Tom's Rose Garden

UPDATE: 6/27/97

last weekend I went rose rustling in Richmond, Va and came back with multiple cuttings from nearly 25 different roses. Along with that were potted roses that Jeremy Buckley, partner in rustling, had rooted and gave to me as they were duplicates. Much thanks to Jane Cox for playing tour guide and getting us permission. We visited Maymont, Virginia House, and the Hollywood Cemetery. Spent three hours on Sunday afternoon putting all the cuttings in rooting soil in baggies. I'll be keeping my fingers crosessed. For a list of all the roses I've got, click here. Right now the following roses are blooming in my garden: Reine des Violettes, Lady Hillingdon, Cramoisi Superior, Graham Thomas, Duchess du Brabant, Marbree, Schneezwerg, Snowfire, Rosa Mundi, and LaMarne. About to bloom again are Heritage and Mme. Isaac Pereire. K-Mart put their roses on sale, so I bought Tiffany, Double Delight, and Camelot to add to the "new" rose cutting garden.

UPDATE: 6/11/97

It's finally warming up. Reine des Violettes is doing her typical thing of one to three flowers in full bloom all the time. Cramoisi Superior and some of the new white rugosas are consistently blooming with one or two flowers each. Dorothy Perkins is just starting to bloom. Tonight I'll be starting a bunch of cuttings to root. In addition to the Clothilde Soupert that I just received as part of a cuttings exchange, I'll be trying Paul Neyron, Bella Donna, Marquis of Londonberry and an unknown rugosa and possibly an unknow Bourbon. These last few are coming from a neighbor. An older woman with a wonderful garden and wonderful stories to go with it. I purchase my second Hybrid Tea, Pink Peace. It was sitting at Krogers with a $1.50 tag on it. It was damp and still very green, so I figured what the heck. I put it in a pot and it's got some leaves forming already. Belle Amour is just about all brown. No sign of it leafing out. Oh well, I guess that it just got planted too late. I'll ask for a replacement.

UPDATE: 6/3/97

It's yucky outside. Has been for a few days now. I did, however, get to walk through the roses at lunch and cut a small bouquet of Cramoisi Superior, Reine des Violette, Königin von Dänemark, Madame Hardy, and Holy Toledo. They and some of the white rugosas are the only ones blooming now. KvD and RdV aren't blooming so well. There's a lot of rotted undeveloped buds on the two. Oh well, at least with RdV I can count on continued re-bloom from new growth. I just need to contain that new growth. Some sort of support. It is really rocking in the ground. Still no signs of growth on Belle Amour, while Marbree is going like gangbusters. May even see some blooms this year. Rembrandt is showing some signs of new life since the transplant. Bought the HT Snowfire a couple of weekends back. I've decided to devote a small(?) bed to modern roses to round out my collections. I also bought a Rosa Mundi. It's been planted in the place of the never-blooming mystery climber. I've received five of the eight roses and have moved them from their liners into small pots and placed them in the cold frame. They spent a lot of time enroute and showed up very dry, but we'll hope for the best. When I get them in the ground, I'll update my Rose Walk page.

UPDATE: 5/19/97

Received and planted Belle Amour and Marbree from Roseraie at Bayfields. Modified my Rose Walk page to reflect the changes. I dug up a mystery species to make room and potted it. It hasn't bloomed, but I'm suspecting it's Dorothy Perkins. The climber that I thought was New Dawn is definitely not. The flowers are big and full and pink. I'm torn between thinking it's Aloha or Parade. Most every rose in my garden is now blooming except for some of the new ones. Graham Thomas takes the title for largest flower. It is huge! I've given up on the hardwood cuttings. They just never got any roots. The softwood cuttings I got from SC are still green. In fact, one of them is developing roots along the stem that's exposed. Bizarre. I dug up Rembrandt and removed all the soil and walnut tree roots for a 3X2 hole and then replanted it with new soil and compost. Hopefully, this will fix the sad behavior. I know that Sombreuil has benefitted greatly from its move away from the walnut tree roots. Now I've got the task of determining where I'm going to plant the eight roses that I'll be getting in the next week. I know that two R. multifloras is going to go, and I'll probably transplant the Holy Toledo. As for the rest, who knows.

UPDATE: 5/5/97

Began revising my inidividual rose web pages to update them to Spring 1997. Therese Bugnet is getting some sort of problem. It's not rust and it's not blackspot. I fertilized it and watered all the roses real heavily. I also fertilized Heritage, Mdm, Isaac Perriere, Rembrandt, and LaMarne. All the white rugosas have leafed out nicely. Mdm. Isaac Perrriere and Souv. du Dr. Jamain are about to bloom big time, as are many of the others. Part of me is hoping that it gets cool and they stay closed for another week so that they'll be more spectacular during the time of the Rose Festival.

Ordered the roses from Rosaerie at Bayfields last week. They'll be coming bare-root and they are Bell Amour, Village Maid, and Marbree. Now I just have to be patient for their arrival. I guess I should spend the time figuring out where I'm going to put them and get the site ready. I also ordered one year old cuttings from MEA Nursery of Souvenir de la Malmaison, Georg Arend, General Jacqueminot, La Reine Victoria, Belle de Crecy, Cardinal de Richelieu, Coquettes des Blanches, and Louise Odier. After reading all the things said about MEA in the Rose Forum, I guess buying from them wasn't such a good idea. Too late, the garden is expanding.

My folks sent me a cutting they "rustled" from a pink climber. It's rooting in a ziplock in my cold-frame. Most of the cuttings I took from Beaufort, SC are still green. The Eden climber cuttings are still green, but most have lost their leaves. I'm still nursing the surviving hardwood rootings of Baronne Prevost, Var. de Bologna, New Dawn, and Marquise Bocella.

UPDATE: 4/21/97

First bloom from an established plant, Climbing Old Blush! Took pictures of it, as well as of Therese Bugnet and Cramoisi Superior. I'll post them as soon as I can.

Busy weekend in the yard. Did a lot of weeding. Cleared out an area for Cramoisi Superior and put it in along with some violets and dried-out Iris rhizomes. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for the Iris. Also transplanted a sick-looking Sombreuil from under a walnut tree to where I dug up a Holy Toledo. Mdm. Isaac Perriere and Cecile Brunner are doing great under the walnut tree, so maybe if I choose the right variety, I can get away with planting under it. I gave the Holy Toledo to the president of our local rose society chapter. He's going to put it into his girlfriend's new rose garden.

Attended the monthly meeting of local rose society chapter and was appointed to the committee that will choose and purchase some roses to fill in available spots in Mr. Elder's Rose Garden. We are considering putting in one or two English Roses, as well as a climber and some smaller bushes. I'm going to try and choose ones that I don't have so that I can get cuttings for my own garden. Speaking of Mr. Elder's Garden, Mary Wallace is already starting to bloom. The garden is really in great shape with a lot of buds ready to explode.

UPDATE: 4/16/97

Sprayed for blackspot for the first time last night. The first to show the affliction was Graham Thomas. Unfortunately, he's being shaded by the monstrously quick-growing R. Multiflora. Also pulled weeds from 11th St. bed. All that's left, in addition to the roses, are violets that are blooming and Star of Bethlehem that haven't yet. It looks like Reines des Violette will be the first to bloom. Amazing rose - it was the last to stop blooming last fall. Last weekend I put up two more climbing towers, for Sombreuil and the Mystery Climber next to Old Blush. I'm excited about all the buds. Some on roses that haven't bloomed before, like Souv. du Dr. Jamain and Rembrandt.

UPDATE: 4/7/97

Just got back from a trip to Beaufort, SC. What a wonderful place. Lady Bank's roses in bloom everywhere. Lots of noisettes, chinas, and teas in the gardens of the incredible ante-bellum homes. I went rose rustling one morning in the cemeteries that I could find. Came back with cuttings from five roses. Three were in bloom - 2 small, double reds, 1 single pink. I can't wait to find out what else I discovered. The foliage looks to be china or tea. Loriann, my wife, and I went shopping at some of the local nurseries. She bought me Therese Bugnet, pink rugosa, for my birthday present. It's going into the ground in place of the Lowe's Mystery Hybrid Tea. What a wonderful fragrance. We smelled it all the way home as it sat in the back of our station wagon.

UPDATE: 3/27/97

The rootings, all in all, seem to be holding their own in the cold frame. I misted them yesterday, and most are still green. Addtionally, I took some cuttings from my neighbor's Eden climber and started six to root in the cold frame. I'm attempting to improve or discover my rooting technique before my big rose rustlin' trip in June. I've got permission to take cuttings from old roses at several locations in Richmond. I need to make sure that the trip is a success. Fortunately, the person going with me, Jeremy Buckley, is a very successful "rooter". I put up a tower for Zepherine Drouhin to climb. It's made from three ten foot long, 3/4 inch diameter PVC pipes. I hammered them into the ground at the corners of a 1 foot triangle, and then tied the tops together with white insulated electrical wire. It will be interesting to see if it's stiff enough.

UPDATE: 3/24/97

I transplanted the hardwood cuttings that had been rooting over the winter. I was disappointed to find that they had very few, if any, roots. All the ones I transplanted had at least one leaf bud. I put them in individual pots in potting soil. Half of them I watered with water that had a small amount of "Root-one" in it, while the rest were given straight water. I placed all the pots in my cold frame on the north side of the house. They shouldn't get any direct sunlight there. I won't be surprised, though, if none of them make it. Next year, I'll make sure that I score the canes near the bottom and apply "Root-one" before I place them in the sand.

UPDATE: 3/21/97

Plans for the greenhouse were approved. You can see the basic design here. I'm trying to decide what to do with all the climbers (Cl. Old Blush, Sombreuil, Zepeherine Drouhin, 2 Mystery Climbers) and the rambler (Dorothy Perkins). In my rose ignorance of 2 years ago, I just planted them where there was room, with my only concern being not to place two of the same color next to each other. Now I've got these oddly spaced climbers that need to be trained up and/or on something. I've received some nice suggestions from my post on Gardenweb's Rose Forum, but nothing has hit me as being perfect yet.

UPDATE: 3/17/97

I planted the eight white Rugosa Hybrids (two each of Blanc Double de Coubert, Rosa Rugosa Alba Plena, Schneezwerg, and Souvenir de Philemon Cochet) that I received from Rosaerie at Bayfields. I was very impressed with the size of the plants, especially the R. Rugosa Alba Plenas. These plants were larger than some of my roses that were in the ground since last spring. I also transplanted very dead looking Lowe�s Mystery HT to the place where the even more dead looking Frau Karl Drushki used to be.

This winter I experimented with hardwood cuttings. I followed the directions in Ortho�s rose book, putting six to eight cuttings of nine different roses completely under damp sand. Lo and behold, I�m now getting some shoots. I carefully pushed the sand away the tops of the cuttings and found that six of the nine roses have got shoots on more than one cutting each. I�m leaving them alone for about a week more. Then comes the fun of removing the rootings from the sand without breaking any roots or shoots.

UPDATE: 3/14/97

The eight rugosa hybrids from Roseraie at Bayfields showed up today. I'll be putting them into the ground this weekend. All plants appear very healthy - many of them are big. I'm still waiting to see if the frost damaged Cramoisi Superior will recover. I purchased it from a local nursery, but it had an Antique Rose Emporium tag on it. I've repotted it into a large pot to see if it survives before I put it into the ground. Well, acutally, except for the rugosas, I'm not supposed to put any more roses in until I get a greenhouse built for the landscape director, my lovely wife. I've got plans that I've created for heptagonal (7 sided) greenhouse. I'll take the plans to the Board of Historic and Architectural Review on 3/17 for their approval. I'm trying to use the existing storm windows that I pulled down from our 1874 house when we re-painted. I'm also trying to keep the square footage under 150, so that I don't need to fuss with a building permit. That's the reason for the heptagon instead of the normal hex- or oct- agon.

UPDATE: 3/10/97

Everything came through our mild winter wonderfully. Everything except for Frau Karl Druschki and the Mystery HT that I got from Lowes. All the other roses are showing new leaves.

I�ve got eight white Rugosa�s - 2 each of Blanc Double de Coubert, R. Rugosa Alba Plena, Schneezwerg, and Souvenir de Philemon Cochet - coming in a few days. I�m going to use them to create a hedge along the one side of my garden. That means that I�ve got to eventually transplant Ferdinand Pichard and Gallows Purple. I�m going to transplant Ferdinand Pichard to where the ill-fated Frau Karl Druschki was. Gallows Purple will go in the as-yet-to-be-constructed rose beds around the as-yet-to-be-constructed greenhouse. The greenhouse is an April project that I�ll be doing with my dad.

I�ve got Dorothy Perkins growing up into a catalpa tree. Climbing Old Blush is climbing into a large privet. Sombreuil and Zepherine Drouhine will be climbing up separate 4x4s. I�ve pegged down Mdm. Isaac Perriere and Souv. du Dr. Jamain.

In the rose beds, I�ve planted allium and iris. Star of Bethlehem fills our yard, including the rose beds, every spring. I want to put in some more iris, but I just can�t find the time.

We purchased our 1874 Victorian mansion in 1992. Part of the fun of having an old house is finding out about its history. John W. Carroll, the millionaire that had our house built for his family, also had a number of other houses built in our neighborhood. Some of these were for his grown children. Working with the owners of some of these Carroll houses, we�ve researched the history of our homes. We�ve visited Lynchburg�s Old Court House Museum and looked at old maps, photos, etc. We�ve contacted previous occupants of the house and pick