Nothing But Blue Skies

'Blue Skies'

I'm afraid to admit that I'm falling in love all over again with yet another rose, in this case one that has trifled with my affections before and left me sobbing over its sudden disappearance.

'Blue Skies' is a Griffith Buck rose (with the registration name of BUCblu) that I have long desired to grow and, in fact, I have tried and failed to establish it twice before.  I can chalk one failure up to an overbearing and smothering nearby Panicum sp., and the other to a poor specimen (a grafted, bagged, $3.00 Grade 2 rose), so I hope that this time, the third time, will really prove a charm.

And, so far at least, so good.  This rose is so spectacular that it hurts me.  I purchased a band of 'Blue Skies' this Spring from Heirloom Roses and it arrived in excellent condition and now, 2 months later, is a one-foot tall rose "toddler" that has bloomed twice already and is heading rapidly into its third flush.  I cannot, of course, speak to its winter hardiness in my zone, but I wasn't going to wait until next Spring to blog about a rose of this perfect-ness.

I have not, in the past, been a real fan of "blue" roses, but I'll make an exception for the pink/mauve/lilac 'Blue Skies'.  Released by Dr. Buck in 1983, its parentage, according to Mary Buck, is  [(Soir d'Automne x Music Maker) x Solitude] x [(Mainzer Fastnacht x Tom Brown) x Autumn Dusk], a combination that I can't quite get my head around.  Whatever the heritage, 'Blue Skies' has, even as a small bush, provided me with a good number of perfect hybrid-tea style buds on long stems.  The double blooms have a strong fragrance and it may well be one of the fastest repeat cycle bloomers in my garden.  I hate to report a final assessment yet, since it is such a young bush for me, but disease resistance is excellent at present, absolutely not a blemish on the foliage anywhere.

 ProfessorRoush doesn't grow many Hybrid Tea-type roses, and Mrs. ProfessorRoush has soft spots for both lilac-colored roses and for Hybrid Tea blooms, so I'm keeping my figures crossed and watching this rose closely.   Because, of course, I want smooth sailing at home and 'Blue Skies', nothing but blue skies, from now on.