Organic Garden Dreams

I will say it right away, summer is not my favorite time of the year in San Diego. It is way too hot to garden comfortably outside except very early in the mornings and late in the evenings. On the other hand there is so much to do in the garden. At this time of the year I am mainly busy with hand-watering, weeding, deadheading roses, fertilizing and mulching. Unfortunately I hardly find the time to plant anything new.

Most people assume San Diego has a very mild and temperate climate and that is true when you live directly on the coast, but many people, like us, can't afford to buy a house there and are forced to move more inland. With every mile away from the coast temperatures seem to rise and in the summer time you are reminded every day that you are living in a desert. But enough complained, I am happy that I do have a garden and just try to make the best out of it at any given time of the year.

This lovely clay statue was made by a friend and given to us as a house warming present after we bought our first house in Menlo Park, California. I couldn't find a good place to put it for a long time until in the beginning of summer I decided to give it a try in my Hybrid Perpetual rose bed. The roses are casting quite a bit of shade there on the ground, so that the lilac scabiosas, that I had originally planted in this location, didn't grow and gradually declined. I surrounded the statue with impatiens 'Super Elfin White', which seem to be surprisingly happy there and I like how they and the white statue lighten up this area.

This is hardy geranium, commonly called cranesbill, 'Rozanne'. The plant is non-stop in bloom from spring until up to now and will probably go on until late autumn. It is such a grateful variety.

When I saw this Martha Washington geranium, pelargonium domesticum, 'Regal Elegance Purple Majesty' in spring, I had completely fallen in love with its color and had to have it. At $ 16.99 for a three gallon container it came with a quite steep price tag, but I gave in, because I knew it would complement the David Austin rose 'The Prince', which is growing nearby, perfectly. I thought that Martha Washington geraniums would only flower in spring, but this one keeps going although less profusely and the flowers are smaller than in spring.

This white flowering cyclamen (unknown variety) is gracing our front door. Nothing special about it on the first glance, except that it starts to bloom in the heat of summer. Can you see the little flower bud peeping up? My understanding is the cyclamen are only flowering when the weather has really cooled down in autumn in my area.

I think that the foliage of this cyclamen looks so pretty.

Fungi growing in the mulch. In the summer they can appear from one day to the other. I have read that fungi only grow in healthy soil, so I embrace them as a good sign.

I am gardening in a dry, arid and hot climate, where one would think slugs and snails wouldn't be such a big deal, but let me tell you that is wrong. Even in the heat of summer these little critters are quite a problem in some parts of my garden.

I am so in love with this chartreuse colored coleus 'Wasabi'. I think, the color is just fantastic! It is another of my spring acquisitions that I haven't shown on my blog, yet. I wouldn't expect a coleus to grow well in my climate, but this one does. Besides its obvious beauty, this plant is special to me for an entirely different reason. When my eighty two year old mom, visited me in spring I dragged her to a nursery and she found this plant and pointed it out to me. So whenever I look at the coleus it reminds me of her and our nursery visit, which is really nice. Thanks mom!

Something is wrong in this picture. Do you see the big variegated leaves at the base of rosa 'Chandos Beauty'?

Close-up of the leaves from the photo above. I am not a vegetable gardener, but to me it looks like a vegetable.

Even though the foliage is fairly pretty, it had to go since it is stealing nutrients from the rose. Turning to the vegetable growers of you out there: Do you know what it really is? I am sure the seeds came from our worm bin, which contains kitchen scrapes, when I spreaded the worm castings underneath the rose bush.

Rosa 'Pierre de Ronsard' in severe need of deadheading after its second flush.

Aaaah, so much better already! After a good feeding with Biostart organic rose fertilizer, alfalfa meal topped off with compost...

... it is gearing up for its third flush.

'Pierre de Ronsard' is certainly one of my favorite roses in the garden. The flowers have a beauty that is hard to beat!

In August, seemingly out of nowhere, this plant is arising its snake like head from the ground.

Fairly quickly it begins to open its buds...

...into these lovely blooms.

More and more buds are opening...

...unfolding themselves...

... until finally this beauty emerges. The plant still has made no leaves, yet. It is an amaryllis belladonna and was supposed to be the white flowering variety 'Fred Meyer Whites', but obviously it it not. Anyway, this pink variety is very pretty, too.

Summer is also the time when the agapanthus blooms. This dark blue variety is called 'Storm Cloud'. I have the impression that it is not flowering as profusely as the light blue more common varieties.

These six little plants of geranium x cantabrigiense 'Biokovo' I also bought in spring already and believe me, they have looked better then. 'Biokovo' has light pink almost white flowers and I thought it might be a nice perennial addition for my White Garden Bed. If you squint, you might see two tiny blooms in this picture.

Planted freshly in the ground the geranium is stretching itself already a little bit and seemed to like it better there than in the container.

You almost need a magnifying glass right now to find the geranium 'Biokovo' in this photo. They are planted to the right and left side of the cycads. They are supposed to grow 12 - 18 inch high and 18 - 24 inch wide, so I think that soon they will have more impact. The rose in the middle is 'Moonstone', a white flowering Hybrid Tea rose with a pink center. I hope that the geraniums will complement this rose nicely.

Even though the roses do struggle in the heat of summer and don't bloom that profusely, occasionally they still can be magnificent like 'The Prince' accompanied by salvia 'Mystic Spires Blue'.

See you in the garden!

Christina

Again, I am coming in late with my post about the roses that bloomed in the previous month, but I am glad that I am at least able to publish it today.

On average August is the hottest month of the year in San Diego and this year has been no exception. As in July the roses struggled with the heat in my garden and most bushes didn't look that pretty, but some still managed to produce roses of great quality here and there.

Here are some of the beauties, that I captured with my camera last month.

The picture perfect blooms of 'Our Lady of Guadalupe'. After all these years I am still fascinated by the beauty of the flowers of this Floribunda.

'Madame Alfred Carriere' has become a huge bush in the one year that she is planted in the ground, but the rose did rarely bloom. Maybe she is just getting established and is working on building a deep root system. I hope to see more of her lovely flowers in the future.

'Pink Pet' is a very undemanding, tough as nails rose. I have mine planted in brutally hot conditions in the front yard, in a very narrow flower bed between the white wall of our house and a light colored concrete path that radiates the heat even more to the rose.

'Pink Pet' doesn't seem to mind and blooms in nice clusters.

I find the pom pom like flowers quite charming. A great rose for the cottage garden!

'Irresistible' being pretty!

Here is a shot, when the bloom is a little bit more open. This rose keeps a good form until the blooms are spend.

'Auckland Metro' with water droplets from the sprinklers...

...and another bloom in full morning sun.

'The Prince' is a rose that I am never getting tired off.

The color and form is just exceptional and...

...it has the most pleasing and strong fragrance. You just stick your nose in it and for a moment you forget all the sorrows and worries of the world.

A particular pretty cluster of 'Georgetown Tea'. I love the unique and a little unruly blooms of this relatively rare Tea Rose.

No matter what the weather is or the temperatures are, 'Pope John Paul II' is a rose that I can always count on.

The big blooms never fail to impress and also make good cut flowers.

I don't believe that I have ever shown a photo of the 'Crocus Rose' on my blog. The reason might be, that I almost lost this rose last summer. It has recovered now and even though the blooms are still tiny, I think it shows the potential to be a truly lovely rose.

'Sweet Chariot' is a trooper that blooms right through the heat of summer. The rose is completely healthy.

I really need to find a spot in the ground for this little chap, since he is outgrowing its container.

The Hybrid Tea rose 'Moonstone' is blooming and blooming and blooming.

The beauty of each flower is remarkable and that is the only reason...

...why I put up with this rose that almost constantly suffers from powdery mildew.

'Belinda's Dream' in the warm evening light...

...and in the cool morning light before the sun has completely risen. Isn't it remarkable how much the color of this rose varies from warm to cool pink at different times of the day?

'Sweetness', another Hybrid Tea rose, that grows in my front yard was surprisingly generous with blooms, considering how hot is has been. Unfortunately some fried in the heat, but here I caught a cluster at the peak of its bloom.

'Pretty Jessica' is one of the older David Austin roses. I like the cool light pink color quite a bit.

Here is the same rose in a fully open stage. Unfortunately I don't get a good rebloom, but that might be my fault, because the rose is planted in quite a bit of shade and dealing with a lot of root competition from a huge Queen Palm.

The grayish brownish tones in the color of 'Moonlight Scentsation' are very fascinating to me. Also a rose that you don't see too often.

The pink center of 'Pierre de Ronsard' becomes quite saturated in the heat in my garden.

I complained about the muddy, almost dirty color of 'Heritage' in my July Roses post from last month (if you want to see photos of 'Heritage' from then, please click here). The rose may have heard that, because since then its color has changed and has become a more clear apricot pink. I have to say that this "new" color has grown on me and the current blooms are an even lighter pink and prettier in my book.

I am closing this post with a lovely bloom of 'Lavender Crystal'. This rose is truly a gem in the lavender color range. I also really fancy the more informal bloom form.

See you in the garden!

Christina

As my own garden is struggling with yet another heat wave and everything seems to look more and more dried out and yellow despite my ongoing efforts to keep things watered, I find myself longing for the lush gardens of England. It occurred to me, that I promised a third part of my series about the Rose Gardens at Mottisfont Abbey a long, long time ago.

So I thought treating myself by writing another post about this extraordinary rose garden and browsing through the literally hundreds of photos that I took there at our visit, now already two years ago. I would be very glad, if this post would bring some joy to you, my dear readers, as well.

We had just entered the second walled garden, when I spotted this incredible pretty gray-leaved humongous plant, which I was completely fascinated with. I assume, it is a cardoon.
Mottisfont Abbey contains three walled rose gardens. I wrote about the first walled garden in two previous posts already. You can find the links to them at the end of this one.

Unfortunately, many roses were not labeled in this part of the garden or the label was so grown in that you couldn't see it without stepping into the border, which, of course, I didn't do. That is a pity, because in the second walled garden, there were many Old Garden Roses, which are in general not so well known by a lot of people and some of the ones, which are growing in Mottisfont Abbey, are quite rare. As a matter of fact in this whole post I could only identify one rose for sure.

I loved the combination of this yellow rose, the white peony and the 'Lady's Mantle'.

At the time when we were visiting many peonies were in bloom and I was blown away by their beauty.

The silver-gray leaves of the surrounding plants go particularly well with the white flowers of the peony.

This is another dazzling variety, which seem to glow from within.

So lovely!

The long vistas in the garden were quite impressive...

...and the huge borders simply absolutely stunning.

The plant combinations at Mottisfont Abbey Rose Gardens are so skillfully done. It is truly outstanding! Everywhere you look you find fascinating scenes to enjoy.

Another peony variety, that I found especially charming. I also like the combination with the delicate small white flowering plant very much. Does anyone of you know it?

The layering of the plants is so well done in this border. Mottisfont really made me fall in love with catmint (blue flowering plant in the middle of the foreground), which I grow now in my own garden. It is doing very well in Southern California, too.

A lovely rose, that I don't know the name of.

The climbing roses in this part of the garden were often of extraordinary beauty. Here they are spilling into the borders with abundance.

This white flowering clematis was also exquisite!

Many peony blooms were huge and...

...the plants were flowering generously.

This was one of my favorite borders planted along the brick walls. I think the color and plant combinations of mainly roses, foxgloves and irises are just perfect.

Isn't this scene like coming directly out of a dream?

I had never seen an iris that dark blue/purple before. It looked almost black and had a fascinating satiny sheen.

Close-up of the iris from the photo above. The color was absolutely stunning!

Bearded irises and peonies did particularly well at Mottisfont. I wonder, if they treat them in a special way. This light blue bearded iris variety in the foreground was also a total eye-catcher.

In this photo you can see, that all the evergreens like yew columns, boxwood hedges, green shrubs give the garden a calm backdrop. They also used quite rustic climbing structures for the roses at Mottisfont, which fit perfectly with the style of this garden.

Another light pink rose beauty. I wonder what the blue flowering companion plant is in the foreground. Any ideas?

I loved this delicate white flowering companion plant. Can anyone of you, dear readers, identify it?

The light pink flowering climbing rose at the wall is 'Blairii No. 1' (middle to the right side of the image), a climbing Bourbon rose bred by Blair, (United Kingdom, 1830).

Here is a close-up of the blooms of 'Blairii No. 1'. I think, that this is an outstandingly beautiful rose and the flower form and cool light pink color has a very special charm. It is supposed to have a very strong fragrance as well, which was impossible to verify for me, because I couldn't get close enough to this rose to smell it.

With this beauty I would like to end this post, but want to let you know that I have so many more interesting and rare roses to show from Mottisfont, that I will continue to blog about this great garden hopefully in the near future.

If you are interested in reading the previous parts of this series about Mottisfont Abbey Rose Gardens, please click on the links below:

Mottisfont Abbey - a Rose Lover's Paradise I
Mottisfont Abbey - a Rose Lover's Paradise II

Thanks for stopping by!

See you in the garden!

Christina

Yikes, I better get this post out before the end of this month, because otherwise I have to skip it and blog about the roses that were blooming in October already!

So here it is: We had miserable heat waves throughout September only interrupted by a few slightly cooler days in between. Of course, that has put a lot of stress on the roses, but some have been soldering on and continued to flower. Altogether though I don't recall having as few rose flowers as I had this September in comparison with previous years. I guess the ongoing heat combined with the severe drought is really taking a toll on my rose bushes. It really makes me a little sad.

One rose that really stood out, was 'Mary Rose', a shrub rose bred by David Austin (United Kingdom, 1983).

I really love the light pink, big, cupped blooms,...

...which appeared in abundance on my rose bush even during the heat.

The foliage of this rose is a nice matte medium green, which goes so well with the light pink flowers and seems to even enhance their beauty.

'Mary Rose' is growing in a big container on my terrace, so that I could observe her disease resistance, growth habit, flower shape and color over a couple of months. So far the rose has been relatively healthy, just a speck of powdery mildew at times. The bush seems to want to grow in a compact and bushy way, which I really like. The rose has past the test and will stay in my garden. I hope to plant her into the ground soon.

'Moonlight Scentsation' is a little bit of an iffy rose for me, but every now and then I get one of these outstandingly pretty blooms like the one above.

Another rose, that has earned its permanent place in my garden, is 'Sweet Chariot' especially after its performance this September. I am also trying to find it a spot in the ground.

'Heritage' blooms just barely opening...

...and later on. After some initial hick-ups I have come to like the color and the bloom form, but the flowers only last a very short time on the bush, before they drop. The rose also gets powdery mildew very easily when the conditions are right. I am not sure if it will stay in the long run.

'Charles Darwin' on the other hand is a fairly healthy rose, one getting mildew once in a while.

It flowers freely...

and the blooms are always a delight.

I rarely report about 'White Meidiland', a shrub rose bred by Marie-Louise Meilland (France, 1987). That is by no means the fault of the rose. I have planted it in an absolut impossible location for a rose. It is in a lot of shade in severe root competition with a cycad and an evergreen hedge, so the rose is not able to show its full potential, but is doing very well considering these difficult growing conditions.

Not surprisingly the rose is still small, maybe three feet wide by two feet tall (approximately 90 cm x 60 cm), but the dark green glossy foliage is completely healthy. I am hoping, that next spring it will become considerably bigger and will have more blooms.

'Lavender Crystal' continued to present its unusual bluish-lilac blooms.

A rose that also bloomed quite well in the heat was 'Frederic Mistral'. The blooms are incredible fragrant and I like the color, but I am not too keen on the form.

'Auckland Metro' has a special glow in the center of the blooms that I find quite fascinating.

It also has bloomed very generously for me last month.

I finish with another favorite of mine, 'The Prince'. The shot of the bloom above is taken in full sunlight and is pretty,...

..., but this last picture of an just opening flower has been taken in the soft early morning light and makes my knees weak. I think the color is just mindbogglingly beautiful and the strong old rose fragrance matches the beauty of the bloom perfectly.

Wishing everyone who celebrates it a Happy Halloween!

See you in the garden!

Christina

Autumn undeniably has reached my San Diego garden. After a scorching hot summer temperatures have finally cooled down and the garden slowly goes into recovery mode from the long hot and dry months. We even had an inch of rain, lately.

On some days the weather has been just glorious, absolutely perfect for gardening and I decided to work on the central bed in the backyard, called the White Garden Bed. Unfortunately, as you can see, there is not too much white about it right now, because hardly anything is blooming.

But I tried to change that and fertilized the roses in this bed one more time this year. I know, it is late in the season even for Southern California, but this bed gets a lot of sun and the soil is still warm, so the roses hopefully are able to utilize the food that I put down for them and will produce one more rose flush.

So out came the organic rose fertilizer, alfalfa meal and compost and my husband and I got to work. You may have spotted the hole in the ground in front of the left cycad already,...

...I intended to plant this alstroemeria Princess Lilies 'Claire', there. Poor 'Claire' has been sitting in my pot ghetto way too long and has given up flowering, but if I am lucky, she starts again before winter sets in.

The freshly mulched bed looks so much better already and even though the alstroemeria, now planted in front of the left cycad, is small...

...it has quite a bit of an visual impact, I think.

Still the bed appears "empty" to me, therefore I decided to make it my focus in the next couple of months and try to fill it with perennials and annuals.

One of my 'Iceberg' roses clearly indicates that it is autumn by growing hips and flowers together at the same time.

Other roses like 'Charles Darwin' fit into the season by simply taking on a wonderful warm and rich autumn color.

Moving on to the front yard. I feel the front yard has suffered the most from the hot summer and I had to cut back plants quite a bit to remove dried up leaves and branches. In the moment it looks a little bare.

The photo above shows the view from the walkway to the front door. I am really pleased with the height that the obelisk, placed to the right side in front of the garage wall, is adding to the scene. The hummingbird wind chime hanging inside the obelisk is new and I like how it picks up the color of the blue glazed terracotta containers that are scattered throughout the front yard. It also adds some color and visual interest at that level of height. Our front door is still decorated with Halloween banners and...

...these cool pumpkins to the right and left side. I was happy, that I found some more unusual pumpkins than the "normal" squeaky orange ones,...

...since bold orange is really not my color and I think the different colors and shapes of these pumpkins make for a far more interesting display.

Don't you think that these pumpkins have the most amazing textures? I really hope that they will last for a while and beautify our entrance to the house in the autumn time.

This is a close-up of my new hummingbird wind chime, which you could see already hanging in middle of the obelisk four pictures above. Looking at it more closely, I am not sure if it is not too much kitsch. I hope that the weather will wear off a little bit of the sheen and let it become more matte, so that it looks less flashy. On the other hand it didn't cost a fortune and if I feel it is "too much for me" in the long run, it is not a big deal to remove it. I was astonished to find though, that the wind chime itself makes a surprisingly pleasing and soothing sound that really adds something special to the front yard.

At one of my trips to a big box store lately, I got stopped in my tracks by these beautiful stocks. I didn't intend to buy a plant, but simply couldn't pass them up. Besides the very lovely flowers they smell absolutely incredible. So I allowed myself to take two of them home and replaced the purple petunias with them, which didn't survive the heat of summer.

I find the soft pastel colors and ruffled blooms of the stock quite wonderful...

...and they fulfill my desire to have some flowers other than roses blooming in the front yard at this time of the year.

I was surprised to find stocks blooming in autumn though, as I always think of them as spring flowers. They may have been forced in the green house...

...and for that reason I am a little bit worried about how they may fair outside and how long the blooms will last, but I for sure will enjoy them as long as they are with me. Since they are planted in the front yard, usually I pass by them a couple of times a day and sometimes you will find me stopping and going down on my knees, taking a whiff. I only can say their fragrance is truly heavenly! They are definitively one of the many little autumn delights that my garden has to offer at this time of the year.

I hope you are enjoying the autumn as well.

See you in the garden!

Christina

This November has been a surprisingly good month for my roses. I believe it is mostly due to the unusual warm and sunny weather for this time of the year that we were having. Almost all the roses that were flowering in October continued to do so and even a few more decided to produce some blooms. Here are a couple photos from this month. Hope you enjoy!

It always seems that there is one rose that truly stands out each month in my garden. This time is was 'Pope John Paul II'.

It is one of the very best roses in my whole garden, if it is not the best.

The flowers are beautiful at any stage of their life.

They are huge and sumptuous.

The form of this rose is amazing.

'Pope John Paul II' flowers in abundance and the fragrance is exceptionally strong and pleasant. I simply can't get enough of this rose. It is so bad, I may need to get a second one.

'Belinda's Dream' also did very well in November.

These lovely blooms belong to 'The Prince'.

The Tea Rose 'Rhodologue Jules Gravereux', photographed as an opening bud...

... and then in full glory.

As usual the 'Iceberg' roses were doing very well and flowering profusely.

I certainly like their cheerful faces.

'Moonstone' continued to produce wonderful blooms as it did in October.

It provided the flowers for the bouquet that graced our Thanksgiving table.

'Vi's Violet' opened a new small flush of its little blooms. In the background of the Miniature Rose is a white flowering zonal geranium. I like the combination quite a bit.

Hope everyone who celebrated it had a nice Thanksgiving! My husband and I had a lovely day with some gardening done in the morning and a homemade gourmet dinner later at night. Instead of turkey we decided to go for a duck. It was incredible good!

See you in the garden!

Christina

It has become almost ridiculous how late I am blogging about the roses that have been blooming in my garden in the previous month, but I have been simply so busy, I couldn't get up this post earlier. So please bear with me, I hope things get better in the future.

Coming to the actual topic of this post: The roses have seen their share of ups and downs this October. We still experienced very hot days, but also some cooler ones in between. I had nearly everything in the garden from almost perfect rose blooms to fried rose flowers clinging to the bush for dear live, that you simply couldn't feel other than sorry for them. For the latter our strong hot and very dry Santa Ana Winds, that originate inland and come from the Great Basin and the Mojave Desert to Southern California, are responsible. We regularly get them at this time of the year and they are also often causing wild fires, but thankfully not this year in our area so far.

I am starting with the a perfect bloom of 'Sweetness'. The lavender colored roses have become my favorites lately and 'Sweetness' is a rose jewel in this color category in my garden.

Another rose that was flourishing in the heat was 'Auckland Metro'. I love the warm glow in the center of the rose.

The photo above shows 'Stephen's Big Purple', which also didn't seem to mind the heat.

Here is a more open bloom of the same rose. Before I bought 'Stephen's Big Purple' I had read raving reviews about it, but now I am not sure if I really like it. I had expected that the color would be much more purple, but in my garden it takes on a very bold reddish purple coloration, which is a little bit too much for my taste. Maybe underplanting it with some gray leaved and white flowering plants can tone its color somewhat down, but that remains to be seen.

'Mary Rose' that I featured more prominently in the last monthly rose post (if you want to see it, please click here) kept soldering on.

It is astonishing to me that even though her petals are very thin, this rose can withstand the heat pretty well.

Another rose that I am not sure about if I really like it is 'Mister Lincoln'. It is a truly good red rose here in Southern California, if you are into red roses that is.

But I have the same reservations towards this rose that I have towards 'Stephen's Big Purple'. The color at times is very bold, almost loud. It starts out as a warm-red rose, but fades to a more cool bluish-red one as the flower ages (not shown here in my photos). I have to admit that it has a fantastic fragrance. This rose is one of my mom's favorites, so there is no question that it will stay in the garden, no matter if I am completely sold on it or not.

One of the pleasures of these very hot October days, that I mentioned in the introduction to this post, were that we have been able to have breakfast in the garden very early in the morning just wearing T-shirts on one weekend. But that is not why I published this photo. It is because our breakfast table was crowned by a small bouquet of 'Frederic Mistral'.

Close-up of the bouquet, seen in the photo prior to this one. Isn't it lovely? It still gives me incredible joy to be able to go through the garden and almost casually cut a small plonk of roses in October. This is living the California Dream for me!

Here you can see a bloom of 'Frederic Mistral' still hanging on the bush.

But it is not all rosy. This photo shows the damage that Santa Ana Winds actually can do to roses. The blooms that you see belong to 'The Prince', usually a star of incredible beauty in my garden. These blooms are not spent, they are fried by the heat and dry winds that those Santa Ana conditions bring with them.

Since months 'Heritage' always has some blooms flowering on the bush, even though it is planted in a less than ideal condition in way too much shade.

The flowers are so very romantic and I really do like the light shell pink subtle coloration of this rose.

Another beauty that was showing off last month was 'Nimbus'. It is a bit of an older floribunda, that was bred 1989 by Le Grice and that you don't see that often.

This rose is exhibiting a most unusual color range, anything from mauve, purple with more or less prominent brown undertones to an almost clear lavender, depending on the temperatures, light intensity and probably soil conditions. I find it a very fascinating rose, that I have come to really appreciate.

I caught 'Nimbus' one morning with all these water droplets glistening in the sun.

A quite lovely sight!

A bud of 'Moonstone'. I simply like the photo, so it made it into this post.

'Rhodologue Jules Gravereaux' is a rose that you don't get to see that often either. It loves the heat and I find it extraordiany beautiful.

Here is a shot of the same flower cluster as in the previous photo just a little bit more open. I find it very hard to catch the delicate beauty of Tea roses with my photography and have to say that the two photos just don't do 'Rhodologue Jules Gravereaux' justice. It is so much more lovely in person.

'Irresistible', a miniature rose, puts out perfect little blooms, even though it grows in a container that is way to small for it.

'Belinda's Dream' also produced perfect blooms of great beauty.

The last rose that I would like to feature in this post is 'Bewitched'.

This rose is a very classic Hybrid Tea rose, with the typical elongated bud form, with a very good repeat,...

...incredible fragrance,...

...that also makes a wonderful cut flower. I wouldn't be without it!

Hope everyone who celebrates it had a very happy 1st Advent! It is unbelievable to me that Christmas is not that far away anymore. One good thing about it here is, that temperatures finally have come down and even though the weather is still pleasant the really hot days seem to be over. There is rain predicted in the weather forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Please keep your fingers crossed that it is really reaching us. We need it so desperately!

See you in the garden!

Christina

...in life and in the garden as well. Even though big tasks like pruning, fertilizing, and mulching all the roses and the unavoidable general autumn garden clean up are hovering over me, I decided to have some fun first and also get some instant gratification by doing some small things that do have a big visual impact.

This bed for example really could need a little something, don't you think? There is a lot of shade in the autumn and winter and it certainly looks gloomy at this time of the year. So I decided to plant a few small annuals to lighten up the space there. That is easier said then done in this area though, since it is packed with palm roots.

My gardener needed one and a half hour to dig six holes of a diameter one foot x one foot and one foot deep, and I assure you he wasn't killing time.

I was so happy when he was done and I finally could plant the six primula obconica 'Libre White' that I had bought recently just because I thought they were so pretty, but hadn't had a clue where to put them. They look so fresh and cheerful with their fresh green leaves.

I think the primulas are just perfect for this areas. Big difference before and after, don't you agree?

The bed to the left side of the front door also screamed bonjour tristesse and I wanted to do something about it. I thought that it needed a pop of color and how is that easier to achieve in autumn than by placing a container.

I suddenly remembered that I had one more nicely shaped blue container in the garage and to my own surprise I found it immediately. But I hadn't had the right plant to go with it. So off I went to the nursery (not that I ever mind)...

...and found this beautiful cyclamen. Don't ask me about the name of the variety. It wasn't labeled. It really bugs me that not only big box stores don't label the plants properly, but nurseries do that as well nowadays.

Anyway, I popped it into my blue container and it turned out to be the perfect match.

I was even more pleased when I positioned the container in the bed. It has the right size, the right proportions, and it really added some needed interest to this bed.

When I was at the nursery these two containers caught my attention. I loved the form...

... and they came with little cute feet. So I just couldn't say no to them.

I had the two perfect plants just waiting in my pot ghetto for the new blue containers. A zonal geranium, sorry the plant wasn't labeled as well, and a bacopa 'Scopia Gulliver White'.

I plopped the newly bought and planted containers right by the walkway to the front door and really liked the result. The blue glaze of the containers is fitting perfectly with the two blue spheres that I have there for quite a while now.

Here is one close-up of the bacopa 'Scopia Gulliver White'. The blooms seem to be decidedly bigger compared to regular bacopas. I hope in time it will trail more over the edge of the container and have a bigger impact.

I promised to show you the containers that I planted a little while ago and positioned close to our front door in a previous post. Here they are! I really like the color that they add to this otherwise plain area. I had some doubts if the geranium would bloom through the autumn and winter here, but so far so good. It has made new flower stalks.

Lastly here is one more blue container with another zonal geranium that I placed on the pillar of our decorative wall. I think it makes this area so much more lively.

For me the little changes that I made are so worth it. It wasn't all that much work, but in my eyes they truly transformed certain areas in my garden.

What are little changes that you made, which led to big improvements in your garden? I am curious to know and maybe learn something new that I can make use of in my own small space.

Wishing all of you who celebrate it a happy Christmas season!

See you in the garden!

Christina

Last Thursday my husband and I made the decision to adopt a dog! I still can't believe that this is for real! It is a beautiful, red, male Doberman Pinscher, approximately one year old. This is him:

Those of you, who are following my blog might remember that we were contemplating to get a dog for quite a while now. I posted about our visit to a dog show, to have a closer look at breeds we were potentially interested in, back in July. If you missed that post or are just simply enjoy seeing some beautiful photos of dogs, please click here. There were many steps involved until we finally found "our boy" and the fact that we got the dog around Christmas is pure co-incidence, but he is certainly the most precious gift we ever received.

To help us find a dog that fits our personalities, our life style and the things, we want to do with a dog, we enlisted a dog trainer, Alexandra Gant (resultswithbehave.com). She acted as a matchmaker, helping us to decide which is the appropriate breed for our wishes and needs and then finding the right specific dog that suits us.

After narrowing down the breeds, we ended up eyeing a Doberman Pinscher. We wanted to foster a Doberman first and see if we felt we could handle this powerful and intelligent breed and then maybe adopt the dog, if it was a good fit. But according to Alexandra Doberman Pinschers rarely show up in shelters and if so they are immediately snatched up, because it is a sought after breed. For that reason we just had started to look for a responsible Doberman breeder to get a puppy, when Alexandra became aware that this amazing boy, actually turned up in a local shelter.

Alexandra called me in the evening with the exciting news and first thing the next morning she and I went to have a look at the dog in the shelter. Alexandra evaluated the dog for human and dog aggression and any other severe neurotic behavior. Luckily she couldn't detect any signs that indicated aggression or other unwanted traits.

KORAL (Koalition of Rescuers & Animal Lovers, www.koralrescue.com), a local rescue organisation, made it possible that the dog got pulled out of the shelter and that we could foster him for two weeks to see if we all would get along. For my husband and I it was love at first sight and felt like it was meant to be.

There is hardly anything known about the past of this dog. He was found roaming the streets and he is micro chipped, but according to the shelter the phone number to his owners was disconnected. Somehow the rescue organisation was able to make contact to his previous owners and they said that they don't want him anymore. His former name was Zeus, though, I don't know if this name was given to him at the shelter or by his previous owners. We didn't like this name and initially called him just Puppy. Now we are trying to find a nice fitting name for him. Almost there!

He has a little bit more energy than we had bargained for, but as he ages, he naturally will become calmer. Other than that he is just amazing. He has a very nice and sweet personality, being anything but the Doberman stereotype of a vicious, aggressive dog. As a matter of fact, he is a little bit more on the nervous, skittish side and tends to be easily scared by noises and unknown things and wants to flight!

We enrolled him in an obedience class already and he is incredible quick to learn things and loves to please. He is just a very smart boy!

Even though we just have him for such a short time, today it is exactly three weeks, we love him to pieces and can't imagine being without him. Of course, not all is rosy at the moment: He whines and at times screams his head off when he rides in the car, sometimes he pulls like crazy on the leash, he is easily scared and becomes flighty and he just started to jump up on us, which is not as much fun for us than for him etc., but I think we can work with him on all those issues and he shows great potential to become the perfect dog for us.

We are deeply grateful to Alexandra, who went out of her way to find us the right dog and is continuing to support us to get this lovely dog settled and comfortable with us and his new environment. If you live in the area and you are in need of dog training or want to find your perfect pooch, just like we did, we would highly recommend her.

Of course, we are also very thankful to KORAL (Koaltion of Rescuers & Animal Lovers), and here especially to Kornelia, who was our helpful and reliable contact person, for letting us foster and finally adopt this wonderful boy!

Even though it is already a little late, but hey, here in California it is still Christmas Day, I am wishing everyone, who celebrates it, a very Merry Christmas! Hope you had wonderful day with lots of love and laughter!

Christina

Dear Readers, with these photos of roses that have bloomed in my garden in November, I would like to wish all of you and your loved ones a happy and healthy New Year 2015! I hope you enjoy seeing these images and I am glad, that I was able to get this post out literally in the very last minutes of the old year!

To my delight the mild warm weather of November this year brought out almost as beautiful roses as you can find in spring.

Here is a scene from the front yard. On the left side from the front to the back you can see 'Old Fashioned Girl', 'Pink Pet' and 'Climbing Iceberg'. From the right, there are peaking a few branches of 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' into the photo.

'Pink Pet' outdid itself this autumn.

The 'Climbing Iceberg' roses to the right and left side of the garage were very lovely, too. Here you can see the one growing on the right side...

...and these blooms are the top of the 'Climbing Iceberg' growing on the left side of the garage.

Iceberg roses, no matter if it is the climbing or the shrub rose are always so cheerful. It just makes me happy to look at them.

In the front yard another 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' rose was strutting her stuff. To the right side of the rose I planted a new perennial that I am quite fond of. With its lavender colored delicate flowers it compliments 'Our Lady of Guadalupe quite nicely, I think. The name of the plant is plectranthus 'Mona Lavender'. We will see how it will fair in the long run in my garden. If you wonder what the piles of dirt do on the walkway, well, that was the work of racoons. They were "beautifying" my front yard every night for quite some time last month, grrr....

'The Prince', also growing in my front yard continued to delight me with its incredible colored blooms.

'Sweetness', the last rose for today from my front yard, also let you believe that it was spring.

Moving on to the backyard, 'Moonstone' was the indisputable star there.

The flowers of 'Moonstone' can be sheer perfection when it is good!

And the rose was certainly in top shape last month.

One rose flower was more beautiful then the other...

...as these photos document.

The faithful 'Pope John Paul II' never ceases to amaze.

'Stephen's Big Purple' came out with some more blooms, too.

I still don't know what to make out of the bold dark pink color. To me this rose doesn't look purple at all. The name seems to be a little misleading at least in terms of the way the roses turn out in my climate.

'Irresistible' had some nice flowers, too.

'Nimbus' continued to fascinate me with its exquisite colors.

The combination of rose, mauve and brown tones are quite fascinating in this rose.

Thanks for stopping by today!

See you in the garden in the brand New Year 2015!

Christina

For me a nice way to celebrate my fourth blog anniversary, which was on January, 1st this year, is to post about one of the most famous and beautiful rose gardens in the world, again: Mottisfont Abbey. This garden is very dear to my heart and maybe you develop a soft spot for it, too.

I posted about this garden already three times (for your convenience, please find the links to the previous posts attached at the end of this entry), but we are still in the second walled garden, which contains a lot of mature climbing roses fanned out artfully on the old brick walls. For many roses I couldn't find a name tag, but when I did, of course, I let you know.

The photo above shows a well grown specimen of 'Celine Forestier', a light yellow Noisette, bred by Victor Trouillard (France, 1842). The rose collection at Mottisfont Abbey holds a lot of roses, that I have never seen in person, like this one. Besides the extraordinary beauty of the garden itself, this is part of the special appeal that it has for me.

Another unknown to me beautifully grown climbing rose. Some of the climbing roses there were huge, like the one above. They really seem to like the sheltered conditions in the walled gardens that they are growing in. I always wonder, if the gardeners at Mottisfont Abbey do special stuff to improve the quality of the soil, to be able to grow such magnificent roses.

But not only outstanding roses are grown in Mottisfont Abbey Rose Gardens. There are also many fascinating perennials to be admired like this light yellow, almost chartreuse colored scabiosa variety, which I liked very much.

Here is a shot of the whole plant. It is unusual tall for a scabiosa and needed to be staked, but it is such a lovely addition to the border.

I liked this garden scene containing a tall pruned yew, yellow phlomis, lady's mantle and a cerise opulently flowering peony.

This is 'Climbing Souvenir de la Malmaison', a Bourbon, that was discovered by Charles Bennett (United Kingdom, 1893). I always have been fascinated by this light, soft pink rose with the double, flat, quartered blooms and hope it is in my future to grow at least the shrub form by myself.

Yet another shot along one of the walled rose borders. I love that at Mottisfont Abbey roses are not just grown by themselves, but they are shown off by beautiful perennials surrounding them.

And the view is as lovely looking into the other direction.

This climbing rose shows well, how professionally they are pruned and trained at Mottisfont so that the roses can show off their full potential when they bloom.

I loved this color combination of the violet rose, the pink and white columbine (aquilegia) and the unknown to me blue flowering plant.

This beauty is called 'Oeillet Parfait', a lilac Damask, from an unknown breeder from 1841. Now, this is a rose that I hadn't even heard of before I saw it at Mottisfont. So exciting! I just love the color and form of the blooms.

This rose seemed to want to bloom much later than the others that I am showing in this post and was full of hundreds of little cute buds. It must have been a great joy to see it in full bloom!

Again, no identity for this one, but I love the burgundy stripes.

Another brick wall with climbing roses trained on it. As you can see many roses do fabulous in Mottisfont Abbey, but even there not all of them do equally well, just like in everyone else's garden. It is almost a relieve, isn't it?

'Mme. Isaac Pereire', a Bourbon, bred by Armand Garcon, is one of my most favorite roses. Its deep pink colored, sumptuous, large and very full blooms have an irresistible charm to me. But the real astonishing thing about this rose is its exquisite fragrance. If you have ever smelled the very strong, pleasing, raspberry fragrance of a bloom of this rose warmed by the sun, you will never be able to forget it. It is just one of the joys in live!

One plant combination that I find particularly charming: white foxgloves, cerise peonies, and blue irises. Just wonderful!

This rose, 'Souvenir du Docteur Jamain', a Hybrid Perpetual, bred by Francois Lacharme (France, 1865) was one of the roses that didn't thrive at Mottisfont Abbey Rose Gardens, but, oh my gosh, the color! One of the most exquisite shades of a violet dark red that I have ever seen. Completely captivating! My photo does not do this rose justice, it was so much more lovely in person.

Another of the many beautiful peonies blooming in the garden.

I really would love to know what the name of this rose is. To me it looks very much like 'Cl. Devoniensis', a Tea rose that I grow in a container in my own garden.

Here is a close-up of the blooms. Do you have any guesses?

Not only roses were thriving at Mottisfont Abbey, foxgloves loved it there as well.

I was so smitten by this white variety. It fits in everywhere and simply lighten things up in such an easy going way.

I think 'Climbing Lady Hillingdon', a Tea rose with large saturated yellow blooms, discovered by Elisha J. Hicks (United Kingdom, 1917) was one of the most elegant and impressive roses that we saw at Mottisfont Abbey Rose Gardens.

Here is a close-up of the blooms of 'Cl. Lady Hillingdon'. You can clearly recognize the typical drooping bloom form of Tea roses with the edges of the petals curling backwards. Unfortunately this flower shape is currently very much out of fashion, because many people prefer the upright Hybrid Tea flower shape as the ideal rose bloom form, but I truly hope, that Tea roses will have a comeback. Teas certainly have their very unique charm and beauty that deserves to be preserved and survive.

One more shot of this gorgeous specimen of 'Cl. Lady Hillingdon'. Same rose as above, but photographed from the other side.

Another rose that I had never hear off before I visited Mottisfont Abbey is 'Mrs. Paul', a light pink climbing Bourbon, bred by George Paul (United Kingdom, 1891). Not a vigorous rose in comparison to others at Mottisfont Abbey,..

...but the stunning large pale pink scalloped blooms make it totally worth growing.

If you are interested and want to view the previous posts that I have published about this garden, here are the links:

Mottisfont Abbey - a rose lover's paradise III
Mottisfont Abbey - a rose lover's paradise II
Mottisfont Abbey - a rose lover's paradise I

Since, as I said in the introduction to this post, my blog has just celebrated its fourth anniversary, I would like to take the chance and thank all of you my dear readers for visiting and also for all the kind comments that you have been leaving. They always make my day! I hope you will join me for another year of blogging. I am really looking forward to it!

See you in the garden!

Christina

There weren't that many roses blooming in my garden in December 2014 in comparison to the years before. I think, the ongoing drought, that we are having since a couple of years here in California, is taking a toll on my rose bushes. In general many don't seem to be so vigorous anymore and some, that bloomed in December in the previous years, were not able to produce a single flower this year.

Contributing to the stress that the drought is causing to the roses is the fact, that we have pretty tough mandatory water use restrictions effective since November 2014 in San Diego.

For time reasons, I have only been able to fertilize part of my roses a third time in autumn last year, which is another limiting factor in my poor soil in terms of the ability of the roses to bloom.

That being said, I guess it is understandable that the blooms that I got last month were even more precious to me. I would like to share the best ones them with you.

This photo of 'The Prince' is my favorite picture from those that I have taken last month. It was shot on a very chilly morning (for California circumstances that is!) and the air was humid with fog and the light was pale and grey, like you only find it in the winter time here. I think, this particular light shows off the deep saturated, sumptuous burgundy red colors of 'The Prince' the best. They remind me of a very good old red vine.

'Frederic Mistral' also gave me some flowers. The fragrance of this rose is wonderful!

Another rose that came up with some perfect blooms was 'Sweetness'.

On this photo you can see a bush shot of 'Pope John Paul II'. It is not the very best picture, but I hope you can make out how many buds the rose was still producing at that time of the year. It was enough to cut a Christmas and a New Years bouquet and enjoy the blooms indoors. That was such a treat!

This rose was fertilized in October and I gave it some extra grey water from the kitchen and the bathroom and these two things together made all the difference. In comparison to my other roses it was the most floriferous bloomer in December.

To my surprise, one rose that also produced quite a few exquisite flowers in its unique smoky, brown, russet shades was 'Nimbus'.

This rose is still growing in a two gallon container and therefore I could move the pot around to photograph the blooms with the pool providing a blue/turquoise background.

Here you can see a bloom that is more open. I love this image as it has captured the subtle shades of the coloration of 'Nimbus' very well.

Same bloom as in the photo above, but hit by the winter sunlight and with the pool as a background. It is fascinating to me how much light and background colors can change the overall appearance of a rose.

One last shot of 'Nimbus'. I just love its color! It makes me forgive that this rose suffers from powdery mildew from time to time in my organic, no-spray rose garden. It is not too bad though, so far.

Because of the drought I have drastically reduced my new rose purchases. As a matter of fact, last year I bought only one rose. I tried to order a second own root specimen of 'Pope John Paul II' from Jackson & Perkins. They delivered a healthy looking rose and I didn't realize it in the very beginning, but soon the leaves seemed to be too small and the leave form also didn't seem right for belonging to 'Pope John Paul II'.

Then, as the rose bloomed the first time, it became evident that it this is a mislabeled rose. To me the blooms and the bush, even though still small, look much more like a Floribunda than a Hybrid Tea rose.

The flowers have a light yellow center, which 'Pope John Paul II' doesn't possess and they are smaller in size and different in shape. Nonetheless, they are really pretty and the rose has been very healthy so far, which is very important to me.

I assume, that this is the variety 'Moondance', a Floribunda bred by Keith Zary (USA, 2007), which I believe Jackson & Perkins was also carrying last year. I am aware that it is very hard to identify roses, but if you have any opinions which variety this rose might be, supporting mine or differ from it, please let me know.

I finish with a last photo of the my mislabeled rose. It is the same bloom like in the photo above, but again with the pool as a background. The dark blue background adds so much drama to this shot, I really like it. It never occurred to me before, but I think, it might be interesting to experiment with different background colors in the future, when I photograph my roses.

Last but not least I would like to thank you for all the very nice comments that you left on my last post about Mottisfont Abbey Rose Gardens, it feels so wonderful to know when a post is well received!

Wishing you all a great week!

Christina

For quite a while now I am toying with the idea to take part in the End of Month View - meme hosted by Helen Johnstone at The Patient Gardener's Weblog. I feel drawn to the idea of reporting about your garden or an area of your garden monthly, which is what this meme is about, to actually see how things are changing, what is blooming when and what needs improvement. When I look at my blog it becomes clear, that I don't do that so regularly and I think it will be fun and I will learn a lot.

Somehow to report about my whole garden on a monthly basis feels overwhelming to me, but there is one central bed in the backyard, that I call The White Garden Bed, which would be an ideal candidate for this meme.

To be honest with you, I am tinkering with this bed for quite a while now and I am never really satisfied. So I hope, taking part in the meme and for that reason bringing more attention to it, will get me closer to my vision that I initially had for this part of the garden.

So with no further ado I will take the plunge, dive into this meme and see where it leads me.

Here it is: My White Garden Bed! When I analyze the photos what stands out immediately is, that despite its name, there is hardly any visible white color to see in the bed at this time of the year. Secondly there is a big gap between the cycad on the right and the palm fronts to the very right just barely hanging into the picture. Thirdly the bed looks relatively bare. All three things are really bugging me and I want to change them.

This year I want to plant more white flowering perennials and/or annuals and ideally have something white blooming each month of the year. I also intend to fill the big gap to the right side. There will go another Hybrid Tea rose from my pot ghetto, but I haven't decided which on yet. Lastly I would like to plant this bed more densely so that not so much bare soil is visible anymore.

Same bed seen from the other side. There are four roses planted in this bed, which don't have much impact right now, but will take on center stage later in the year. The rose varieties from the left to the right are: 'Pope John Paul II', 'Chandos Beauty', 'Moonstone' and 'Auckland Metro'. 'Pope John Paul II' isn't deleaved and pruned yet, whereas the other three are and they are leaving out already again. That is why they look more "see through" on the photos.

Here I have zoomed in on the central part of this bed. You can see how vigorously the rose in the middle, 'Moonstone', is leaving out and that there is actually something white blooming on the right side between the cycad and the rose to the very right.

What is flowering there is geranium x cantabrigiense 'Biokovo', which I had planted only last year. It has formed a very nice clump and started blooming just very recently.

I really love the dainty cheerful white flowers with a light pink hue.

There is another clump of geranium 'Biokovo', seen on the photo above, planted in the bed to the left side of the other cycad, which almost looks like a different plant. The leaves are smaller and the plant is not as tall, more a "ground huger". It is also not flowering, yet, but if you look closely you can spot a few buds as well. I have treated both geranims exactly the same way, the only difference is that the one you can see on this photo is growing in more sun.

A plant that I have high hopes for is this alstroemeria Princess Lilies 'Claire'. I planted it last year and have not seen it flowering in the ground, yet. As far as I recall it had a vanilla white color, when I bought it. The clump looks pretty healthy, lush and vigorous. I can't wait to see it flowering again.

Close-up of the new foliage of 'Moonstone', a Hybrid Tea rose. I love it when the foliage looks so fresh and unblemished when the rose has just leaved out. It appears a little bit of a light color though and I think the rose needs fertilizer.

There are two white flowering irises 'Platinum' planted in this bed. One is looking a little bit better...

... than the other, but both are not doing really well. Unfortunately I have made the experience repeatedly that somehow irises don't like my garden very much. I will give these two one more year and see how they do.

I still love the white column with the silver gazing ball as much as in the moment my husband and I positioned it in White Garden Bed a few years ago. What I don't like so much though, is the lamb's ear to its feet. At this time of the year the foliage appears rather ratty.

Here is a close-up of the foliage of the lamb's ear. I don't recall the name of this particular variety, but this one can't stand up well to our heat and drought. I believe there are others out there, which are more suited for my climate. Maybe at a certain point it is worth to replace it, but at the moment this is not a task high up on my to-do list.

I can't wait to plant some more things into this bed, but I know with our ongoing drought and my poor soil my first chore must be to fertilize and mulch all the existing plants in this bed to give them the best chance to look good this year. Only then I can start planting new plants.

Hope next month there is some progress to see and maybe some more white color!

Many thanks to Helene for hosting this meme, I am so excited to participate this year. Please, go over to her blog The Patient Gardener's Weblog and check out what other gardeners have to show this month!

See you in the garden!

Christina

January is the month were I deleaf and prune my roses, so for that reason and, of course, because it is winter even here in Southern California, there are not so many roses blooming.

One exception last month was 'Pope John Paul II', though.

This beauty produced one last generous winter flush...

... which I tremendously enjoyed and...

... I had to wait with the pruning until it was over.

I know, I have praised this rose repeatedly on my blog,...

... but it is such an outstanding performer, that I think it is worth to point out its good qualities one more time.

Besides that it is very floriferous, especially for a Hybrid Tea rose, it amazes me that each bloom seems to be perfect from the opening of the bud to the stage where it is slightly beyond its prime, as you can see in these photos.

Even the whole bush is not looking too bad for the winter time.

The two last roses of 'Belinda's Dream',...

...which actually completely stopped blooming after these two flowers were spent.

'Madame Alfred Carriere', classified as a Tea Noisette, in the background to the left and 'Georgetown Tea', a Tea Rose, in the foreground in the middle of the photo, have been a big disappointment this winter. Both roses are exceptions in comparison to all the others shown here today, as roses belonging to these rose classes are supposed to bloom over the winter time in our mild climate, but they obviously didn't.

I fed them with rose fertilizer around the middle of January...

... and even put a whole tray of "homemade" nutrient rich worm castings from our very own worm bin to their feet, but nothing has changed so far.

They may need a second dose of fertilizer or the drought is to blame for their lack of blooms.

Another rose that also produced one last gorgeous bloom was 'Moonstone'.

At the same time 'Moonstone' is the rose, that out of all my roses, is plagued the most by rose rust this winter. The photo above shows the underside of a leave of this rose at the time I deleafed it. Deleafing is not my favorite garden task, but for obvious reasons, this one I actually couldn't wait to deleaf and prune!

'Irresistible' also gave me some nice flowers during January.

Despite the blooms that I am showing in this post, most of my roses looked like 'Pierre de Ronsard, the one on the photo above, last month.

The last blooms of 'Sweetness'...,

... before the winter rest.

Not a great photo, but I am very excited about this bud. It was one of the very first new buds of the year 2015 and belongs to 'Captain Christy', an older relatively rare Hybrid Tea rose. The rose is not a very vigorous grower by any means and I almost lost it due to the heat last summer. I deleafed it (there was nothing to prune, yet!) and planted it from a two gallon black plastic pot into a big terracotta container to keep the roots cooler this year and it has responded by leaving out and producing four buds. I know that rose is still not out of the woods yet, but so far it looks good.

I hope all my American readers have enjoyed a nice, long, restful President's Day weekend! I certainly did and was happy to fit in a bit of gardening as well.

See you in the garden!

Christina

On the first glance at the photos there has been embarrassingly little change happened in the White Garden Bed between this End of the Month View post and the one from January.

February 2015

January 2015

This is mainly due to three reasons. Firstly, when I shot the photos for this post, it was a mostly cloudy, overcast day and I took them later in the day time than the ones for the January post, with the unfortunate result that everything looks kind of "brown" in the February photos and the plants are "disappearing" into the mulch.

Secondly, and that is the bit frustrating part, I, with the support of my husband and the gardener, have worked hard on this bed, but that work doesn't show on the photos. All plants are fertilized, a decent layer of new mulch has been put down and a big new hole has been dug to the very right of the bed (not visible on the photo above, it is obstructed by the pool spa). Of course, I would have loved to have filled the bed with perennials and annual spring flowers already, and believe me, knowing that the next End of Month View post was due soon, the temptation was great. But I know, that in my garden I always have to be patient and reasonable and work on improving the soil first, otherwise nothing is going to grow well here in the long run.

Thirdly altogether there was very little time to work on this bed, because I was still pruning and fertilizing the roses in the whole yard and without that being done as soon as possible there will be no rose spring flush in the garden. So this had definitively priority over working on the White Garden Bed.

Are you tired of my explanations and excuses why there is not much change to see on these photos by now? Yes? Then let's actually focus on what has changed.

February 2015

January 2015

Well, the roses have leaved out and have grown quite a bit in comparison to February. If you look at the February photo to the very right you can spot the massive hole that has been dug to accommodate one more rose. I placed a rose in its black plastic container into the hole to see how it would look in this bed and I think this is a good location for it.

The rose to the very left, 'Pope John Paul II', wasn't even pruned on the January photo, as a matter of fact, it was one of the last roses planted into the ground that I pruned this year. But to my own surprise it has already produced a new basal cane which is carrying a spray of buds and a pristine new white flower is blooming in the middle of this spray already again.

Here is a shot of the new spray of 'Pope John Paul II'. I love that the buds have a green tint, before they are opening to a very clear white color.

The photo above shows a closer look at the big hole to the very right of the White Garden Bed that has been dug for the new rose. I always prefer at least 3' deep x 3' wide holes when I plant a new rose, because as you can even see on the picture, my native soil is very poor and contains many rocks of all sizes. The excavated soil gets completely replaced by a planting mix from E.B. Stone, called Rose Grow, which is especially formulated for planting roses. This stuff isn't cheap, but I have very good experience with this soil mix. The roses are really thriving in it in my garden, so it is worth the expense to me.

February 2015

January 2015

In these two photos you can more clearly see the difference in the roses. One plant that also has continued to fill out is the alstroemeria Princess Lilies 'Claire', in the foreground in front of the cycad to the left.

Here is close-up of alstroemeria Princess Lilies 'Claire'. Isn't it looking juicy and healthy? You almost want to take a bite...

And if you look even closer at this plant, you can see the very first blooms emerging. I can't remember the exact color anymore, only recall, it was a very light one, therefore I can't wait to see the buds opening and hope that they fit into my white color scheme.

Hardy geranium 'Biokovo' to the right side of the cycad on the right in the bed is still blooming prolifically. It is good to know that this plant has a flowering period of at least four weeks.

Just another view of the White Garden Bed.

Even though I haven't been planting anything new into the White Garden Bed within the last month, I have been thinking a lot about what I could possibly plant there. Since it is a very narrow bed it is not realistic to expect to have an impressive display of white flowers there at all the times unless I exchange annuals on a very regular base. So I thought I would go with Vita Sackville-West's approach in her White Garden, and use silver and gray leaved plants in this bed, which come the closest to white flowers, but are there year round.

I have these two dichondra sericea, 'Silver Ponyfoot' sitting around in my pot ghetto for quite a while now and thought I will plant them into my White Garden Bed and see how this looks. When the sunlight hits their leaves they have an almost metallic shine to them, which I find quite fascinating. Another good thing about these plants is that they are supposed to be drought tolerant.

Hopefully next month I have some more progress to show and I would be happy if you would come back to check in with the development of my White Garden Bed.

I am joining Helen Johnstone's End of Month View meme at The Patient Gardener's Weblog. Please click on the link to see views of other gardens at the end of February.

Wishing all of you a nice rest of the weekend!

See you in the garden!

Christina

More than time to come in with the post about my roses that were blooming in January! Last month started off with a little bit of craziness weather-wise. In parts it was as hot as it is in summer here. That, of course, promotes rose blooms and I had quite a bit of roses still flowering even though it is winter. But I haven't fertilized my roses since last year October, hence the bloom quality wasn't that great and the leaves of the bushes, well, what can I say, they are more than ready to go.

It is very much a concern here in Southern California, and as a matter of fact, for the whole state of California, that we haven't had any substantial winter rains so far. The much needed rain, that everyone was hoping for also didn't come in January. I read an article in USA Today recently, which reported that the governor declared, we are having a "mega-drought" and that water restrictions are to come this year. Surprisingly, the article stated that water restriction wouldn't be reinforced in Southern California yet, which, of course, was a big relieve for me, because there simply will be no roses without water, period. Nonetheless, my husband and I try to do our best to conserve as much water as we can in the house and in the garden. One new strategy is to mulch way higher than I ever did before and I hope that will help.

January is traditionally the month where I deleave and prune most of my roses, but somehow this year I am particularly late. I am still not completely done yet, but hope to finish the task by the end of this week. Then all roses need to get fertilized and mulched. So February will continue to be a very busy month for me here in terms of rose care, but I guess the reward is near. It could very well be, that in March I will have already plenty of roses blooming, again.

Here are the best photos of roses what were flowering in my garden in January:

The first one is 'The Prince', a very beautiful dark crimson red shrub rose, bred by David Austin (United Kingdom, 1990). Besides the gorgeous color, the strongest asset of this rose is its unmatched fragrance. It is not only very strong but particularly delicious. 'The Prince' does stay relatively small for me here, maybe 3 x 2 feet by now, which is a good thing, since many of the David Austin roses get humongous in California and don't fit in small gardens very well. 'The Prince' does come with some flaws, though: It gets a bit of powdery mildew from time to time and so far it isn't very floriferous. The rose needs to be shaded from our brutally hot afternoon sun, otherwise the flowers will crisp.

The next one is 'Memorial Day', a lovely medium cool pink Hybrid Tea rose bred by Tom Carruth (United States, 2001). It comes with a very strong damask fragrance. Mine is still in a five gallon container, but the rose was putting out a lot of new buds already and I was so looking forward to them, but a rat discovered that this is a very tasty snack and is "pruning" it each night. How do I know? We set up a night vision motion camera and the culprit got captured on video! Now we are trying to trap it, but so far no success. It is really upsetting to get out each morning and see that there is less and less of the rose there each day. Grrr...

This is 'Halloween', a yellow-orange Hybrid Tea rose with very full big blooms bred by Arthur P. Howard (United States, 1962). Honestly, I don't know why I have ordered this rose, because as nice as it is being by itself, the intense yellow-orange color clashes with all the more muted, pale roses that I have in my yard. It gets even worse when 'Halloween' really shows its orange side. Right now it is still residing in a container and I don't know if I am able to integrate it into my garden. We will see! It seems to be a good rose, so I guess if I decide to part from it, there will be no problem to find a new home for it.

Besides 'Iceberg', 'Our Lady of Guadalupe', a light pink Floribunda, bred by Keith Zary (United States, 2000) was my most floriferous rose bush last month. It just keeps the blooms coming and coming. Too bad, that it has its issues with powdery mildew, which really gets to me more and more, since I know now, that I can grow completely clean rose varieties in my no-spray organic garden.

'Iceberg, Climbing' faithfully blooming along! It is an old standby Floribunda rose here in California. The shrub form was bred by Reimer Kordes (Germany, 1953) and the climbing sport was discovered by Cants of Colchester (United Kingdom, 1698). It is very weird that I have shrubs and climbing forms of 'Iceberg' that are completely mildew free and others mildew at times. I wonder, if this is not only due to their location in the yard (micro climates!), but also to the fact that some of them are grafted on Dr. Huey rootstock and others are growing own-roots. The 'Iceberg' roses that are grafted on that rootstock seem to be more prone to powdery mildew in my observation. I am curious to know, if there is scientific evidence to back up my theory, but so far I haven't had the time to do some research on this topic.

Bud of 'Moonstone', Hybrid Tea rose. 'Moonstone' is a white blend rose with pink edges and incredible big blooms. It was bred by Tom Carruth (United States, 1998). I brought the opening bud featured in this photo into the house and it became a huge lovely bloom, as it usually is the case with this rose, and lasted quite a while in the vase. 'Moonstone' can certainly be called a good cut rose!

'Vi's Violet', a lavender Miniature rose, seems to love to bloom in the winter. The rose suffered a bit from blackspot as it did last year at the same time. I like the small perfectly shaped blooms very much. It is supposed to be fragrant, but I can't detect any scent at all.

I have praised 'Pope John Paul II', a white blend Hybrid Tea rose with a intoxicating citrus fragrance, bred by Keith Zary (United States, before 2006) enough in previous posts, so not to bore you, here are just some photos of this phenomenal rose. It is beautiful in the bud stage...

... and perfect when in full bloom.

And almost each bloom is like that, not just the ones that I select to take photos of. As a matter of fact, I like it so much, that just today I ordered a second one. And in my small garden that says something!

Last but not least, here is 'Baronne Prevost', a Hybrid Perpetual rose of a pink color that fades nicely to a lilac shading, bred by Jean Desprez (France, 1841). To be honest, this is a somewhat unloved rose, because in my garden it looks like an accumulation of bare sticks with some leaves on top of the canes, which often get mildew. But every now and then it produces a bloom, and when it does, the flowers are lovely. I think, I only haven't let go of it by now, because of the sentimental value that it has for me to grow an Old Garden Rose like this.

I planted two of my roses out of the pot ghetto into the ground lately and they have already set new buds. I am excited about it and hope, that in the February rose post I can show their blooms to you. From one of them I haven't spotted a flower myself, yet. It always gives me such a kick to find a rose blooming in the yard for the very first time!

See you in the garden!

Christina

My white cymbidium orchids have bloomed recently and even though they are already only a faded memory by now, I wanted to blog about them because they have been so pretty.

Here I have cut only two flower stalks for the house, but what an impact they have. White perfection!

I really can't get over, how beautiful and blemish free the blooms are.

Two years ago I bought this white flowering unlabeled cymbidium orchid for a very reasonable price at Traeder Joe's.

The blooms were almost spent when I got it, but I couldn't resist the white beautiful flowers.

Last year it was just sitting in my garden doing nothing, but this year, with no care except one dose of fish fertilizer prior to the winter time, it decided to produce four lovely flower stalks.

The individual blooms are marvelous.

The cymbidium (two stalks were cut for the vase already) was still growing in its original ugly plastic container...

...and it was more than time to pot it up into a much nicer terracotta container. I think it also needed a little bit more space to grow, even though I remember vaguely that I have heard that orchids bloom better when they are pot bound.

Usually cymbidium orchids last a long time on the plant and in the vase, but this variety is an exception. Its blooms were spend much faster than my other two varieties. Still, it is well worth growing, don't you think?

After enjoying the vase from the opening photo of this post for a few days in front of the fire place in our family living room, I was ready for a change and placed it into a niche located in our formal living room.

I really like the still life effect with the orchid blooms in front of the vintage mirror, that I bought in Albuquerque, New Mexico a few years ago. The large candle stick was a lovely birthday gift from a dear friend and the handmade clay vase, that looks like a cow horn, lying to the feet of the orchids, was a souvenir that we brought back from our last trip to England. So many lovely memories...

If you got into the orchid mood and want to read a previous post that I had written about a different variety of cymbidium orchids earlier on the blog please click here.

See you in the garden!

Christina

One of the things that I truly look forward to here each winter is the bloom of my 'Nuccio's Gem' camellias. I planted them last year finally in the ground and this is their first bloom with their feet in the cool, moist soil. They just take my breath away with their ethereal beauty and I would like to share a few photos from my camellia bed with you today!

To me the flowers of 'Nuccio's Gem' are pure perfection!

This is a view of the whole camellia bed. It is not big, I know! The 'Nuccio's Gem' camellias are framed by two hydrangeas, 'Penny Mac' (a repeat flowering variety, that didn't repeat last year!) to the left and an unknown cultivar to the right, which have just started to leave out on this photo. In the middle I have planted a gardenia 'Veitchii', which does surprisingly well. To bring more white color into the bed I planted white impatiens. I just did this last week and I hope they spread out and fill in. To continue the white color scheme I decided to "decorate" the bed a little bit like you would do in your house with white objects like the lantern, the head planter, and the lamp-like hanging shell piece, that we bought many years ago on a vacation on Kauai. Don't ask me what the purpose of it is, besides being pretty! I am not sure yet, if my white deco objects are "too much", but if I decide they are, I can remove them very quickly.

I bought the lantern many years ago at Ikea and it has become quite rusty over the years. Usually I like a little bit of rusty patina, but in this case I would prefer if it would be pure white. I think, they still carry them. Maybe I gift myself with a new one.

This cast iron head planter is unbelievable heavy for its small size. I am very sentimental about it, since we bought it at a garden shop at one of the smaller public gardens that we visited in England a few years ago (unfortunately the name has slipped my brain, but I still can "see" the garden in front of my eyes). I tried to plant white impatiens into it, but somehow that didn't cut it. It looked just too homogeneous with the other white impatiens planted on the ground. Being less polite, you could also call it boring! Now I am thinking to put a trailing succulent in it or even leave the planter unplanted. As a matter of fact, I like it as it is!

This "shell lamp" from Kauai. I just love this piece for the look of it, but also because it evokes very special memories of our vacation in me.

Here is a close-up of the delicate shell strings. It looks handmade to me. If that is the case, it must have taken quite a bit of time to craft something so beautiful and delicate like this.

The bright green leaves of the hydrangeas are so cheerful. They radiate freshness, juiciness, and lushness. All sure indications of spring! I wondered why my hydrangeas were leaving out so late, even though we have an unnatural warm winter so far and anything else is way ahead of its time. The answer is, as usual I should say, because they weren't fertilized. My soil is so poor in nutrients, that if I don't fertilize almost everything on a regular base, nothing grows really well. The moment I put down fertilizer around the hydrangeas, they leaved out. Lesson learned!

I am very happy with my gardenia 'Veitchii' this year! Gardenias have a reputation of being notoriously difficult to grow, but after being fertilized mine looks happy and healthy so far. I don't know if you can recognize it on my photo, but it even has set buds already. This gardenia has an incredible fragrance. I can't wait to smell it again!

It is surprising to myself, but this is the first time that I am growing impatiens ever in my whole life! I was looking for a small, white flowering, floriferous plant that would do in full shade and only cyclamen and impatiens came to my mind. Cyclamen I find quite tricky to grow here in Southern California, so I opted for impatiens. The variety is called 'Super Elfin White'. I have no idea how they will fare in my garden, but I am eager to find out. Hopefully they will become a little bigger soon and brighten up this space with their clear white flowers.

Located on the very left side of the camellia bed, the 'Penny Mac' hydrangea is even more behind in terms of leaving out than the unknown variety to the right. I hope its leaves will grow bigger soon, just to make the space look less plain.

Here are a few more beauty shots of the blooms of the 'Nuccio's Gem' camellia.

For one fleeting moment I am quite pleased with the way this corner of my backyard looks!

See you in the garden!

Christina

February seems to be already such a long time ago, but I still want to post a recap of what happened in my garden in terms of the roses, as I do for each month. As usual for that time of the year rose blooms were sparse, but I still got some nice flowers from the roses living in containers and one rose planted into the ground, my 'Climbing Iceberg', decided February was the new spring and produced a whole, albeit mediocre rose flush.

This year I was particularly late pruning and fertilizing my roses. Normally I start these tasks in the beginning of December and I am done with them by the end of January. And even though this year I also started pruning in December, I only finished it by the end of February (our new dog takes up a lot of garden time, you know...). To be honest with you, I didn't even get to all of the roses in containers, some are still untouched, which is a shame.

In prior years I pruned a rose and immediately fertilized it with organic fertilizer, but this year I gave some roses a longer time to rest before I put fertilizer down. The idea behind it was to allow the roses to rejuvenate instead of encouraging them immediately to leave out and produce new buds again, after a very tough year 2014 with all the heat and drought that the roses were going through.

I think that was a very serious mistake, since to me it looks like the organic fertilizer was not broken down by microorganisms and available to the roses when they started to leave out at their own leisure. I have the impression that in my poor soil this way the roses were starving, when they needed food to be able to produce new leaves and set buds properly. Lesson learned: Next year I am going back to my old way, again!

Let's have a look at some photos that I took last month.

As it is common each month, there was one rose that stood out with its beauty in February in my garden, was kind of the star of the crowd, and that was 'Captain Christy'.

This is a relatively rare early Hybrid Tea rose, bred by Francois Lacharme (France, 1873).

The parents of this rose are 'Victor Verdier', a Hybrid Perpetual, also bred by Lacharme in 1859 and 'Safrano', a lovely Tea rose, bred by Beauregard in 1839. Considering his parents 'Captain Christy' is a first generation Hybrid Tea rose. It is kind of exciting to me to own a rose of that era in rose breeding history.

'Captain Christy' looks very different in comparison to the modern Hybrid Tea rose from nowadays and for me certainly radiates a very special charm.

The light pink delicate large flowers with the darker pink center are of exquisite beauty. I am so happy that this rose is blooming for me again, since I almost lost it last year due to the very hot summer.

Many roses planted in the ground where already setting buds in February, which is kind of early in my garden, like for example this very healthy 'Chandos Beauty' Hybrid Tea rose.

As I mentioned in my intro to this post, 'Climbing Iceberg' was the first rose in my garden that started to produce a spring flush. The rose didn't leave out fully and the flush wasn't a profuse one, though. On top of that unfortunately the 'Climbing Iceberg' was already plagued by powdery mildew. So altogether not the most prettiest sight and I prefer to just show you one bloom and leave it at that!

Another rose growing in a container that delighted me with its blooms was 'Charles Rennie Mackintosh', an English Rose bred by David Austin, United Kingdom 1988.

I just love the cupped, old-fashioned bloom form and how the color fades to a lilac pink as the blooms gets older. This is the only rose that I know off, that does that to this extend.

'Rhodolugue Jules Gravereaux' in my eyes is an incredible beautiful Tea rose,...

...that was giving me some early blooms in February as well.

I love this rose also in the faded stage, shortly before the petals drop.

The picture above was taken during the time when I was fertilizing my roses. The rose to the right of the pygmy date palm is 'Pierre de Ronsard' and to the very left, partly hidden by the dolly with the fertilizer bag, is 'Belinda's Dream'. The gray, yellow stuff at the feet of the roses is the fertilizer, a combination of biostart and alfalfa meal. You can see that 'Pierre de Ronsard' is leaving out sparsely, which unfortunately seems to be an ongoing theme with almost all my roses this spring.

The flower bed above, for some unknown reasons, I think I have never shown on my blog so far. It was originally inhabited by a pygmy date palm, which grew so big, that it is was obstructing the view from our family living room into the garden. The palm was removed and the stump was grinded and then I planted the shell pink 'Heritage' there, another David Austin rose. In the background I have placed some calla lilies, zantedeschia aethiopica, which have grown in nicely, but haven't bloomed much this winter. As evident on the photo, 'Heritage' also has some trouble to leave out properly.

This image shows my Hybrid Perpetual Bed, containing from the left to the right 'Yolande d'Aragon', 'Reine des Violettes' and 'Grandmother's Hat'. Obviously the first two roses have problems to leave out fully as well, only 'Grandmother's Hat looks pretty decent, almost completely clothed in new leaves.

Here I am presenting a close-up of 'Grandmother's Hat's foliage. The leaves are so healthy, for me it is a joy just to look at the foliage itself. Many roses had problems with powdery mildew and rose rust already last month, but 'Grandmother's Hat' could successful fight of the ugly fungi with bravery.

Zooming in even closer, here are the first of the many buds of 'Grandmother's Hat', showing a nice color at the time I took the photo, even though it was only February. I can already give away that 'Grandmother's Hat was the second rose to produce a spring flush in my garden. I didn't get disappointed with her like with the above mentioned 'Climbing Iceberg' rose, but this is something for another post.

A rose that also showed great promise last month was 'Auckland Metro'. Here is a cane with a bud. You can see for yourself how healthy and robust the new leaves are.

Lastly a bud of 'Neptune', a lavender Hybrid Tea rose, even though it doesn't look much lavender in the bud stage.

Here is the same bloom of 'Neptune', just a little bit further in the opening process. It continued to develop into a huge beautiful lavender colored bloom in the beginning of March, which I intend to show you when I blog next time about my March roses.

I am wishing everyone a happy spring!

See you in the garden!

Christina

And finally the spring blooms of the plants, mainly the roses, have brought some much needed white color into the White Garden Bed! There is quite a bit of change to observe between the March and the February photos and I am so happy about that.

March 2015

February 2015

Besides the fact that some plants have started flowering recently, I made some small changes to the bed as well. I placed my white statue that was formerly beautifying the Hybrid Perpetual Rose Bed into the White Garden Bed and like it there quite a bit. I also planted four new plants, two heucheras 'Venus' and two dichondra sericea commonly called 'Silver Ponyfoot', in the center of the bed, which albeit tiny also make big difference to me.

Here is a close-up of the white statue. It was made by an artist friend of us and was a house warming gift when we bought our first house here in California. Needless to say that it is very dear to me!

This photo offers you a closer look at the heuchera 'Venus'. I am completely in love with this small plant because of its silvery-white foliage and the beautiful veining on the leaves. It is supposed to produce creamy-white flowers in the spring, which would also go well with my white color scheme. The plant label said, that the heuchera would like partial sun or partial shade best, so it is planted in ideal light conditions, but I wonder if our climate is not too hot and dry for a heuchera to be happy. Time will tell! For now the plant responded to the transplant from the container into the ground well and I enjoy it as long as I can.

Both dichondra sericea 'Silver Ponyfoot' are struggling after transplanting them into the ground and that is mainly my fault. These plants were sitting in pots for over a year and when I removed the black plastic container the roots were completely pot bound. To loosen them up I serrated the root balls in various areas with a knife, but I might have over done it a bit.

The other one, looks much worse, leaves are even dying in the center of the plant. My gardener said that this plant is growing like a weed in his home town in Mexico, so I hope that indicates that it is a tough plant that will come around and survive.

Here is the trio of the newbies to the White Garden Bed: The white statue and the heuchera and the dichondra sericea. I love how the silver color of the dichondra is picked up by the heuchera and vice versa.

March 2015

February 2015

The photo of the center of the White Garden Bed shows, besides the flowering roses, two more things that are standing out by the end of this month. One is the flowering alstroemeria Princess Lilies 'Claire' in front at the foot of the left cycad (Sago palm). And the second is that the left cycad is producing a new layer of fronds.

Last month I was still wondering what exactly the color of the alstroemeria would be and I am very pleased about this creamy white nuance that the flowers have been taking on. The plant blooms obviously profusely and could take the heat wave that we were having recently in a blink of an eye. I am starting to get the feeling that this one is a real gem.

Zooming in even closer, the beauty of the flowers is even more evident. The little dark "freckles" on the blooms are so charming!

This image shows the center of the cycad, and you can clearly spot the layer of the new fronds in the middle of the plant. I can't tell you how glad I am about that the cycad is able to produce a new top layer of fronds, because I think the plant hasn't done it for about two years and the older layers of fronds have become quite ratty looking and are badly burned by our hot sun. This is not so obvious on the photos, but trust me, it is truly the case. Can't wait to cut the lowest layer of fronds off!

March 2015

February 2015

The last wide angle shot of the White Garden Bed taken from the left side looking over to the right. The roses from the left to the right are: 'Pope John Paul II', 'Chandos Beauty', 'Moonstone' and 'Auckland Metro', all Hybrid Tea roses. The one that truly stands out is 'Chandos Beauty'. This rose has been doing fabulous this spring and just looking at it makes my heart leap.

That being said, 'Moonstone', the rose in the middle of the cycads, really sucked this month. It got infected with rose rust so badly that I decided to partly de-leaf the rose. The new shoots were then severely plagued by powdery mildew and have been partly removed as well, including the flower buds. Therefore there are only a few blooms on it. That 'Moonstone' can get rust and powdery mildew in my garden is nothing new, but getting it in spring this badly is. I am seriously considering to remove it, since it is taking up such a prominent position in my backyard and I am sure, that I am able find a more healthy rose for my organic non-spray garden.

Here is a close-up of 'Chandos Beauty'. This rose has been almost completely healthy this spring, despite the fact that it is living in the same conditions like 'Moonstone'.

from the left to the right: Pope John Paul II, 'Chandos Beauty', alstroemeria Princess Lilies 'Claire'

Writing this post has made me realize, that besides one little glitch, I am just saying 'Moonstone', how satisfied I am with the White Garden Bed in the moment and I will enjoy it as long as it lasts. Of course, I still do have some plans to improve it, though. Please stay tuned!

This is my contribution to Helen Johnstone's End of Month View meme at The Patient's Gardener's Weblog. Thanks for hosting it, Helen! Please click on the link and find out what other gardeners have to show at the end of March.

See you in the garden!

Christina

Gardening in the Heat of Summer

August Roses

Mottisfont Abbey - a Rose Lover's Paradise III

September Roses

Enjoying Autumn

November Roses

October Roses

Sometimes it is About the Little Things...

The Best Gift Ever...

November Roses

Mottisfont Abbey - a Rose Lover's Paradise IV

December Roses

End of Month View - The White Garden Bed

January Roses

End of Month View - The White Garden Bed

January Roses

White Cymbidium Orchids

My White Camellias are in Bloom!

February Roses

End of Month View - The White Garden Bed