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rosesarerae
I have always been collecting plants since I was a kid. It started with cactus, succulent and seeds of all sorts. Later on, I bought my first house and by default I inherited everything that's planted by the previous owner. It didn't take me long before I ripped off the tennis court and expanded the garden.
Few years after that, I ran out of space. Its time to move on and built a house in a middle of a vineyard. I started the new garden on a blank canvas. As of today, the terraced flat areas are filled up neck in neck and and I am forced to cultivate a less than practical adjoining areas, a small woodland clearing and 60 degrees steep slopes meaning whatever plants that are going to be grown there must be easy care and low maintenance. Being an an avid rose collector, so I began a quest searching and collecting rare and antique roses that are low maintenance.
My friends asked "How many roses are you going to grow??
"until I ran out of space"
"That's a lot of work" they said
"not necessarily" was my answer
A lot of people I knew are convinced that roses are high maintenance plants, but this is a general misconception. Gardening is a constant maintenance work even when done on a recreational basis. 4 hours on the golf course is also work, plus the extra hours spent working on putting and chipping practices leaving patches on the lawn. Plants are living growing things. Some plants are known to travel from one corner of the garden and popped up in another place. Some plants are thugs and they smother other plants. It is always a matter of selecting the right plant for the right usage.
This unidentified old rose which I inherited through the property is a good example. It is one of the many rose shrubs that is growing all over the place in the vineyard. It is also a fine example of a very cold hardy rose and able to take the exposed windy location very well. As seen in the picture below, it is growing just behind the retaining wall and thrived by itself for years getting water from the rain and sharing whatever fertilizer the grape vines received. This is a very low maintenance rose. The plant practically takes care of itself and very disease resistant too.
Nobody from the vineyards hands are able to identify this rose. The older generation who started the vineyards are long gone. Roses are commonly used by wine growers to detect the spores of powdery mildew which will catch the roses first before infecting the grapes. So I am quite sure this roses must have been part of the vineyard culture for a long time. The grape vines surrounding it has been replace a couple of times in the last many decades. I am slowly going through the records of the vineyard tracing its history, the variety of grapes introduced over the last decades, the bills and payments slips but I still haven't come across anything about the roses.
After a few years of studying the plant, leaves, blooms and other characteristics of my inherited roses, I am quite sure this one in particular is Celesté from Alba group of roses. I could be wrong, I have been wrong before. Identifying roses is very tricky. 9 of 10 characteristic may match but the last one is always the doubt factor because so many roses share similar characteristics and for an untrained eyes like mine, they all look the same! There are conflicting thoughts from expert rosarians too.
Why bother finding the name? A rose is a rose, but that is like saying all individual human beings are the same....and we know that is not true. Roses are like human. They have genetic codes and these codes determines their survival care.
According to: Die Rose: Geschichte, Arten, Kultur und Verwendung (The Rose: History, Kinds, Culture and Use); alba. Céleste, light incarnate, medium size, full, flat cup form, one of the most beautiful in this group
According to: Roses (Phillips & Rix); Celeste, (Celestial) An Alba which originated in Holland around the end of the 18th century. It makes a large rounded bush up to 2 m high, with grey-green leaves typical of R. x alba, and exceptionally beautiful, sweetly scented flowers.Illustrated by Redoute under the name R. damascena 'Aurore'.According to: Classic Roses - An Illustrated Encyclopedia and Grower's Manual of Old Roses, Shrub Roses & Climbers; Celestial ('Celeste') Alba. Very ancient. Description and cultivation... flowers: soft pink...
According to the Rose Bible: Description; Don't prune bush low or they'll spend the next season reaching the height at which they're comfortable before blossoming.-->but my inherited rose is growing in full sun, in a most exposed windy location on top of a hill between rows and rows of grapes.
According to: The Ultimate Rose Book; Céleste ('Celestial') Alba. Description... an especially delicate clear shade of pink...
According to: The Ultimate Rose Book; Celestial Alba. Parentage: Unknown. (aka 'Celeste') Origin unknown, possibly The Netherlands. Description and cultivation... flowers: soft, even pink... Elongated red fruit...
--> I must remember to take picture of the hips soon
According to: Der Rosenfreund 1873 ed. Rosa alba. Celestial, medium size, full, pale pink-flesh-coloured, flat cup form; can be regarded as one of the most beautiful of this group. Very suitable for pillars and pyramids.
According to: Der Rosenzüchter, oder die Cultur der Rosen Alba. Celestial, medium size, full, pale pink, flesh-coloured, flat cup form.
According to: The Rose Garden (First Edition 1848) Rosa alba. Celestial; flowers flesh colour, beautifully tinted with the most delicate pink, of medium size, double; form, cupped. Habit, erect; growth, moderate.
According to: The Rose Garden (First Edition 1848) Rosa alba. New Celestial; flowers bright pinkish rose, large and showy.
According to: Rosenlexikon; Céleste (alba) ; flesh-white, medium size, double, cup form, 2 m.Celestial (damask) ? ? ; vivid pink, mediums ize, double = Rose céleste.Celestial (alba) in England ? ; flesh-white = Maiden's Blush
According to: The Essential Earthman; Gertrude Jekyll's donkey, Jack, once ate the side off a large plant of [Celestial], and Vita Sackville-West once observed that if she had to settle for just one alba it would be 'Celestial.' These were both great authorities on roses. Others prefer 'Maiden's Blush' or (as the French call it) 'Cuisse de Nymphe Emue,' which is to say the thigh of a passionate nymph. It is quite similar to 'Celestial,' perhaps more a bluish color....
I have grown Maiden's Blush for a few years now in an effort to compare the 2 roses. From a distance they look similar. They leaves and young canes look the same but the blooms are different. Maiden's Blush has got more petal count, compact and somewhat not as flat as Celesté
http://www.apictureofroses.com/cms/class/alba.htm
Read my other blog - Pooch
I went to check the forsythia to see if there are some fat buds unfortunately they too are still very sleepy. No signs of crocus or early spring bulb poking out from under the snow blanket either.
"Kaboom the cat" helped digging in the snow searching for some signs of spring
While the cat is busy working in the garden, the dog is having a great time in the snow. Read my other blog - Pooch: I'm not a toy dog. I'm just a midget!
The wild birds really brought some life to the very very sleepy garden......This is (don't laugh) Long Tail Tit or Aegithalos Caudatus, a very tiny bird and oh so sweet looking.As I put down my thoughts into words, I realised my gardening activities meant much more than a place I dig around and plant things. It is not only a place where I chill out amongst my plants collection but also a place I could connect myself to many many things in life.
The thing I missed most is the outdoor freedom, sights and sound of nature, surrounded by trees, wild birds singing, buzzing bees, all the insects, pest and slugs that eat up my seedlings and plants, far far away from honking noise, no hustle bustle shoulder brushing or getting my feathers ruffled the wrong way, no Q&A, no worry if I'm being politically correct or not, no staring into the closet and asking "what should I wear today" because the garden plants really don't care if I'm dressed up to the nines or not. It is my backyard and I can be as sloppy as I want.....and the birds don't care eitherThe other thing I missed most is TALKING IN MY HEAD. Sounds like a crazy thing isn't it? Maybe I am a nutcase! This "talking in my head" happen only when I'm doing something in a repetitious way such as pulling weeds or digging a planting hole. Going on the tread mill is also a repetitative movement but somewhat its not the same feeling like "talking in my head" while I'm toiling in the garden.
Some people talk in their heads while driving but I can't do that because my brain function differently to stay alert and concentrate on the ever increasing numbers of speed cameras that's popping up like mushroom all over the place.
There are others who talk in their heads while walking as walk is a repetitive movement but not me probably because my eyes are busy enjoying the surrounding views. Walking the dog can be a good time to reflect whatever that's in my mind but also that doesn't work because I have to constantly follow the pooch to make sure he doesn't roll on some stinky stuff. I still don't understand why my dog really like that "canal number 15"
Apparently, a lot of people talk to themselves whether loudly or silently in their heads. This is a big relieve to know. I thought I was going nuts or something but Nut is also ancient Egyptian goddess of the sky!
Interestingly, talking in the head is actually a sign that the person is sorting out his/her thoughts, kind of mentally organising their mental notes etc.
I don't feel too weird about myself anymore since I read this article
http://health.yahoo.com/experts/depression/12522/does-talking-to-yourself-mean-youre-crazy/
Clearly after 3 months of winter, and now the 4th month.....my lifestyle is getting a little bit crammed in the winter jackets and indoor heating. I'm entitled to get a little depressed and affected by the long dark grey days of winter. I probably would be in the loony bin without my glass house winter garden.
I think its about time I head south for some sun.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXGlPdIEPkc
(of course I have to add one Japanese link for Maki from Japan. BTW Maki, can you shed some light to me as to what wellies are you wearing for gardening? http://firehorse.up.seesaa.net/image/1-2220025ji.jpg It looks like a ninja kind of shoes or a non slip sole sailing shoes )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkQYssM8Lms&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfen3ZL73N4&feature=related
Have fun!!
A dear gardening friend from Japan sent me this photo yesterday. The golden yellow crocus already springing out in her garden. Wonderful news. That is really a short winter compared to mine. Thank you for sending me the sunshine. It cheered me a lot despite a very snowy grey day.
I woke up this morning to a new fresh layer of snow.I saw our backyard birds flying around in circle chasing each other, defending their territory. It was very entertaining as I stood there sipping my morning coffee and then I realised they were hungry because the feeder was totally covered with snow. One of the suet nut feeder was also missing. Probably buried somewhere under the snow.
I was told the squirrel is likely the culprit for knocking the feeder off the hook but I have never seen this cute furry animal anywhere close to the garden even though we have a few clumps of hazel nuts trees. There was once in spring a very shiny black fur squirrel entered the house and ate the dog's kibbles. He must be very hungry after a long winter and that was the one and only sighting.
While outdoor is so grey, I am glad these eye candy primroses kept on blooming.
In an enclosed area of the winter garden, their sweet smelling fragrance filled up the air. The fragrant is almost like viola odorata.
I bought 10 of them in different colours (a bit like a handful of M&M for the big kid ) and it is still a lot cheaper than seeking treatment for winter blues....
Colour therapy according to http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/colour+therapy