Now that the trees have leafed out, it feels more like a garden in the backyard. Nearly the entire backyard is covered with a green ceiling of leaves, either crape myrtle or the delicate sun-filtering leaves of the two mesquite.
Abraham Darby is almost done blooming:
And here's poor Abe from the top view. It looks like he bloomed at just the right time, since the plant tends to defoliate when this happens. The sad thing is, this is the only rose I spray!
Pink Knockout against the fence. I'm amused that the flower color and foliage of the Knockout perfectly match the flower color and foliage of the verbena planted right in front of it. Happy accident!
The first good picture I've taken of the found rose "Maggie":
I was losing the light, but here's the Pink Double Knockout, finally blooming. I'd never seen it flower before, so I was ragingly curious. Sadly, now that it's in bloom, I think it lacks charm, but I'm hoping it'll take some shade and still bloom. Nothing else really seems to want to thrive in that spot under the crape myrtles. We'll see what happens.
For comparison purposes, here's the regular Double Knockout, looking less obnoxiously tomato-red today. This pink is a bright shade that I can live with.
And in conclusion, the garden seen through the gate of two unfurling blooms of the hybrid tea "Double Delight":
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9 comments:
Hi L, I love the roses! I'm brand new at roses, and I admit that they're very exciting when they bloom. (Today my excitement is over the first passion flower, however. It's exquisite!) I'd love to take you up on your hyacinth bean offer. Perfect! How can we connect? I'm at vive_griffith[at]yahoo.com, if you want to talk offline.
Isn't it interesting how different two gardeners' tastes can be? You see, I'm just wild about that red 'Knockout' rose. I love, love, love that pinkish red flower and dark foliage.
Enjoy all your roses.
In my garden "happy incidents" happen all the time. Nature is amazing! Lovely roses.
Lori, I'm glad my post helped you. I can't hear when everyone is talking, but otherwise, I do okay. Yes, that was Monsieur Tillier, and he was residing at Zilker. I loved Austin and am so glad I met you.~~Dee
Vive - Oooh, passionflower! I planted a teensy little passionflower vine last summer, and the bugs promptly ate it. The flowers are so cool-looking. Does yours have a scent? Also, some of those hyacinth bean seedlings look like they're actually pole beans, so let me go through my dry compost heap and pull you out some actual seeds. I have plenty of castor bean seeds, too. They make things lush with their giant leaves and grow fast, even in part-shade. There are lots of pictures that feature them in my archives from last summer.
Pam - It's so interesting, actually, to see people's preferences. I know a lot of my preferences tend to be pretty arbitrary. I actually love the Double Knockout bush, and bought the plant as much for the purplish foliage as for the flowers. I just wish the flowers would play better with the tightly-controlled color palette in the back garden. But it's been growing on me, so to speak. ;)
Trudi - The 'happy incidents' have resulted in some of my favorite plant combinations. I'm glad you like the roses. I'm going to be spamming my blog with rose pictures until the spring flush is over and you're all completely sick of hearing about roses roses roses. ;)
Dee - Thanks! I spent some time browsing through your blog last night and as soon as I have some extra time to add links to my favorite blogs, you're going on my sidebar. I especially loved your purple-and-gray post with the redbuds.
Hi Lori, Double Delight is among my favorite roses, but here in TN it is a j. beetle magnet. In California it was superb! If you want to reduce the spaces between your photos, click on the html tab on edit, go to the bottom and put the curser on left of the first letter of the lower text between a large space and backspace to bring the section up to where you want it. I usually leave one space between. Continue with each large space to eliminate them, then save and return to compose. Hope this is not out of line. I had a terrible problem when I first started blogging with spacing and Robin's nesting place left me a comment like this one. It changed my life!
Frances - What browser are you using? I'm on a Mac using Firefox and Safari, and when I load my blog it looks like I have only one space between each photo. I take it from your comment that I have huge spaces between my pictures? Anyway, I'll try your tip next time I post since I've been having constant problems with formatting anyway, but usually it's been pictures being stacked or not being able to get between them to type-- I've been composing in the html window where I can't even see the picture I'm talking about!
Anyway, speaking of Double Delight, for me she always loses all her lower leaves to blackspot and then recovers to flower. I really wish I had a space for a cutting garden so I could just stick her in the ground where I didn't have to look at the bush and just lop off the gorgeous blooms for the vase.
Very lovely roses. We bought a bunch of knockout and homerun roses on past bloom sale and never really got a good idea of how they would look in the garden so I'm glad to see photos of yours. They seem to have survived the winter just fine. Now if we can only keep the deer from browsing on the tender new shoots we may actually get to see some flowers. They've nearly pruned/eaten some of the branches almost to the ground! ;(
Oh my god, there's a lot of useful info in this post!
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