The other day, while out in the garden getting ready for winter, I saw all the pretty rose hips on one of my rose shrubs. And my first thought was, "Do my hips look big?" I always think of that question when I see rose hips. And then I laugh. I wonder if roses worry about the size of their hips the way people do? For the record, these hips are on a rose identified for me as 'Ballerina,' and the hips are not as big as they appear in this picture. They are tiny compared to some rose … [Read more...] about Do My Hips Look Big in This Picture?
roses
Chasing the Rose: A Book Review
In a far corner of my garden, tucked behind a spruce tree, an old pink rose grows rampantly. I give it little attention and mostly forget about it until I see it blooming with abandon in early summer. I got the rose from my aunt, not once, but twice. The first time she gave me a start of the rose, she said it was from my great-grandmother's garden. I planted it in my first garden, happy to have a link to the past growing near my back door. When I moved, I left the rose behind. Two … [Read more...] about Chasing the Rose: A Book Review
Rose Day at May Dreams Gardens
Welcome to Rose Day at May Dreams Gardens. Following the tradition of the Plant Doctor, Cynthia Westcott, I am showing you my roses on the second Sunday of June. Westcott was a plant pathologist who made her living partly by tending to other people's rose gardens. She also started a tradition of opening up her gardens in New Jersey on the second Sunday of June to show neighbors and others (hundreds of others) all her roses and convince them that roses were easy to grow. For her Rose … [Read more...] about Rose Day at May Dreams Gardens
Budding Rosarian
In one day, I’ve increased my rose collection by 150 percent!Yes, I’ve gone from two roses to five roses. Does that make me a rosarian? How many roses do you need to grow to be considered a rosarian? And do some of those roses have to have French sounding names?What possessed me, after all these years of gardening, all these years of avoiding roses, to suddenly have so many roses? Five of them! But perhaps the more appropriate question was why did I avoid roses for all these years?I had two … [Read more...] about Budding Rosarian
