Another year is almost gone. It was a good year in my garden. I learned that I could do almost everything without any expensive outside assistance. The weeds got away from me, but the garden looked good in spite of them.

I'm hoping for an even better gardening year in 2017, now that I'm not anticipating a huge re-do of my garden because of the gas company's easement along my back fence. The utility company came up with an amended removal plan that turned out to be almost nothing. I lost one dogwood, one hydrangea, one Rose of Sharon, and two roses (instead of the more than 40 roses I had expected to lose).

Our thumbnail rose for this month is Winter Gem, more commonly known as Marie van Houtte.

December 1st is Wear a Dress Day. The Rose of the Day is Royal Ballgown. aka The Fisherman's Cot.



It's a lovely Harkness floribunda with ruffled petals.

@zuzu glad you didn't loose as many roses as anticipated! 2 instead of 40 is a huge difference!

Wear a Dress Day???? Not here or maybe only with think woolens Actually, I very seldom wear a dress these days and definitely not in winter.

'The Fisherman's Cot' is lovely Zuzu! Had to go over to HMF because there is only one pic here. Still gets me how a UK rose is only available in the US???

December - amazing how time flies. The 2016 season is over for me. Did the last chores yesterday, cleaning up a few leaves and putting the last pots into the store room. Now winter can come!
Looking back, 2016 was not the best season rose-wise. Late frost in May knocked the first flush, very wet June and more BS and rust than ever!
On the bright side - my crosses were rather successful this year! I actually threw out some seeds which is quite difficult but I can only handle 600, so that is how many I kept. So I that to look forward to in 2017 and also my first iris as well

600!!! That's so far beyond anything I could handle. Your crosses are lovely, and I'm looking forward to next year's photos.

The limited availability of many Harkness roses amazes me. They're beautiful and grow so well that I would think they'd be in great demand everywhere.

Today was "moving day." All of the potted mandevillas had to come inside because we might have frost in the mornings next week. The clivias were moved to spots under the roof overhang, and some water lettuce and water hyacinths had to be fished out of the pond to be kept in the solarium in tubs for the winter. The rest of the pond plants (mostly irises and parrot feather) won't be affected by frost.

Here's another odd holiday. Today is Business of Popping Corn Day, marking the anniversary of the 1885 founding of a company manufacturing commercial oil popcorn poppers. The Rose of the Day is Gourmet Popcorn.

So we should put on a dress, go to The Fisherman's Cot for some commercial popcorn!

If you don't already grow GP, I've found it to be a great landscape shrub. It takes little care, handles all kinds of abuse and keeps on coming back just fine.

In my garden, it has no winter die back and it holds up to the heat just fine. It can take a hard prune ... ie, a severe deer chomp ... or you can ignore it, and it just keeps on blooming. In other words, it's not a fussy rose.

I've added quite a few photos to the db, but none of them really catch the effect of the rose in the garden. My plant started out as a 4" plant from Berling and is an own root rose growing in lousy soil.

Also, it came through the drought without any problems. Not bad for a rose.

This might be my favorite month in the garden, mainly because the bees are gone. I can work outside all day with no fear of getting stung.

Maybe for you, Zuzu, but right now I am wearing two layers of long johns and my sweats. By the time I put on my outer wear, I can hardly move.

We may get a few inches of snow next week. It's not the snow that keeps me inside. It seems that as I live in an older body, my body does not want to work outside in either the cold or the heat. These temps didn't used to bother me at all. Now, I am so bundled up I can hardly move ...

Our daytime temperatures are still in the 60s here. We'll drop down to the 50s next week and stay there until about February, when things will start warming up again. I've thought about moving to various places at various stages of my life, but now I know I will never live anywhere but Sonoma County. I don't think I could work outside in extreme heat or extreme cold, whether in an old body or a young one.

I am fine when the temps are in the 50s, and for the next few days they will be ... for about four hours ...

It's just that it gets so cold at night and takes so long for it to warm up, there really isn't much time to work outside before it starts cooling off again.

Oh, well. It's only a few months ...

This is National Roof-Over-Your=Head Day. The Rose of the Day is Home & Garden.



What a gorgeous rose! Look at the beautiful button eye on one of those blooms.

Absolutely beautiful!

Sisters Fairy Tale is another name for Home and Garden. So glad I ordered it from Palatine this year.
Dec 2 is also Love Your Mutt day, according to the Humane Society, so here's my loveable mutt, one on the left. I love my lab too.

This is National Cookie Day. The Rose of the Day is Fortune Cookie.

This is National Communicate with Your Kids Day. The Rose of the Day is Baby Talk.



The roses of the Swim/Weeks "Talk" series are difficult to find now, but they were wildly popular in the beginning of the 1980s. Baby Talk and Pillow Talk were among the first roses I bought for my new garden when I moved here in 1984. I bought Fancy Talk a few years later. They're small floribundas that are quite vigorous and floriferous when they're grafted, but spindly and temperamental when they're grown on their own roots. I once had several of each, but the gophers eventually gobbled all but one of each. When I tried to replace the dead ones with own-root plants from a few nurseries, the results were always disastrous.

A lovely and appropriate choice.

Three interesting 'National Days' and three lovely roses Zuzu! And I enjoyed reading your comments about the 'Talk' series - thanks for sharing.

RoseBlush1 said: but right now I am wearing two layers of long johns and my sweats. By the time I put on my outer wear, I can hardly move.

Lyn - sounds like our choice of attire is rather similar these days thank goodness everything is done now - I don't like freezing my b... off!
Only three weeks and then we are off to SA to visit the folks - middle of summer down there

Want to see some beautiful photos of roses including Baby Talk? Check this out...
http://fps.ucdavis.edu/rosesel...