Friday, January 17, 2020

A Bit of Beauty

For those of you who are shoveling and freezing, I offer this second bloom of the rose bush which lives outside our bedroom window.
I'm sure you all have good reasons to live where it's too cold to walk outside and smell the roses.  I hope this helps to ease the pain.

4 comments:

  1. Are roses easy to keep in this area? In Seattle we were constantly waging chemical war against thrip, rust and powdery mildew. We have two bougainvilleas in the Tucson yard that appear to be dying of old age and are thinking about replacements. I really want something with color, but maybe not as messy as bougainvilleas.

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    1. Are your bougies dying, or did they get cold and a little frostbitten around New Year's Eve? Mine look sad as sad can be right now, but I know they will be fine. When I'm sure the danger of frost has passed, they will be cut back (by arms stronger and more inured to prickers than mine) and by late spring/early summer they'll be gorgeous.

      Roses require water. That said, I have had no problems with aphids or grubs or any of the pests we encountered in Marin. Tucson's dry and windy, which keeps the bug population in check. Seattle is a pest's happy place. Bare root roses are in stock now, but be sure the root ball is ready to be transplanted. A reputable nursery is your best bet.

      I have some in the ground and some started in pots that grew so well I had to break the pot (sigh) to save the plant.... which might not have been the wisest financial decision I ever made, but the plant was perfectly healthy and........

      Katie at Rillito is the rose maven. Master Gardeners will answer questions, too, and they also have a rose garden as does Rillito https://www.rillitonursery.com/portfolio-items/rose-garden
      a/b

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  2. I have one that had a brown ring around all of its leaves for months. The internet helpfully said it was either too much or too little water. The other two didn't get as ugly, but none of them bloomed as prolifically as they have in the past. Old age was offered up as a possible cause. I think they're original to the house, so they're from 1999. Currently they're also frost damaged, but they'll come back from that. When we bought the house in spring 2018 they'd been so frozen and so cut back we didn't know what they were, they were just terrible looking. I think if we do have to replace the one that's turning brown I'm going to go with a San Diego Red. Allegedly they're hearty to 20 degrees, so maybe they won't look so pathetic all winter.

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  3. Although it's been terribly cold here in the San Joaquin Valley this winter, I am seeing bougainvilleas all over the place, still in bloom. Usually, by January they have lost their flowers. It's perhaps because they are better watered this year than in the past few years of drought.

    Although I love bougainvilleas, I will never have one as Terry grew up with one in his parents' yard and knows how difficult they are to prune.

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