On the Cusp Part II - Almost There

It has been a week since my previous post, but a cold week, with wind and even rain. Some more roses are blooming, but the garden has yet to reach its peak. Still, there are lots of plants to enjoy, and as this is my favorite season, I spend a lot of time in the garden.








Carding Mill, along with William Shakespeare 2000, is my best Austin rose. It is a generous bloomer with a bushy restrained growth habit. The blooms have a heavy myrrh fragrance, are nicely sculpted and tolerate heat very well. It is just gearing up for the spring flush, and I can't wait.

Purple Pavement is opening its first blooms, just as my snowball viburnum's flowers get heavy enough for branches to start falling all over the rose. A few weeks later, it will be a gorgeous show of deep vibrant purple against pure white.

My other viburnum, doublefile, is also starting to bloom. Both viburnums bloom at the same time as the roses, creating a nice white foil to their exuberance.

Bishop's Castle is full of buds, and they are still so heavy that they are hanging upside down. Pruning, fertilizing and talking to it in a stern voice do not seem to help.

Mme. Berard has not been enjoying the chilly wet spring we have had so far. We are not supposed to have blackspot here, but the rose doesn't seem to have heard about this...

I can't fault the spring flush of Elie Beauvilain. It is covering more and more of our long fence, and the blooms are lovely in a charming old-fashioned way.

Golden Celebration is opening more and more blooms each day. I love the strong citrus fragrance and the huge beautifully sculpted blooms, but it does get some blackspot and repeat is not that great.

A wonderful rose that I would grow for its name alone is Gloire des Rosomanes (Glory of Rosaholics if you don't speak French). It is a very vigorous plant (it was used as understock at one time), full of lovely deeply colored blooms, and look at the size of the clusters. It happens to be my husband's favorite rose:).

My lovely Lady Hillingdon is opening its delicate flowers which remind me of curlicues. Its growth habit is a bit stiff (it could be hybrid tea, not a tea), but the blooms are lovely.

At the end, a bright and bold Sheila's Perfume, a floribunda bred by an obscure British hybridizer and named after his wife. Mine is very bushy and vigorous, and the blooms are very fragrant, so its bright colors are forgiven.