@gemini_sage It is! She's really the first rose back from a deep, deep cut - she's already scenting up our whole little garden!

@Calif_Sue Penelope is gorgeous!

Happy Good Friday & Passover Day 4 to you all!

(I know the top right is 'Jennifer.' Beyond that, I'm still trying to figure out what's where. You'd think it wouldn't be that hard to keep track of plants in 21 or so pots & containers, but no!)

My minis

Looking good !

Today is Husband Appreciation Day:

(aka UMSalllovu)

Opening Night



=-=-=-=-=-=-=

@gemini_sage

Neal, this one is for you.

Heritage

Beautiful photos Debra!

Thank you, Margie.

Wow Deb, that's huge and gorgeous!

Today it is the birthday of the Queen of Denmark, Margrethe II, born in 1940:

(aka Konigin von Danemark, Naissance de Venus,
New Maiden Blush, Dronningen af Danmark,
Reine du Danemark, Koenigen von Danemark)

I have been meaning to make this post since this morning, but this has been a busy day for me.

Today is an important day for those who are members of the Christian faith. I wanted to post photos of roses with "Easter" in their name. We only have two roses listed in the NGA database and only one with photos, so I am adding a link from HMF. I hope you don't mind.

'Easter Basket'




'Easter Morning'
http://www.helpmefind.com/rose...

Buds on my Souv du Docteur Jamain today. Only rose that has buds on it right now.

I found buds yesterday too! Orange Corsair and Peggy Martin both have lots of buds! I love it when rose bloom time overlaps with bearded iris bloom time and it looks like that's going to happen this year (they often miss each other completely).

I, too, love it when rose and iris season overlap. I have reason to hope there will be a good deal of that this year.

I was surprised to see what looked like the wrong-sized white flower on Jacqueline du Pre yesterday. I have seen buds on Blush Noisette, Abe Darby, and Nouveau Monde. Still no leaves on bare root roses planted this season, which is fine because one or two of my hybrid tea roses still have not decided whether it's safe to set leaves.

No buds here. It rained every day last week with temps in the mid to low 50s. Sat was clear and I did get a lot of work done. Sunday, was clear, too, but I took a tumble and was stiff and sore. No, injuries, but I wasn't moving very well ...

Yesterday, it was raining again, but I walked the garden between showers and picked saw flies off of the canes. It was interesting to see that there were no saw flies laying eggs on the wet foliage of the few roses that have started leafing out.

Today, it will be partly cloudy and a bit warmer. More rain tomorrow, then a few clear days. It sure is hard to get things done when you can't get out there to get them done .. The weeds are having a party ..

My irises have not even put up stalks yet. The bulbs are done and I didn't even take any photos this year.

So it goes in a wet spring.

My iris have started, many clematis too, the roses are starting to bloom, looks like peak for them will be in a couple of weeks. The garden is so lush and green from all this rain.
This is my first bloom on Honey Perfume getting ready to open. Off and on showers here the next couple of days.



Teasing Georgia, several open already.


Easy Does It

My roses and irises are not anywhere near ready to bloom yet and the roses are always later than the irises. We still have frost at night, so I will just have to enjoy your roses for now and of course our rose of the day:

Today is World Heritage Day:

(aka AUSblush, Roberta)

Actually, I started writing this post yesterday but one thing led to another ....

I was catching up after being away for a couple of days - been really busy what with DH's birthday celebration and Easter.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter celebration!

@lovemyhouse @Calif_Sue @JulieB Great to some first blooms and
@LizDTM that your mini's are doing so well.
@pepper23 Amanda

@IrisLilli look what I woke up to this morning …. and it is still snowing!!


It is not the snow that is worrying but the sub-zero temperatures and the heavy frost that have been forecast for tomorrow till Saturday. As a precautionary measure, I already moved some of my pots under roof again and covered some others with winter fleece. I have only covered the really young seedlings, new grafts and new roses that look a little suspect. I had put everything away when I remembered this one so I improvised


Last week was such a contrast! Shorts weather with temperatures over 20C and lovely sunshine! Actually rather dry for this time of the year and no rain in almost two weeks. Great conditions for the uninvited guests to reappear on the roses.
I noticed a bit of speckling on the top of quite a lot of the roses. Turning over the leaves, I saw a lot of minute pale light green 'spots'!! I say spots because that was all I could discern - really have to get my eyes checked again. Actually had to take a photo and enlarge it to identify the little *#*!'s

The photo helped! The culprits for the speckles are leafhopper nymphs and that already in April And they are all over the place it looks like an invasion!!! I sprayed with insecticidal soap and alcohol and will have to do it again - soon to avoid a plague!!!

Another two interesting seedlings from the Black Baccara X Little Artist cross opened and couldn't be more different. The one is a mini and the more HT looking. I had to play around with the white balance so the greens in the pic are wrong but the bloom colour is pretty accurate.


@gemini_sage Neal, just wanted to give you an update on the established Rosa Canina that I grafted last year. I grafted three plants each with two grafts. All the grafts except one took. This pic shows the plant where only one graft is pushing out new growth. The unresponsive graft is still green but it didn't take that well - you can see the opening on the left of the graft (marked with arrow). Notice the size of the stem in comparison to the bud-eye. I had to saw off the top growth - far too thick for clippers!


Well holding thumbs that the predicted frost doesn't cause as much damage as last year's late frost

Sharlene ... great job of protecting the roses from the predicted low temps. That must have been a real challenge

Your Black Baccara X Little Artist looks like an interesting cross. It will be interesting to see how the plant develops ...

What are you using for your root stock ?

Eeeek! So sorry you're dealing with a resurgence of winter Sharlene! Maybe at the very least it will kill off some of the juvenile leaf hoppers. Thanks for that excellent graft photo! Nice seedlings too, I like the green center in the mini.

I've found cane damage in some other roses since our cold spell a few weeks ago (at first I thought it was just Beverly). Just when I thought I was finished pruning several damaged canes have needed removed over the last couple of weeks.

Sharlene, we had a bit of snow too, not nearly as much as you. But we did have some frosty nights and yesterday morning I came out to find my Star Magnolia, which was in full bloom, covered in brown, mushy flowers.
I do not know how cold it was, because our outdoor thermometer broke in the last storm we had, but the hellebores, daffodils and especially the tulips were drooping or lying on the ground, so it must have been at least 5 below. The roses look fine , but all the new growth on my poor Dead Man's Fingers (Decaisnea fargesii) is black. It will live (I hope) but it will not look good this year.
The cherries are showing colour, so I hope there will be no more frost from now on or there will be no cherries for me this year (...or for the birds, who usually manage to get most of them ).

Sorry about the extra cane damage, Neal. I also found a few black canes, but that was before the recent frost, so they must have suffered the damage in the winter and somehow managed to look healthy until now. It has happened before that I have discovered damaged canes only after the roses have started to set new leaves; they look fine, but then they start looking a little spotty and dry and then they turn black and finally brown if not removed.

Today is Chinese Language Day

(aka Ville de Chine)
A classic Danish rose hybridised by Niels D. Poulsen in 1962.