Some Rare Roses and the Enemy at My Door

Spring is here already, and my lilacs, lavenders and fruit trees are in full bloom.



All my roses are a dense forest of buds (a very heartening sight), and a first few blooms are popping up. Here they are:

Sutter's Gold

Sutter's Gold is an own-root hybrid tea, which I think I got from Vintage Gardens a few years ago. I love the warm and changeable colors on the blooms. However, they last only a few hours, rebloom is not at all fast, and the fragrance, while powerful, is quite fleeting for me. Still, when a bloom is newly open, it is a gem. The plant stays very clean for me too.

Sutter's Gold

Miss Rowena Thom is another plant from Vintage. I bought it primarily to ensure against extinction: it is a very rare rose, and Vintage is going out of business. It turned out to be quite vigorous, an unusual development in an own root classic hybrid tea. The blooms are often, but not always, well formed, of a dullish pink with a yellow base. It always has good fragrance for me.

Miss Rowena Thom

 My rampant climbing Cecille Brunner has been jointly tamed by my neighbor, me and squirrels (who are partial to tender new shoots). It looks set for a spectacular spring display and I am convinced  that keeping it in bounds is a good thing :).

Cl Cecille Brunner

 I have an old plant of Chrysler Imperial that came to me with the house as a collection of old dying canes. I have done my best with it, but it has not become as vigorous as I would like it to be. Still, its blooms are so beautiful and fragrant that I don't have the heart to dig it out. I am now growing a young plant of Chrysler Imperial next to the old one, and am hoping it will eventually take over and provide me with more of these gorgeous fragrant blooms for cutting.

Chrysler Imperial

Maréchal Niel, a tea-noisette, opened its first shyly nodding bloom. It seems to be packed with petals and fragrance. I love this rose not only for the lovely blooms, but also for its restrained (so far) growth and clean foliage. This rose is completely evergreen for me and carries no disease.

Maréchal Niel

And finally, another rose from Vintage, Duquesa de Peñaranda, a Pernetiana. It is still a baby but shows great promise I think. I wanted to have it for a number of years but only managed to order it last fall :).

Duquesa de Peñaranda

Despite all the beautiful blooms, not all is well in the garden. Brown and green, flying and hopping, aphids have descended on the roses in full force.

Even though they are more a nuisance than a serious threat, I confess it makes me angry to see them up close, snouts in a rose cane, bottoms up in the air, eyes half closed in ecstasy, sucking sap from the new growth.

Oh well, at least their predators are out in force too. I am glad someone thinks them a tasty morsel.