I got my roses!!!

Well today was a banner day - I spent the morning at the nursery taking notes, filled a few pages of my notebook with details on all the cultivars of species roses I have been looking at (and that is QUITE the feat with a 2 year old and infant in arms!) I came home, did some more research, and made my decisions - we went out this evening and invested a pretty good chunk of money into some gorgeous species roses, peat moss, composted manure, etc - I already have 10cf of cedar mulch so I just need some brick edging and some annuals to add color at the front. Maybe a nice boulder or statuary or something for interest. And I will have my wonderful rose garden where the ugly weeds used to be! I can't tell you how happy this makes me, I'm just delirious. I have perennial gardens and hostas and shrubs and berries and veggies and bulbs - but no roses until now. Plus experimenting with old garden / species roses is just so damn cool. The bed will look great!


Here's what I ended up picking. The pictures I could find online vary slightly in color (I guess the color fades or intensifies a little depending on climate and soil?) but the cultivars are all the same so here we go.



Right by the garage door / driveway will be this beautiful "Nearly Wild" floribunda rose - it looks very similar to wild roses, smells lovely and a bit like apples. It has a bit of an issue with mildew / blackspot but is otherwise extremely hardly and beautiful little plant with interesting single blooms that are continuous and numerous all through summer.

This beauty will go next, towards the front of the bed / house. It's called a Champlain rose, an Explorer series Kordesii. It's about 4 feet tall, blooms profusely, and thrives on neglect. The one we have has darker red blooms than the one pictured.


Then covering the corner of the house is the Little Mischief - one of the brand spanking new Easy Elegance series that are extremely hardy and disease resistant. The one we have has much paler pink blooms, a kind of seashell pink, and they absolutely carpet the bush. It's short, about 1 1/2' tall, and spreading in lovely branches.


First on the side is another Easy Elegance selection called Yellow Submarine. It is taller than the others, growing from 3 - 5' tall for contrast. The blooms start off lemon yellow and as they mature fade to white, so the flowering bush is covered in all shades of yellow at any one time.


Finally against the garage south side is the William Baffin. Known to be hardy and happy in this area, it grows vigorously and produces clusters of fuschia roses. It's another Kordesii and is a climber, getting to be about 10' at full growth if it is trellised properly. The blooms are semi doubles with bright yellow centers / stamens.

So there you have it! I will begin the day tomorrow clearing ground and amending soil so I can plant that evening or tomorrow. If I can get the bricks I can even finish the bed this weekend. You will be innundated with pictures!