Wander around the garden, Thursday afternoon...

Above and below: The perfect blooms of Mme Gregoire.

Above: Rugoas seedling 'Celtic Blessings'.

Above: Non-stop bloomer, David Austin's 'John Clare'.

Above: One of my favourite hybrid musk roses...Bloomfield Dainty.

Above: Tea rose 'Octavus Weld'.

The flowering brigade for Thursday morning, October 18, 2012.

The most speccy rose at the moment is most definitely Fruhlingsduft...I keep on falling in love with this superb shrub rose over and over again. It is totally clothed in bloom in all stages from scrolled buds to fully open flowers revealing pollen-tipped stamens...as can be seen above, the bees absolutely adore it. The scent draws a passerby in from several feet away- this would honestly have to go very close to being the perfect rose.

Above: My clove-scented little hybrid rugosa, Lydia Frances, is always one of the earliest Spring flowerers.

Above: One of my favourite Bourbon roses, the softly striped Honorine de Brabant.

Above: The beautiful rose named for my beautiful aunt..."Aunty Ann's Rose", given to me as a cutting from her own garden in Tungamah, Victoria, in 2005.

Above: The buds of Aunty Ann's Rose.

Above: I have several big established plants of the tea rose Mrs B.R Cant, and every one of them is smothered with nodding blooms. I picked two blooms on my garden walk and they are sitting next to my keyboard, filling my working space with fragrance.

Above & Below: Fantastic garden specimen Rosa Inermis Morlettii with its beautiful deep maroon branches and bright clear pink blooms. It has a fabulous arching habit that makes it a worthwhile garden shrub even when the long Spring flowering period is over.

Above: Susan Irvine's rugosa rose "Bleak House" is putting on a brilliant display at the moment.

The Front Verandah Roses

This rose was planted as a cutting-grown Saffrano- a beautiful tea rose that I had never grown before. Despite the dogs digging down into its poor little root system for two years running, this tough little rose has not only survived but thrived. The blooms are not as deeply coloured as I expected from photographs in books, but that may be because of its position on the east side of the house with only several hours of direct sunshine every morning. The scent, of course, is beautiful.

Above and below: The delicious Mme Gregoire Staechelin. I think an entire generation of rose lovers would have planted this rose at the base of verandah posts in the 1990s after seeing rose guru Susan Irvine's magnificent photographs of her specimens in central Victoria. Also known as "Spanish Beauty" by those who can't get their mouths around the awkward pronunciation of this lady's name, Mme Gregoire is of Spanish origin, and was released as a climber in 1927. She is once-flowering, and her hips are huge and pear-shaped. Her scent is sweet and strong.

Canowindra's Hidden Gardens-Open Garden Scheme

This Saturday, October 21, 2012, a very special garden will be part of an Australian Open Gardens Scheme involving a walk around the "hidden gardens" of Canowindra. It is a garden that is very close to my own heart, as it is the creation of my good friend Linda Guthrie, who shares my love of old roses and perennial "cottagey" plants.
  It is hard to believe that much of Linda's garden is relatively new, as the plantings are all so well-established and robust. This first photo (above) shows the front garden which borders Gaskill Street, and is the area in which Linda first dabbled with old roses some years ago. The border of mixed teas and David Austin roses have been a showpiece for many seasons, and this year are responding very well to their first hard pruning.

  The photo above depicts Linda's new garden project, and it is an absolute triumph. I well remember the years when the entire back yard consisted of a cricket pitch and well-worn grass...Linda's two sons are both champion cricketers, and there could never be any thought of dismantling the pitch while Nick and Pete and their team mates spent countless hours thundering balls down towards the house and belting them back in the direction of the clothes line.
   But boys grow up and head off to Uni, and mothers start to eye off open spaces and begin to lose themselves in gardening books and making lists....in an ideal world, this contemplation results in the haven that is Linda's back yard. It is a profusion of catmint and lavender and tulips and strawberries....of lambs-ears and tea roses and columbines...and a million other things besides. There are rustic sculptures, and a magnificent metal peacock lording it over the paved area at the rear of the garden.
   These photos were taken almost two weeks before the scheduled Gardens Walk, and the roses were bursting with buds that should be glorious on the day.
  I'm sure that all of the gardens that feature in this weekend's Open Gardens will be fantastic....but Linda's is the one that I just adore!

Above: This is one of my favourite spots in the garden...an area that I generally overlooked until it was highlighted in the garden revamp. It is especially gorgeous at the moment, with wisteria draping down over the top.

 

 

 

 

 

I can just imagine the profusion of colour that will greet each visitor as they round the corner and come face to face with Linda's hidden garden this weekend, and know that without exception they will come away inspired. And perhaps the best weapon in any woman's arsenal as they try to persuade their husband to poison the lawn and build up raised beds?....the owner of a garden like this will never have to start, push around, maintain or curse at a lawn mower EVER AGAIN!!!!!

 

More early flowering October Roses.

The Banksias, of course, are in full flight...this is a big mound of the Yellow Banksia, and next to it is a much younger plant of the White version which is only just beginning to poke its head out of the mass of yellow. We used to have a sensational speciman of white Banksia rose that was placed "temporarily" in a big pot near our back door when we moved into 'Eurimbla' in 1988...I say "used to" because 20 years later it finally had to be chainsawed down and grubbed out after the roots broke through the pot and the branches- as thick as an arm- ripped up the guttering and destroyed the roof of our laundry! I am still in mourning over its loss, and compensate by bringing home little white Banskias whenever I find them in nurseries, and hiding them in the garden at the base of trees.

Above: Those of you who are familiar with this blog will know of the deep affection that I harbour towards my numerous understock roses (with the exception of my arch-nemesis, Dr. Huey). The rose pictured above and below is the lovely Rosa Indica Major, which gives a massive display every year that begins in October and extends through into November. I am always amazed at how many gardens have specimens of Indica Major blooming their pretty heads off at this time of the year, presumably with no idea that their lovely rose once started life as a lowly understock! There is no scent to speak of, but the flowers are a lovely shade of pink that fade to almost white, and being an understock it is extremely tolerant of most conditions. Powdery mildew can be a bit of a problem, but I have never found the need to take action for this.

I'm back........

The first sign of Spring's awakening in the garden at 'Eurimbla' is usually the appearance of blooms on Rosa Gigantea, and this year has been no exception. This specimen has been in our garden for almost twenty years, and initially had the protection of old fruit trees and horrible old cottoneasters that it used as a support to grow through and over. These frameworks have been removed over the years, until last year we finally cleared the entire area and left the Gigantea virtually as a free-standing, mounding shrub. Despite having no canopy to grow over, it is still a magnificent sight as scrolled buds mix with beautiful single silky blooms. It closes its petals as evening comes on, and opens them again to the morning sun.

 

 

 

 

 

January in the Garden

Above: Crepuscule, midway along the path leading from our front gate.

Above: Lavernius the Maremma. Either side of him are the hybrid musks Francesca. Halfway down on both sides is a single plant of Crepuscule, then a mix of Sally Holmes and Isabella Sprunt.

Above: One of my favourite yellow Austins, The Pilgrim. This rose is growing in quite a shady position, and has reached a height of eight feet. It could easily be used as a small climber as well as a large shrub, and is very free-flowering. The strongly-scented blooms are lovely, and usually a little more yellowish than depicted in this photo.

Above: The hybrid musk rose Francesca has been sensational this year, producing flush after flush.

Above: The sensational shrub rose Sally Holmes. I love the combination of her apricot scrolled buds with the light-cream, almost white, display of her fully-opened blooms.

I have not visited this blog for several weeks now...not because of disinterest or slackness, I assure you, but because I fell head first into a rose bed, and in putting out my arms in front of me to break my fall, managed to smash the lens of the camera that I was holding in my palm at the time. Our garden is full of holes and depressions, and falling into or over them is quite a common occurrence for me. This is the first time that I have pitched head-first into an actual bed of roses, however...I was inches away from a face-plant into a big specimen of Isabella Sprunt!

I am now relying on a second camera until I replace the one I broke, and I'm afraid that the photos are not nearly as satisfactory. I'm sure that it is not the fault of the camera as much as my inability to use it properly, but the season is getting away from me so I will have to make do with what I have and start recording the roses again.

It has been a wonderful Summer so far...mild temperatures, no sweltering humid days or hot winds, and lots of rain from Summer storms keeping everything healthy and lush. The roses have been brilliant, with even once-flowerers like Fruhlingsduift and Gigantea providing a big second Summer flush. There has been very little blackspot or aphids..I have a small row of four Bloomfield Daintys which have been uncharacteristically blackspotty, but these bushes have also displayed a decline in vigour and quite a bit of dieback since Winter. I have cut them back and fertilized them, so hopefully an improvement in general health will be the result, and I won't have to remove them.