Spring has popped up in Geneva

Its already spring in Geneva, 3 hours drive south west from my garden. Some people may say "false spring" as there can still be one or 2 more hard frost or even snow....but the snowdrops are always ahead of forsythia or other flowers that appear in late winter. Crocus are also blooming Wild daisies are all over the grassy areas....and most interestingly, as usual my GPS took me to this road as I go around searching for parking. This is not a rose garden but a small lane
As I stepped out of the car, I spotted this bush that's towering to at least 3 meters tall. Looks like a a very mature hybrid tea bush with lots of intact blooms. Some looked a bit worn out after the winter battering but there are a few good looking buds unscathed by the winter frost.
I can't get a better picture than this as it is a very very tall bush but you can see bits of the leaves shows some frost burnt. A closer look at the buds that looked like its about to open up as the temperature gets milder and warmer.

First sign of spring!

The only sign of spring in my garden at the moment are from these pigeon chicks.

They are growing real feathers and probably counting days to fly away. I am happy they survived the coldest winter temperatures ever recorded in years.

Its amazing to see how much fertilizer they are making in their nest!! 2 inches of thick yuck covering a wide area of several square meters. I'm getting a little impatient waiting for them to grow up and leave the nest. This corner of the garden shed badly need spring cleaning and sprucing up. A lick of paint would be great too. Another task gone into the to do list!

Roses growing on high altitude

Rose report from the mountain village of 1200 meters above sea level

I am back in the tiny mountain village of Alagna Valsesia, which is 1200metres on the southern flank of Europe's second highest peak - the Monte Rosa.

The history of this village and its people goes back to more than 1000 years ago. They were originally german speakers from scattered parts of Switzerland. Even though their geographic culinary is very Italian, the Valser people are very proud of their ancestors tradition and way of life. They really love their rugged terrains.

Despite the waves of modernisation that took place over the years, Alagna and the surrounding villages basically retained much of it rustic charm. During the early 19 century, the Queen Margharita of Italy spent most of her summer months at the foot of the Monte Rosa. The queen must have enjoyed the outdoor and mountaineering, that in 1890 she commissioned a mountain refuge be built atop the punta Gnifetti at 4560m. It became the highest mountain refuge in Europe.

The refuge is still in use today after much restructuring, providing shelter to hundreds of climbers during peak summer months. Scientists from all over the world use the refuge as a base for studying the affects of high altitude on humans.

After many years of coming back to this village, Alagna for me is by far the best out of bounds off piste skiing. There are very few ski resorts in the world which offer 3000m of lift accessed vertical!!

I am here not only for freeride freestyle heli-skiing, but also studying and documenting the roses that are growing around the village at this high altitude.
This year, during the time of my visit, the amount of snow is astounding. You can see how the pergola below bowed down under the weight of snow. I can't hardly see anything except a few taller upright growers hybrid teas roses that are growing against the walls

When not documenting roses, I'm somewhere up there with my skis http://rae-dogblog.blogspot.com/

Rosy Inheritance

Some people collect stamps, shoes, handbags, books, antique cars, motorbikes.....all sorts of things A to Z.

I used to collect shoes and handbags until my closet exploded! These days I go about like "men's style" small thin wallet tucked in nicely in the inner pocket of my jacket. Handbags made me look clumsy, what more with the laptop bag and file bag and sandwich in one hand and car keys and and and.... I am now a simplified person. Less is more.

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.

Looking at the size of the woody canes, I guess my Inheritance has never met the secateurs.

According to the book: Gardening with old roses; Soft pink ... definitely performs better in light or dappled shade.

-->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

Anticipating Spring

I'm missing colours like no one can ever imagine....

Its always good to look forward.....

I am feeling so much better now after digging out some colours from my old garden archives.

..........even though right this very moment, it is snowing like c-r-a-z-y outside

Talking in my head

A few of my gardening friends in the US and the UK already sprung into spring and started their gardening activities. It will be another month here before the ground warm up and ready for plantings. We usually get snow up to the first week of March. 4 more weeks....and that feels like light years!!

I really feel like I'm slowly decomposing under piles of snow. Its getting a bit depressing with too many grey and sunless day. This picture below was taken during the early days of winter. There was still some colours at the beginning of winter. At the moment everything is just twigs and sticks.
Today, the weather is not really that bad, it started frosty grey but the sun came out this morning though it is frozen cold out there. This week we had a record freezing temperature since years. This will make the spring arrival even later than usual.

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 either
The 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.....

Online gaming addiction

This is a small card I made for my 17 years old godson who's addicted to online gaming. He's staying with my mum temporarily since he had some disagreements with his parents. My mother usually come and stayed with us over the weekend and my wonderful young man is ever the same. He entered the house, greeted us, made some decent small chats and headed straight to the sofa, get his laptop out of his backpack, got online and been playing online game the whole night.

During the last christmas holidays, I observed him playing until wee hours, 4 or 5 am in the morning. His younger brother was also with us, and the 15 years old brother was even sleeping on the floor. Amazing these kids. We have spare rooms for them but they rather not really get a proper sleep. This morning, when I came down, I saw him snoring away on the sofa as usual.
After brunch, he went back to his laptop.

Just now, I sent him off to the shops to get something for tea. Not that I need anything from the shops. I've done all the food shopping for the weekend, but I had to do something to get him out for some fresh air and doing something else other than every single second stuck to his laptop. It was very very difficult to get him away from the online games. It is as if the laptop is glued to him and the sofa had eaten him up. Maybe something interesting catch his attention while in town.

About an hour after I sent this teenager out to buy something for tea time, he did came back with some goodies and we all sit down like normal family and his parents (my cousin) dropped by too.
Father and son tried to talk in a civilized manner but his mother (my cousin's wife) is making situation very dramatic and awkward.

In the end the boy still insisted that he want to stay on with his grand aunt (my mother)
Not that it matters to me but my mother had just recovered from a surgery last autumn and she is still recuperating. At the moment, I really don't trust her driving, especially right now with the icy condition. It was minus -12°C yesterday and more now coming in the next few days. I would prefer my mother staying with me until she's fit and strong again....but mum knew that if she stay with me and my godson under my roof would mean the "strict me" will get into a head on crash with this boy. Sticky situation.

I am not a disciplinarian or being impatient. I am actually very concerned. This is not my child and I really shouldn't bother at all but I've watched him grew up from his "babyland" days. I even did my fair share baby sitting and changing his pampers. Everytime after discussing this matter with my cousin, he always said "put some sense into that boy"....and the pressure kept building up.

I really don't know how to reach out to someone "who is there but he is really not there". He's just not paying attention and not interested in some topics for discussion. I don't want to sound like I'm picking on him or trying to teach or correct him. This is a small challenge but it is a tricky one.

I just want this young man to start thinking a little further than just today, to finish his high school with acceptable results, so he can further his education and learn to manage his time and sort out his priorities and start living in real world. Apart from his "growing pains" which all of us went through during our teenage years, I do find him a lovely kid and very homely. He doesn't t smoke, doesn't drink, not loitering around like some other teenagers. I think the biggest worry to us all is concerning his obsessive gaming.....

Friday the 13th !!!

I just realised today is Friday the 13th.

I'm not sure if I'm superstitious or not. There's a big family of black cats in my neighbourhood but I'm not sure now what exactly the omen suppose to be??....but Friday the 13th sure sounds like a horror movie. I'm not a horror movie fan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th

Thank God It's FRiDaY!!!! Weekend is HERE!!!

TGIF!!
That's where I met my husband the for the second time within the same week! It was not a date. No no. We were just having dinner with a bunch of friends. I was there and he was there and the cupid was also there! lol It must be fate.

I remember there's a movie called Thank God Its Friday some one decade ago I think....but I have not seen it.

BTW, I inherited this pink rose below. Its a very very old shrub that's growing in the vineyard. Its a once bloomer but bloom its head off in mid/late May.

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!!

Madame Lombard and Unermüdliche arrived in my garden!!

I am over the moon.... so excited, I even did the moon dance!


2 days after I got back from my Italian rosescapades, Tino from La Campanella rose nursery called saying that 2 of my roses are still in their nursery and that he will parcel them over.

Later he sent me the tracking number so I could keep track of the roses journey. For 5 days I was like a little kid waiting for Santa Claus to deliver the christmas present.

Finally yesterday, I got home and the box was patiently waiting to release the joy that's tightly packed inside.

I flipped twice over the moon. Double joy!!
Madame Lombard and Unermüdlich finally made it to my garden.

Yay!! The roses are showing signs of growth even while in the box. They seem impatient to start the rose season.

According to Walter Branchi, the well known Italian Tea Rose collector; Unermüdliche is a special rose that is tireless in its flowering (instancabile nella fioritura...) but of course his garden location is in the warm south, a climate that is similar to Rome. I look forward to see how this rose perform in my climate, hopefully this rose will live up to her name and bloom tirelessly.....

Since Madame Lombard's hardiness is just on the border zone, she will join Rosette Delizy & Rival de Paestum in the glass house. A bit of extra work pushing pots in and out of the winter garden but then hey! if I don't try it, I'll never find out anything about these roses.

Special thanks to Tino from La Campanella. You made my day! .....all the best.

Let me see what spring is like in Jupiter and Mars

I'm getting restless and bored like Jack, coiled up in the box. I want to spring into Spring!!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8r9ZPQ_828&feature=related

The version from Nat King Cole is my favourite best. Fantastic vocal control. Awesome talent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5EUcYw96us&NR=1

From the land of the rising sun to the landlocked alpine Switzerland

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

Winter Wonderland

February is pretty much mid winter here and the meteological experts published their December and January reports which confirmed this year's winter is harder and colder compared to the last 2 years.

There is nothing much I can do in the garden other than walking around knocking the snow from flattening and breaking the brances of my garden shrubs and those standard rose trees. It is really the time of year when I really learn to appreciate the beauty of skeleton trees, twigs and watching birds.

I usually refer to this bird as the carpenter because of the hammering against the tree trunk.

I was told by Ken, another one of my gardening friend that this Great Spotted Woodpecker's tongue is approximately two thirds the length of it's body, and retracts into a special cavity in it's skull, and also has an "ear" on the tip which enables it to hear it's prey inside the tree.

Thanks a lot Ken for sharing your ornithology knowledge. I find this very interesting.

More info about this bird http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Spotted_Woodpecker

Follow up to where I last picked up

We are still in the depth of winter. Grey and cold but the good thing about my location is that we occasionally get that warm air http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foehn_windpushed pushing up from the south. When this happened, it is almost like a short break from the dreary days of winter grey, with sunny clear blue sky, walking around with just a layer of clothing but this joy of tee shirt temperature is very short. The moment the sun goes down, the quicksilver will plunge down again to normal 0°C or thereabout winter temperature and life gets back to parkas and down jackets.

Took the dog for his walk and feed some ducks down at the river earlier today.


Nothing much going on in the garden at the moment. Almost everything in hibernation.
I've potted up all the bareroots roses I brought back from Italy in temporary pots until I can plant them out in the garden when the ground is workable. We have had frozen temperature for a long stretch of weeks and the pots was frozen solid. There was 2 days of föhn last week and I could see the ice thawing but it will be snowing again soon.


I also found Stanwell Perpetual left over rose bud from last autumn still hanging on despited all the freeze and thaw. Amazing.


The Pieris are busy making buds to break the winter spell.

When I was at the garden centre the other day buying soil for potting up the bareroses, I bought some primula aka primrose to cheer up my very monotonus green winter garden (actually more about cheering up my own self lol )
They came in all kinds of cheerful eye candy colours. This must be the answer to bridge the gap for colour starving souls.

Rosette Delizy breaking bud eye growth.
Nature's way revealing spring is just around the corner??


To my delight, some of my other newly bought bareroots roses are also showing some reddish cooked shrimp coloured tiny red shoots.

O joy!! Spring cleaning is looming in the air :(

Picking up where I started

I created this blog in January 2008 as part of my then new year's resolution. One year later, another new year celebration arrived and we welcomed the 2009 at our beloved friends Miriam and Philippe.

We brought them little gifts including amarylis bulb in a small pretty pot with just few bits green poking out.

Few weeks later, I received an email from them "It was growing & growing but only yesterday morning did it open up to the full (& remained). There is an advantage to have a plant rather than a flower but it put a lot of pressure on our shoulders to make it grow so nicely …. !
It was a lovely sign from you as we came down for our breakfast yesterday."

That mail sure made my grey winter day a smiley one. I certainly know that feeling waking up to see something blooming. I hope you both enjoyed "something alive" indoor in the depth of winter (while it last )




It is now February 2009, time sure move fast when you have thousands of things to work on....and this year I am determine to pick up momentum with the blog and move forward.....