Maandelijks archief: november 2013

Planting time

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The first ‘new’ ordered roses arrived this week and Friday was a perfect sunny day for planting. After clearing the plot by removing the runner beans and lots of weeds I found a nice place for ‘Précoce’ and ‘Mme Clémence Beauregard’. For the white moss rose ‘Blanche Double’ I found a good place near the purple ‘Cardinal de Richelieu’ and the soft pink Hybrid rugosa ‘mme Ballu’.

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When planting I noticed that the hips wich where still on ‘Blanche Double’  where very smooth and that the plant itself is very thorny; not at all like a moss rose, but more like a Centifolia (or like the Autumn Damask ‘Quatre Saisons’). Now I’m afraid that this rose sadly is not the real ‘Blanche Double’. Maybe it is the Centifolia ‘Unique Blanche’, only that is something I will probably discover next year, when the plant will be in flower.

The owner of the nursery where I bought this rose, said it is a rare rose, which she had for the first time. When she took the rose out for me, she also noticed that the hips looked like a Portland or a Damask. That could be normal, because there are mosses, that have damask genes. She decided to watch this rose, because she is especially interested in Portlands and Damask. So now there are two ‘detectives’ watching this rose next year.

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Smooth hips and lots of thorns; this is most likely not ‘Blanche Doube’

 

Harvesting seeds

Today I’ve started with an experiment and harvested my very first rose seeds. This week I’ve collected a few ripe hips from the moss rose ‘Général Kléber’ and the gallica rose ‘La Belle Sultane’. I have never ever sown roses from seed, but I thought it would be nice to give it a try. I’m especially curious about possible seedlings from the moss rose. Who knows, maybe one of them will be a new moss rose.

When I opened the hips to harvest the seeds, I was suprised about the size of the seeds. I don’t know why, but I always imagened that they would be much smaller (a bit like tomato seeds), but actually the seeds are quite large and easy to handle. Next, I cleaned the seeds by placing them between a folded, wet scrubby sponge and rub the sponge together with the seeds.  After that  they where put on a wet paper towel, and next in a plastic bag. Now the seeds remain for at least eight weeks in the refrigerator. Hopefully in a few months I can post updates about the progress.

hip La Belle Sultane

hip La Belle Sultane

seeds La Belle Sultane (before cleaning)

seeds La Belle Sultane (before cleaning)

seeds Général Kléber (before cleaning)

seeds Général Kléber (before cleaning)

seeds Général Kléber (after cleaning)

seeds Général Kléber (after cleaning)

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seeds La Belle Sultane

More moss roses

Although space is limited in my garden, this week I again ordered some more new (old) roses to expand my collection of moss roses. From Germany I will be receiving: ‘Précoce’, ‘Blanche Double’ and ‘Mme Clémence Beauregard’. In the Netherlands more roses from rose nursery De Bierkreek are heading  my way. They are: ‘Lucie Duplessis‘, ‘Marie de Blois’, ‘Mme Édouard Ory’, ‘Pelisson’, ‘Soupert et Notting’, ‘Zoë’ and ‘Centifolia Muscosa’. My collection of moss roses is starting to grow rapidly, but is sadly not nearly as large as I would like. I need more planting ground :)

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Précoce (picture taken at the Rosarium Sangerhausen in June 2013)