Well, on my first real flush of the season that the roses almost look like what they're tagged! Almost... still everyone's suffering from the heat, but at least we've gotten some rain and that seems to work miracles! You can see that the sun's not quite up when I'm taking these pictures, so some of them look dark.

Most of these pictures are crappy. I had to throw away a lot of pictures.. I'm hoping that I can take new ones either tonight (doubtful) or tomorrow morning.

Artistry (2011, Home Depot)


Cabana (2012, Home Depot)


Betty Boop, Ruby Ruby, & Henry Fonda have all gotten eaten by Cecile Brunner and a Purple Rain salvia


Dick Clark is a nice rose (2011, local nursery Country Fair)


Distant Drums.. very nice rose (thanks Cliff!) (2011 late, EuroDesert)


Duftsrausch (2011, late, EuroDesert) (I'm not one for pink roses, but this is a TOP rose. Smells wonderful, long lasting in the vase, a thumbs up rose)


Golden Princess (2010, eBay)


Halle (2011, Palatine) (still not blooming right.. didn't bloom at all last year)


Harlequin (2010, eBay) (this climber is on the arbor over Freyja RIP)


Kordes Brilliant (2010, Palatine) (one of my favorites.. first order I had ever put in with Palatine!


Our Lady de Guadalupe (2010, Home Depot)


Not sure if this is Tarde Gris (2012, Palatine) or Lavender Simplicity (2010, Lowes). I think it's Tarde Gris


Medallion (2009, Home Depot) (this poor rose as been so abused, it doesn't do well here in CO)


Montezuma (2009, Home Depot) (another abused rose.. this one was squished by the aspen that I had cut down)


Purple Heart (2009, Lowes)


South Africa (2012, Palatine)


Sundowner (2012, Home Depot (I apologize for the extreme poor quality of picture!)


Sunsprite (2010, Home Depot)


Voluptuous! (2011?)


White Licorice (2011, Garden Valley)

Really nice, Toni, and Montezuma couldn't be that abused or it wouldn't have lasted three years.

Your Distant Drums is quite lovely and I love Halle - the blooms look fine to me!

I agree. Halle looks wonderful!

Zuzu - Do you remember my thread on the aspen coming down in the front yard? It was right at ground zero when it came down, got broken and squished all the way to the ground. But the broken canes kept on blooming!

Halle & Razzle Dazzle don't look anything like what the Palatine website or HMF show. But I think it's because they're still establishing themselves. I didnt baby them like I did Magenta & Solar Flash. Here's HMF w/Halle http://www.helpmefind.com/rose...

I do remember that, Toni. What a wonderful rose to come through that and still produce such pretty blooms!

Some of the photos of Halle DO look like yours; I'd be pleased with such a rose whether it looked like the "professional model" or not.

Beautiful roses as always

OK, took better pictures this morning. If it weren't for my weeds & bluebeards, my back yard wouldn't look that hot. But the bluebeards are taking over! Gah!!

NoID (planted 2011, need to basically dig it up & find the tag)


Scentimental (2009, local nursery Tagawas)


Princess de Monaco (2012, Home Depot)


Othello (2009, local nursery Nick's Gardens) with a hitchhiker!


Julia Child (2010, Home Depot)


Ketchup & Mustard (2012, local nursery Paulino's) (this rose nods all the time, never stays up)


Blue Bayou (2010, Palatine) this has got to be my favorite rose.


Ebb Tide (2011, local nursery Paulino's) (has yet to bloom purple)


Carpet Rose (2012, Home Depot) (this was clearanced out, no name, just "carpet".. I'm thinking Medusa)


Kordes' Brilliant (2010, Palatine)


I thought this was Port Sunlight, but I looked through my old rose ordering, it's actually Oshun! That's why it has no tag!


Decent picture of Halle (2011, Palatine)


Florescent Fuscia (2010, Home Depot)


Distant Drums (2011 late, EuroDesert)


Orogold (2012, Home Depot)


Marilyn Monroe (2012, local nursery Timberline Gardens)


South Africa (2012, Palatine)


Magenta (2011, Palatine)


Summer Song (2012, Palatine) (first real bloom!)


Tardi Gris (2012, Palatine) (with Poseidon off to the side)


Poseidon (2012, Palatine)


Stainless Steel (2010, Home Depot)


Rhapsody in Blue (2011, Garden Valley)


Oktoberfest (2009, local nursery Tagawas)


Lavender Simplicity (2011, Lowes)


Cinco de Mayo (2011, Home Depot)


Cabana (2012, Home Depot) with Lavender Simplicity to the right.


Brandy (2012, Home Depot)


Duftsrausch (2011, late, EuroDesert)


Shockwave (2009, local nursery Tagawas)


Sheila's Perfume (2010, Home Depot)


Voluptuous!


And another NoID (2012, I just need to dig this one up too)

very nice Toni !!! with all the mess going on this year my gardens took a beating but all is going well now (cross fingers ) and I'm trying to re claim them

A couple more from this morning. I spent 3 hours on Saturday & an hour & half Sunday weeding & pulled the equivalent of about 3 55gal garbage bags of weeds from the back & STILL didn't get 100% of it all. Bleh. I thought weedblock & mulch was supposed to stop weeds!!!

Molineux (2009, RU)


Remember Me (2011, Home Depot)


Nicole Carol Miller (2011, late, EuroDesert)

Wow, Toni, I'm jealous, both for your pretty blossoms and getting so much work done.
I gave up and posted a help wanted ad on Craigslist this morning. I need help with gardening, cleaning, painting, filing and bookkeeping. My basement, shadehouse, barn and garage are packed with stuff and all of it needs to be sorted and sold.
It's exhausting just thinking about it all.
The biggest priority is the business paperwork, mainly taxes. What i most want to do is repot the new roses and then pot up the new iris orders I'm getting.
Pfffffft. My "bronchitis" isn't responding to antibiotics and I'm wondering if I have histoplasmosis again. I knew better than to visit the bat cave, but I did, and of course I got sick.
On the happier side, my daughter won 2nd place in her triathlon at Bear Mtn. this weekend. Yay!

Yay for your daughter! That sounds like a LOT of hard work on her part!

At work, I used to do all the business taxes. But when we got sold 2 years ago, new boss decided to have a real accountant do it rather than me. Fine by me! Cleaning & painting I do at night.. I got a lot painted this past few months

Living room & kitchen (have to redo the entire kitchen ceiling as I accidentally used 2 different colors of paint). The orange is a Disney color called "Tigger Orange", the light green is "Springtime Grass" and don't remember what the darker green was called. But those colors have been discontinued it looks like.


Hallway between DH's office & my craftroom (PLEASE EXCUSE THE SLOBBY MESS!! I am NOT SusieHomemaker!)


The red paint I found in the "Oops" section at Home Depot. I wanted a nice blue as close to a turquoise as I could find, and then do the trim in the red, then the doors in the yellow. Only bad thing is that I didn't want enamel (I *hate* painting with enamel!), and that's what the yellow was made in. BLEH! So now I have to redo the yellow to make it look even. It took me about 6 hours to paint the living room, 2 hours to paint the blue in the hallway, another 2 hours to do the red trim (the trim is a "rippled" trim that is NOT easy to paint!! I had to blop the paint on rather than use a roller or brush. (http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/...) I *hate* this trim, but DH doesn't want me to yank it off. So I just deal with it. Bleh. The doors were pretty easy, only took about 2 hours to do all 5 doors (4 in the hallway, then main entrance door). I started the hallway project when I got off work when DH was in Vegas for a week, took me 2 days to do the entire hallway (I have to finish it up still, but been lazy, probably get it done this weekend).

Wow, Toni, you are really creative! It all looks great! I never dare use bright colors - I have no design sense...

I love bold color schemes! It looks great, Toni.

As soon as its gets completely done (ie: 12th of never), I'll post pictures of my "craft room". The walls are raspberry, the ceiling is blueberry, and I want to put black granite & white marble tiles as the floor. DH isn't crazy about it, but I don't care. My room, he doesn't like it, don't look. I also put diffraction grating film on my one window (south facing) so that the room's filled with rainbows in the afternoon. (http://www.rainbowsymphonystor...) His office is kinda bland IMO, forest green walls & arctic white ceiling. Master bedroom is "baby bluebird blue" (they've changed this name, but here's the color http://www.art-paints.com/Pain...) and the hall way between the bedroom & the laundry room is Lemon Peel yellow. The den downstairs is "under the sea" blue, a very soft soft blue with Bronco Orange trim (just happened to match the orange, not purposefully put the orange with the blue). I'm painting the stairwell downstairs a ruddy sand color because I'm decorating it with Egyptian paintings. In my living room, my pride & joy is my Big Red Horse painting. I personally know the artist and she made this, not with me in mind or on commission, but she told my MIL about this painting, my MIL told me about this painting (it was about half done), I went to see it, fell in love with it, bought it when it was completely. Took it home, hung it on the wall for about 2 years, then decided to spruce it up by putting LED lights behind it. Thus, I got this:



Was beyond simple to do. That picture was taken before I had completed the painting of the living room.

Main thing is that I love bright, gaudy colors. Drives my MIL inSANE because she cannot stand bright colors.. her favorite colors are grey and babypoo. Her house is magnificently decorated (she hired a very expensive decorator) and has only the best that money can buy. However, her house (I will not call it a home because it's a place where you don't feel like a home, it feels like a domicile, where you sleep, like a hotel) is also very boring. She has gorgeous, one of a kind paintings, but nothing sticks out in your mind about it. However, it makes her happy, so that's good enough for me! But she's constantly badgering me because "it's going to be so hard to sell your house, you're going to have to knock down the price or repaint everything!". Uh, who says I'm selling my house? Just Friday she brought up me selling the house & moving into a different house. WHY IN HELL WOULD I WANT TO??? There's NO way I'm moving, ever, if I can afford it! I've put too much effort, blood, sweat, & tears into that house, and especially my yard! Nut-uh, not moving!

/rant off.

No matter how long you're planning to live in a house, you might as well decorate it exactly the way you want it. In our last house, the realtors and staging company made us repaint our bland color to another bland color. Now I have a painter on speed-dial, for the house I'm selling and then for the house I'm buying. Hopefully we'll stay here a while, though. We remodeled it with the intent of growing old in it. We've been here almost 4 years, and I've repainted every surface at least 2 times. The hailstorm knocked all the paint off the peaks of the house, but I think I'll hire someone for that. It really looks pretty awful right now.

Toni, I really like how your wall hangings work with the bold colors. That's tricky, and you nailed it.
I leave my walls a bland color so i can be lazy about putting up anything I want.
I'm watching Sanya Richards-Ross in the Olympics. Are you guys watching this? That woman is incredible. (I love her hair, too. Wow!)
Oh, hurdles are coming on....that's my sport, gotta go watch this.

I love raspberry and blueberry and dark orange and red and forest green. I've always been on a crusade to stamp out beige. Here's my forest-green living room (in two halves because I had no vantage point that would let me take a picture of the whole thing).

Zuzu - I think that instead of making us insanely jealous of your roses & gardens you should just make us insanely jealous of your home! Wow!