May is National Physical Fitness Month and National Mental Health Awareness Month. It all adds up to well being.

Hope I continue to be well! Thank Zuzu!

My Crepuscule is getting big and will soon be in full flush.


I gush about Helen Hayes all the time, can't help it, love this rose! 💕😍


And chives and Plum Pretty Whiskers iris

No worries about my physical health but sometimes I worry about my mental health. I can't wait for the roses to take off growing and give me some blooms.

Well Being is beautiful!

I absolutely love Well Being! For me, that is rose perfection

Last year at this time I had roses starting to bloom, this year not a bud in sight yet. We are finally getting consistent warm weather and they are growing now, but many are only 4 or 5 inches tall. At this rate first flush will arrive about the same time the Japanese beetles emerge. It has been such a discouraging spring.

A couple of days ago I weeded, fertilized and mulched the border with buff and russet toned roses and planted some new mums among them. At least I feel better having given them some TLC, and seeing the bed looking tidy and neat prompts me to keep going with it.

My roses are short also. If I get any blooms it will be a miracle due to the size of them.

(All quick cell phone shots taken after work today)
Crepuscule at my back gate is just coming into full bloom.


Honey Perfume


Penelope, love this one, I have two of them


Summer Song


Ring of Fire


Helen Hayes 😍

Beautiful, Suzanne! I love how the beards of the iris match Summer Song! What is the white vine above Crepuscule? A jasmine?

Neal, that is a Potato Vine (Solanum laxum) and a bit of a trailing lavender lantana mixed in, both were here when we moved in. The solanum is agreesive, I've removed a couple already and still pull new shoots. Here is planted in a brick planter against the house so stays contained and climbs up to the second story balcony.

I'm pleased to report that I've only seen two rose curculio weevils so far this year, and only one weevil-damaged bloom. For the last few years I've been very careful about gathering up any damaged blooms and buds and throwing them into the garbage can instead of letting them fall to the ground, where the next year's larvae would hatch. I've also squished every weevil at first sight. It has paid off. Last year I started to see good results. I only had them on a few roses in my garden, and this year they have damaged only one bloom on Soleil d'Or, their favorite rose, and haven't gone near Cardinal Richelieu, another favorite.

Penelope and geranium maderense, which is about 5 ft tall.



Colette


Honey Perfume again, such a gorgeous color!

Zuzu, I squished 5 today on my Ghislaine and removed a few damaged buds, I did the same as you last year, that rose gets more than any and it's such a huge rose it's hard to check it all but I was going out once or twice a day and I too think it has helped.

My roses are not in bloom, yet. When the curculios find my garden, they arrive in hoards ...

Right now the foliage on the roses looks beautiful and most of them have new basal breaks. A dream come true. Too bad it won't last. I've seen a lot of saw flies and have been washing down the roses daily in the hopes of knocking off some of the eggs. I know the next adventure will be the rose slugs and then the curculios.

It's always something ...

Zuzu, that's wonderful news!

Suzanne, that combo is gorgeous- looks like a bouquet! Is the geranium as tall as the rose?

Spring weather seems to be sticking around finally and the consistently warmer temps are fueling some nice growth on the roses. Since it is mostly new basal growth it will be nice to see fresh new canes on most of them.

I'm hoping this warm weather gets my roses growing quickly now. They are still pretty much ground level although super healthy looking which is great. I need to get some pictures of them here soon.

Yea Neal, Penelope is as tall as the geranium, 5+ feet. You can see a bit of the Rose in this photo I took last week.

Wow! I've never seen a geranium that big! Beautiful!

Amanda, sounds like we're in the same boat.

Only Mme Alfred Carriere and a number of roses imported this spring from warmer locations are now in bloom. Not much eye candy yet I did start watering earlier this year. And I will have more overlap in iris and rose season, I think. I see some buds forming.

I'm still sorting through the many hundreds of photos I took on the trip. Hope to blog about them soon.

Steve, I took some photos yesterday (although my camera inexplicably says they were taken tomorrow) of some spots in my garden where there were virtually no blooms when you were here. What a difference a week makes! The pictures aren't great because I forgot to take the camera off the macro setting and because the roses still haven't reached their bloom peak yet, but the roses in these eight parts of the garden were displaying nothing but buds last Sunday.

Beautiful garden, just incredible Zuzu - you should charge admission...