Reminiscences

I'm musing far from the garden today, prompted by random recollections that refuse to be ignored.  Although I made a quick trip into my garden today in the chilling temperatures and dim light of early morning, Memory Lane beckoned later and took my thoughts on a detour.

It's Mrs. ProfessorRoush's birthday, and one of my presents to her, (yes, I'll take credit for anything I can) was to relieve her of dropping her smaller clone off at school.  The smaller clone normally could drive herself but temporarily has lost her keys for the umpteenth time.  Later, sitting in the line of cars at the High School, it suddenly struck me that the gaggles of giggling girls, even the older ones, just seem so...teenagerish.  

It was not that way in my far ago youth.  The female Seniors of my High School were sophisticated and cool and so...unreachable.  Ingrained into my soul is the time that I spent in typing class as a 9th grader, the first 9th grader in my school to be allowed into the class (and yes, it was a TYPING class, pre-computers and computer keyboards).  I was placed into the back row of typewriters, seated between the polished and refined Prom Queen (a senior) and the voluptuous senior Pom-Pom Captain (who actually, at that tender age, had Breasts and occasionally displayed glimpses of them even back in those pre-Madonna-influenced times!).  To communicate the experience to another gardener or rosarian, I can only compare it to being the spiky Echinops planted as a companion between the damask 'Madame Hardy' and the extra-large-bloomed Hybrid Tea 'Dolly Parton'. The entire atmosphere in that vicinity was charged, as I recall, with electricity, feminine perfume, and the essence of hyperstimulated nerd.  In hindsight, it is probably easy to understand how I, a 9th grader and the lone male, won the typing award that semester amidst a class of Senior girls.  The practice of touch-typing is immeasurably enhanced when the attention of the typist is everywhere but on the keyboard.

This all brings up a question I don't want to face, though.  Is it the eighteen-year-old females, and our society, who have changed so radically since the 1970's, or is it the ancient and wise gardening (former) nerd?  I cannot provide a defensible answer in fear that the passage of time has colored my view on the matter.  I will only say "Thank You" to 'Madame Hardy' formerly on my right, and 'Dolly Parton' on my left, for providing in my life the beauty and wonder so otherwise lacking in my pre-gardening years.  And, since it's her birthday, I will also hold up and celebrate the even more beautiful Mrs. ProfessorRoush for turning a hopeless nerd into a puttering and partially-useful husband with a modicum of socially acceptable behaviors.  It was a hard road you chose, Honey.

Bright Melody of Red

Among my Spring-planted Griffith Buck roses, I've alluded to my addition of  'Bright Melody' before, but the most recent, cooler Fall-induced bloom was so beautiful that I just had to share this rose with you.

'Bright Melody' is a 1984 shrub rose introduction by Dr. Buck that is lately singing out her presence in my garden.  These beautiful, double red blooms (RHSCC 61B) start out as high-centered, Hybrid Tea style blooms and open to large (4 inch) cupped blooms that turn lighter as they age.  The brilliance of the rose is set off against a very dark green, blackspot-free foliage.  Blooms come in clusters, despite the example beauty of the single rose pictured.  She has a light scent, but your Important Other won't care about looking past the perfect form of this rose.   No blackspot or other disease here in Kansas either!  Look at the leaves beyond the bloom; perfect still as the cooler weather moves in.  Unlike some roses, I haven't had to fight spider mites or grasshoppers on this rose either.  This one is a fitting offspring of her breeding of 'Carefree Beauty' X ('Herz As' X 'Cuthbert Grant').   

It is always interesting to me that at times one particular rose in my garden grabs the attention and then later it's another.  'Bright Melody' didn't provide me with much in the way of blooms earlier in the Summer and there was a time when I thought the profusely-blooming, heat-loving 'Queen Bee' was the better rose.  But now, in the early Fall, 'Queen Bee' has stopped blooming and it is 'Bright Melody' that is shouting "Me! Look at Me!" across my garden.  Even the faded blooms, as shown at left, are garden-worthy and difficult to choose for dead-heading.  Luckily, I don't deadhead anyway, so perhaps someday I'll get a 'Bright Melody' seedling of my own to further pass on that bright red gene from 'Cuthbert Grant'. 

(Don't) Get the Drift

Since no one has yet posted to the now monthly blog party titled "Garden Grumblings", I can only assume that either everyone is scared to be first, or else you're all giving me the opportunity to embarrass myself before you jump in.  Okay, okay, I'll start us off and use this opportunity to display my worst purchase of this summer: my 'Red Drift' rose.
 

'Red Drift'

Everyone fell into the hype of the Drift®roses this year, right?  The slogans were perfectly designed to sell them:  "From the introducers of the Knock Out family," and, "The Next Big Thing for Small Gardens."  Well, I might be alone out here on this limb, but if so, I'll be the first to say that I'm underwhelmed.  Was I biased from the start?  In the interest of full disclosure, maybe a little bit, since I know that while Conard Pyle HAD introduced the Knock Out roses to commerce, Bill Radler is not the breeder of the Drift® roses; they came from the lines of French hybridizer, Meilland International.

I attended a seminar last spring on the new Drift® roses and was told by the speaker that his personal favorite was 'Peach Drift'.  Despite being a Shrub and Old Garden Rose fanatic, I was encouraged enough by the hype to decide that I'd try one or two out this year, particularly if I could find 'Peach Drift', although one-foot tall roses are really not to the scale of my garden.  Perhaps, I thought, in a container on the patio would be a nice spot, since they are marketed as excellent choices for containers?

Fortunately or unfortunately it took me a week to start looking and by then the local nurseries had all sold out except for 'Pink Drift' and 'Red Drift'.  And they were priced at $30.00 each!  Given the price at 50% higher than the local nurseries sell potted Hybrid Teas, and because 'Red Drift' is more double-petaled than 'Pink Drift', I chose the latter and only purchased one.  And I put it into a very large container in full sun and gave it more attention than any other plant this summer. 

And it is a good thing I only ended up with one, because I'm not impressed at all by my 'Red Drift' rose.  You can see it above, pictured at the end of what was admittedly a very hot summer, the leaves a little scorched from all the Kansas sun.  Yes, it seems to be blackspot resistant, but I did have to fight a bout of spider mites with pressurized sprays of water.  It didn't grow 6 inches in any direction all summer long, despite almost daily watering in the extreme heat and careful attention to fertilization.  And what you see above is the best bloom display I saw all summer, as underwhelming as it is.  The lack of bloom was a bit understandable during the heat spells, but I would think that the cooler weather of the past two weeks would have kicked off a bloom cycle, wouldn't you? 

So, pending further evidence, I'm done with the Drift® roses.  They're just not enough of a landscape spectacle for me to overlook the fact that the blooms are not individually striking. I'm going to keep the container outside, so by next spring, I will have a strong test of how hardy at least 'Red Drift' really is.  I also plan to see how they did in the garden of a friend who planted 50(!) of them this spring, so there's still a chance I'll change my mind. Or maybe not, if you get my drift.

Growing Your Own

Connie, of Hartwood Roses, recently published a blog about growing roses from seed, illustrating a particularly beautiful soft yellow rose seedling that she grew and continues to grow.  An open-pollinated seedling from a neighbor's rose hips, she's so impressed by its disease resistant foliage and non-fading color that she is planning to evaluate it for commercial introduction by her nursery.

In honor and imitation of Connie's post, I'll show you a rose that I grew from seed several years ago and continue to grow.  This semi-double pink rose, from an open-pollinated hip of Carefree Beauty, keeps a place in my garden because of the delicate and perfect pink shadings of the bloom.  It grows about 3 feet tall, not as vigorously as Carefree Beauty, but it does retain that blackspot-free foliage of its mother.  This rose is remonant, repeating sparsely about 3 times a year, moderately scented, and seems to be fully hardy in Zone 5B without protection.  I'm not fooling myself that it is worthy of commercial introduction, but at the same time, I also can't scrub it out of my garden.  That delicate shell-pink is just too stunning to wipe from the earth now. 

I don't think there's a rose-grower out there who hasn't tried, once or twice or three times, to grow a new rose of their own from the hips that proliferate throughout their gardens.  I've obviously fallen into the trap myself and, inspired by Connie, I intend to again.  The biggest issue for me has been the transition from chilling the rose hips to starting them indoors in the winter.  I know about stratifying the seed, as Connie details in another blog, but after that I have a poor germination rate and an even poorer rate of keeping them alive indoors until springtime. 

But, I have a long-standing desire to get some seedlings out of 'Rugelda', a yellow-red Rugosa that I worship, and maybe some of the other Buck roses such as 'Prairie Harvest'.   If the bumblebees do their job, somewhere out there might be the genes of a buttery-yellow rose of my very own.