Delayed Gratification
Comments (6) A bare-root Rose de Rescht - ugh!! But, there is at least a tiny sign of life (see the little red shoots)
One of the tasks I accomplished these past few weeks was ordering and planting my new roses. For any interested gardeners out there I ordered:
- From David Austin: Mme Alfred Carriere, Roseraie de l’Hay, Graham Thomas, and Rose de Rescht.
- From High Country Roses: Pat Austin, Ballerina, Louise Odier, Buff Beauty, Henry Hudson, and Frau Dagmar Hartopp.
Being an extreme nerd, I research extensively just about any project that I undertake. Last summer I bought some rose books (see bottom of post for titles) and tried to find suitable roses for my conditions. I searched for some shade tolerance (due to all my Ponderosa Pines), good disease resistance (I have too many other needy creatures to mother without fussing over roses as well), and decent repeat bloom (if I am going to all this trouble, I don’t want to have just one show of flowers per year). After nearly a year of reading and note-taking, I came up with the selection above.
I figure that one example of each rose should be an interesting experiment. I will see what does well and what does not and can replant accordingly if necessary.
The only problem is that the David Austin roses were sent as bare-root roses and thus require a lot of imagination to visualize the beauties they will (hopefully) become!
Much of gardening involves delayed gratification which is not really my forte. I don’t mind hard work, but I like results…and I like them NOW. Therefore I am not sure why I like gardening so much. I guess because the results are usually very much worth the wait.
Plus, I have a good imagination and can look at my wooded lot seeing not trees and rocks and lots of dry dirt, but an English rose garden, misty with dew. OK. I know my piece of high-elevation Arizona forest will never be a dewy English, cottage garden. But, I can always hope!
A more hopeful sight, these roses were shipped in pots and look like real roses already, albeit small. This one is Buff Beauty.
Ballerina
Books that helped me:
Themocracy