A noun. A verb. A blog.
The 50-year-old Rose Garden in the Royal Botanical Gardens’ Hendrie Park has had a 21st-century makeover. Gone are the hybrid tea roses – which are always intensive-care patients, but particularly so after Ontario’s cosmetic pesticides ban. Instead, the 2-acre garden has been completely reinvented, from the soil chemistry upward. Designed in consultation with sustainable rose garden […]
Gorgeous, creamy and scented Rosa ‘Windermere’ from David Austin Today, I’m grateful for this lovely ‘Windermere’ rose, sent to me to trial and planted in spring 2015. Ultimately growing about a meter tall and wide, this rose easily fits into the Microgarden. And, unlike some David Austin roses I’ve tried, the heavy-headed flower doesn’t sag. It’s […]
A Rose by any other name… would be much happier. Or so our daughter says. Our nearly-summer-solstice Gift Child dislikes her second name, Rose – given because their bloom is almost timed to her birth. Yet, each birthday, I run out to gather the first-blown rose on the vine for her birthday bouquet. Now that […]
Roses extend all along the fence. All driveways should be this lucky. Some gardens simply stun you, particularly when they sneak up on you unawares. I stumbled upon this garden gem while walking my dog the other day. Bored with the same old route, I’d taken a back laneway to see where it would lead. […]
What a glorious day. It’s a gift to every father in Toronto – wrapped up in roses, which are blooming their heads off all over the city. Happy Father’s Day, gentlemen! Nature is telling you (and each of us) to stop and smell the roses. Take pleasure in these small moments: the gift of the […]
Rust! I have rust. For the first time ever, rust on my roses. Not on my tough-as-old-boots Rosa ‘New Dawn’, but on my I-had-such-high-hopes-but-it-seems-they’re-coming-to-naught David Austin rose, R. ‘William Morris.’ Rust is a fungal disease, which spreads by spores. Sometimes, rust on roses is co-hosted by junipers, so I’ll have to inspect the tree in […]
My Rosa ‘New Dawn’ is not only beautiful, she’s a tough customer. I’ve written about her before. Not many climbing roses put on a show with about a half day of sun. She does. But every couple of years at this time, when the buds show signs of life, she does need to be wrassled […]
This summer of 2009, my Rosa ‘New Dawn’ has put out a bumper crop of new shoots. Typically, in August, this climbing rose has three or four long stems of new growth. This year, at least a dozen have shot their wands to the sky. Lucky me. Really. This means my arbour is gifted with […]
To all our neighbours south of the longest friendly border in the world, I wish you a happy Independence Day. Here to celebrate with me is Rosa ‘Fourth of July’, complete with broad stripes and bright stars. All you need to complete the picture is a blue sky. And, as it’s a climber, that might not […]
It has been a wet few days. The roses have been slurping up that water and their growing tips and buds are nice and juicy. Mmmmm, say the bugs, the rose buffet is now open! Not for long, bugs. First, meet the leafroller – larva of one of a number of common moths. Leafrollers produce […]
Here’s what I was going to write: Don’t toss your banana peels into the Green Bin (or even the compost pile). Instead, chop them up and sprinkle them around your roses, to give the roses a good, organic snack of potassium. I cut mine into bite-sized pieces and apply directly to the soil. The peels […]
Rose pictured above is the “New Dawn” climber, one of the best performing climbing roses in our climate. These instructions are based on the step-by-step instructions provided at Pickering Nurseries, one of Canada’s best rose growers, supplying a huge variety of bare-root roses. Their planting guide in PDF form is downloadable here. These instructions will […]