattered around here and there amongst all the pink ones. I find them a bit jarring and think they would do better off on their own. I expect I shall find I have far more of them than the space will hold! However there is a possibility of digging out a matching bed on the other side of this little lawn area (perhaps I should say former lawn area? Yeah, more lawn gone!) and more oranges/yellows could go there. I know I have a couple of daylilies including two big thickets of Franz Hals, and my geums should go there too. There are others but I have to wait until they have finished blooming before moving. Just now I am smothering the grass with carpet in those areas.
