My favorite rose started blooming in late May, bloomed right through the dryness of August, and will continue for a while yet. At this point, I’m leaving the hips on to ripen, as they turn a very nice orange. It’s a David Austin rose called Windrush, which has a fabulous scent.
The buds are beautiful and somewhat variable, I think in response to nighttime temperatures. They seem to be longer and pointier when nights are warm, and looser, rounder, and pink-tinged when nights are cool.
July 25 was very sunny, and this bud was photographed shortly after sunrise. September 4, on the other hand, started out overcast. It makes a huge difference in the apparent color.
Windrush is yellow in bud and in the first few hours in bloom.
By evening of the first day, there is still faint yellow glow behind that big boss of yellow stamens, but the following day, the flowers are white.
As long as we are talking about scent, there’s Shailer’s white moss rose, which frequently has pink patches, as you see below. It’s piney, in the most delicious way. Those are not thorns; I do not know what they are called, but they are sticky with the scent of this rose.This old rose blooms only in June.
Francine Austin is a completely different very pale pink flowers that fades to white; when it flowers heavily, it can end up looking like popcorn. It is a lightly scented David Austin rose.
It flowers off and on all summer, but I suspect that if I moved some of its pushy neighbors, it could bloom a little more frequently.
This is a walk through time! I’ve had most of my roses for at least a decade, and a few for over twenty years. It hadn’t occurred to me until I started looking through these pictures today.
I ended up hunting through my old photographs to figure out what this next rose is—I have had it a very long time—with winter savory at its base. I’ve long since forgotten its name. The scent is wonderful. I found photographs as far back as 2000, but I kept labeling it Damask, so I am stuck. It is a repeat bloomer, roughly 4 feet tall, and very narrow; the flower petals stay stuck on when they die. I have to clip the spent flowers off. It has thorns, some few medium size, but more small ones.
I have a fair number of pink roses. The Cottage rose is planted in a spot that should not support roses. Too shady, and a bit too dry, but fortunately, it has not read the specifications. As long as there is regular rain, it blooms.
While the Cottage rose is at the northeast corner of the arbor, there is another shrub rose on the south side of the same arbor. I am not sure I ever knew its name. There is a sunbeam that hits it on summer mornings, making for some dramatic photographs.
It’s got apricot overtones, beautiful glossy leaves, and a faint scent, reminiscent of tea roses. The buds remind me of tea roses too.
This rose opens into nice, loose, warm pink flowers.
I’ve had those six roses for many, many years., but the prairie rose, Rosa setigera, is a new addition, purchased to fill a spot in the rain garden just a few years ago. It has ambitions, so I had to move the prairie rose this past spring.
It has settled in very nicely. And bloomed lightly. A few canes are reaching 8 feet, and are being encouraged to head north or south—not towards the sidewalk!
I am sure you have noticed that there no hybrid tea roses among my favorites—there are none in this yard. They require far too much maintenance and give too little scent.