My Love Affair With Roses

With the purchase of our house in June of 2002, I have finally been able to grow my own roses and garden. In one season, I have planted some 43 roses, either in the ground or in pots. About half are miniature roses and all but a very few of those are the unnamed grocery store minis which I have the utmost respect and love for after finding them surprisingly (to me!) hardy and floriferous.

With my second season well under way, I have about tripled my rose count. Most of these are still in pots, but more are being committed to The ground daily. I have added some own root roses to the mix and am eagerly looking forward to seeing how the do long term compared to their grafted counterparts. Unfortunately, I do not have any in both the grafted and not grafted variety, so I will not be able to directly compare apples to apples, so to speak.

Click the rose name for images!

About Face Abracadabra Alec's Red All Ablaze Aloha Alter Ego Always A Lady Amazing Grace aka Myriam Amber Queen - Moved on America Angel Face - seven! Apertif Arizona Auguste Renoir - Moved on Autumn Sunset - Moved on Bella'roma - Moved on Behold - x 2 Bibi Maizoon - Moved on Big Purple - Dwindled and pass ond. Black Jade Blue Bird Blue Moon - Moved on Bolero 2004 - Awesome fragrance! Bow Bells Brass Band Bride's Dream Buttercream Cabana Cal Poly Camden Cecile Brunner Centennial Star - Moved On Charisma Charlotte Chartreuse de Parme - died, replacement coming. Chattooga Cherish Chicago Peace Chihuly Christian Dior - Moved on Christopher Marlowe Chrysler Imperial - Moved on Cinnamon Delight Citrus Tease City of Carlsbad Color Magic - Passed on Comtesse de Provence Conundrum Crimson Bouquet - Passed on Crowd Pleaser - Had it, got rid of it, got it again Cupcake Day Breaker Deep Secret Della Reese - I had to get this one why??? Going Denver's Dream Disneyland - x2 Distant Drums Don Juan - loves me to ignore him, hates it if I baby him. Go figure. Double Delight - x2 Double Gold Dr. John Dickman - x 3 Dragon's Fire Earthquake - missing in action? Easy Going - moved on Eden Electric Blanket - Standard, moved on. Elle Elspeth Hannah - pass on. Eureka Europeana Falstaff - moved on due to scattered rebloom. Fairhope - x2 Fancy Pants Fire 'n' Ice - Standard, should be a mini flora Firefighter Fireworks Fragrant Cloud Fragrant Hour Fragrant Wave - Clean clean foliage. Warm spicey fragrance Frederick Mistral - TOO big - leaving as soon as I've the energy to hack him out! French Lace - x2 Front 'n' Center Gemini - x2 George burns - Grant's choice, first too bloom 2006. Happy little rose Geranium Red - passed on Gina Lollobrigida Gingersnap - x2, making way for two Sexy Rexy. Can't keep em all. Glamis Castle - Moving to Rosenut's home. Glory Be Glowing Amber - x2, omg what a mini! Gold Glow - long gone. Gold Medal - Grant's rose. Nice form but fades quickly. Golden Age Golden Celebration Golden Halo Golden Masterpiece - long gone. Good Morning America - Came with a surprise companion of Glowing Amber! Good Ol' Summertime Gourmet Popcorn Graham Thomas - x2, moving to Rosenut's home. Granada Gypsy Curiosa - like most Carlton's I put in the ground, this one has passed on. Pity, I loved it. Heart O'Gold Heather Austin Heirloom - Lost this one. Helmut Schmidt - Moved on. Henry Nevard High Society - a climber with gorgeous color, rebloom and HT form. What more can you say? Oh, yeah, it has moderate fragrance too. Honey Perfume Hot Cocoa - 3 bushes, one standard. You love it or you hate it. I love it and then some! Hot Princess - Can't wait for this own root stick to grow up! Hot Tamale - Love it so much I got two more! Incognito Indigo - jury still out. Its not grown since I stuck it in the ground six months ago. I'll give it til the fall shows to do *something*. Ingrid Bergman Innocence - Clean as a whistle, large clusters of perfect little white blooms. Intrigue Irish Hope Irresistible Jack Frost - long gone. Hated it. Janice Kellog Johann Strauss Jubilee Celebration - Still a tiny first year baby, but she was part of the collection of Austins that won me a District Challenge Class!!! Julia Child - luv yellows. Ruffled yellow blooms on a floribunda. If she's a profuse bloomer she'll be a winner! Just Joey - Down to just one but omg is this one every a prime specimen! Always with new canes and massive flushes. Kaleidescope Kismet - x4, got four by accident, managed to order two twice. I'm not sorry. Gorgeous blooms. Lined the center of my front bed with them. Key Largo - Oh, how I miss thee. Lady Eowyn - Went to pick up a Janice Kellog early from the local rose society auction collection and spotted this massive 'mini', freshly pruned, no leaves, just a dozen or more foot plus nearly thumb thick canes in a pot. Had to ahve it. And omg the blooms are gorgeous! Lady Jane Grey - Currently MIA in the garden. Waiting for a few to bloom to id them as the gardener's nicked all my tags from Harlane. Lagerfeld Lasting Love Lavaglut - Lost to cane borers, darn it. Lavender Lace - passed on. Lawrence of Arabia - passed on Lemon Meringue - moved on Lemon Spice - Oh, the smell!!! Leonardo da Vinci - Hacked this baby out. Huge with few blooms. No thanks. Leonidas - Met his maker. Let Freedom Ring - aka 2004 Better Homes & Garden Rose. Nice form! Really pleased with this one. Lillian Austin Lime Sublime Limelight Live Wire - cute little rose. Currently MIA with the lost Harlane tags, think its gone, but waiting for some blooms. Livin' Easy Louise Clements Louise Estes - own root start, but mildewed with no other mildew nearby. Think this one's going. Love & Peace - Gorgeous Love Potion - Passed on Lover's Lane - Love this rose. Suffered from a bit of random hacking from the gardener. If it dies, I'm getting another one, no questions asked. Luscious Lucy - brand new, no comment yet. Margo Koster - loved Mothersday, had to have one of the other sports. Love the salmon color. Marie Pavie - got this thornless beauty to hide the hose bib. She's slowly getting big enough to do it. Marilyn Monroe - now x2 and considering a third. Talk about a show 'banker'. Marmalade Skies - This is one of those roses you are constantly amazed by. Its the second largest floribunda I've ever met (wide where Hot Cocoa is tall). Blooms non stop in gorgeous deep salmon clusters. The blooms themselves are huge. 5" easy. Mellow Yellow Memorial Day Mellow Yellow - Doesn't fade. Seen better specimens than mine.Jury is out. Memphis King - Fell in love with a friend's. My two starts are *ugly* so far. Hope they turn around soon. Miami Moon - standard. Learning to hate standards. Especially the little short ones. Would have loved this one a lot better as a 36" or 48" standard. Midnight Blue - x2. Magnificent purple. Fragrant. Enough said. Mr. Lincoln - Moved on. Miss Flippins Modern Magic - Finally found the perfect rose to sandwich between two Trumpeters!!! Molineux Mons. Tillier - Love the colors on these blooms! Moonberry - Um. It may still be out there but I've no idea where. Probably won't remain even if it is. Mother's Rose - Its a standard. Sigh. Love the rose, hate the tree. Gotta propogate this one. Mothersday - Oh how I love this rose. It isn't exactly tiny in my climate, but omg anything with 1.5 x 1.5 foot clusters is a keeper in my book! Mountie Nemesis - x2, new MiniFlora from Rosemania. Neon Cowboy Neptune New Day News - MIA? Night Owl - 2007 general release, climber, purple, cluster flowered semi-double and drop dead gorgeous! Oklahoma - passed on. Olympiad Opening Night Orange Sunblaze Oregold Osiria Our Lady of Guadalupe - MIA Outrageous Outta the Blue Overnight Scentsation Pacific Serenade Pam Tillis Pat Austin - x2, both MIA. Peace - An old bush from my mother's garden. Perfect Moment - x2, swear these things never stop blooming. Perfume Delight - moved on. Perfume Tiger - x2, not as stinky as I expected. Phoenix - MIA Pink Peace Pizzazz Playboy Providence Pure Mystery Pure Poetry Purple Heart - Moved on, blew too fast for me in my heat. Purple Passion - Moved on. Just couldn't bring myself to bother digging a hole for it. Queen Mary 2 - Had to have a Q. No seriously, during a particularly bad blight of Powdery Mildew and even blackspot (in AZ the latter is like a foreign concept), this was one of two clean clean roses. Had to get it. Radiant Perfume Rainbow Sorbet Raindrops - Currently so sick with Powdery Mildew it may get chucked. Raspberry Punch - what a gorgeous surprise! A J&P mini with soem real form! Reconciliation Red Cascade - This one always looks like it wants to sprout more leaves and doesn't. Don't think it likes me. Red Eden - Seems to love the heat. Red Intuition - x2, red on red striped florist rose. Seems to translate to the garden with aplomb. Red Minimo - Don't know how this survived the past year's neglect in a pot with scattered at best waterings through the summer, but it did. Tough little rose. Red Scentsation - Amazing fragrance for a miniature. Beautiful red color, not 'exhibition form', but who the hell cares with a scent like that? Remember Me Rio Samba - moved on. Robert Clements - Dark shiney foliage to die for. Salmon blend blooms with a slight heart of white. Ronald Reagan Rose Rosarium Uetersen - moved on. No patience to wait and see if she'd ever give me more than a handful of blooms at a time. Rose de Rescht Rose Rhapsody - Own root start. A long way from being a rose. Route 66 - I wish this was available outside California still. Its worth begging someone in CA to send one to you. Or travelling there jut to get one. Magnifique! Royal Amber Royal Amethyst Royal Dane Royal Gold - moved on. Rusty - What a surprise! Ordered from Wayside to get Terracotta (so far, I don't know why!) and ordered this just cause it said it was russett and I like russett roses. Surprise! Its striped! its semi double and it clusters and its gorgeous!!! Safari - Not as pretty as that picture on Heirloom's site. Doubt this one stays. Salute Sam Trivitt - The first Judge I ever clerked for. I hugged a man with a rose named after him! Had to have the rose too. Santa Claus Scent From Above - Its back there somewhere. When I find it, I'll let you know. Scentimental - Blooms like mad. Love it. Sceptre'd Isle - My favorite of all my roses. Masses of smallish old fashioned cupped blooms. Doesn't sulk over a hard prune. Myrrh scent, but I've come to appreciate it. Sexy Rexy - x2. Perfect form. Large clusters. There's a bush under those blooms??? Shi-Un Shocking Blue - A lovely florbibunda. A bit of mildew but not too bad considering its up against Tropical Sunset, easily my worst PM magnet in my garden! Simply Marvelous Sleeping Beauty - x2, salmony pink. Love the color. Snow Ruby - met its demise. Social Climber Soroptimist International - x2, MiniFlora, show rose Souvenir de la Malmaison Special Occasion - Hmmm. Don't even remember this one. St. Patrick - x3, what can I say. I love yellow roses and this is *the* yellow rose. Stairway to Heaven Star of the Nile Starina Stars 'n' Stripes - someone forgot to tell this rose its supposed to be *small*. Sterling Silver Summer Fashion - x 3. I'd have more but I haven't found new ones now that they are out of patent. Sundance - x2, one's a standard, though and will probably disappear. Sunrise at Heirloom - what a pleasant surprise. After a slow slow start and thinking I'd lost it, it turns out to be a nicely shaped happy bloomer. Sunset Celebration Sunsprite - left but will be coming back real soon now. Superstition - Florist rose. Very ruffled petals, bit deper purple than Angel Face. Can cluster. Sweet Chariot Sweet Diana Table Mountain - Not a rose I thought I wanted til I saw a quite mature full blooming one. Hope mine doesn't get quite tht big. LOL. Tammy Darlene Tamora Tangerine Twist - Impulse buy. Still not sure its staying Teddy Bear - Love russett. What else can I say? Terracotta - See Teddy Bear. Tess of the d'Ubervilles - This is going to bloom again in what year??? The Generous Gardener - Nice, but too pale for my tastes (yeah, I knew, but I thought I'd try it). The NOT Dark Lady tentatively id'd as Corvedale. I think this is still in the back. The Impressionist - Moved on. The McCartney Rose - OMG the fragrance! The Poet - Hmmm. Long gone. The Prince - Wish he bloomed more. Gorgeous. This is the Day - Not quite russett, not quite red. Somewhere in between and gorgeous. Tiffany - Errr. Um. MIA? Tinffany Lynn Tigress - Long Gone Tipsy Imperial Concubine - Had to have it for the name. Actually quite like the blooms. Titanic - Own root start from Heirloom. Still small but I've seen the blooms on the show table. Gorgeous. Tropical Sunset - My worst PM magnet. Going... going.... Tropicana - Moved on. Trumpeter - x2, many do mine like to grow and bloom. Local folks say mine is huge for a Trumpeter. Go figure. Tuscan Sun - Not a particularly remarkable rose, but it blooms and looks pretty with the group its in so it stays. Ty - New mini from Nor'East. Cute little yellow blooms with form. Typhoo Tea - an 'ok' rose that has moved on. Veldfire (aka Sunsation) - moved on. Velvet Fragrance - x2, love the scent. Love the full puffy blooms. Veteran's Honor - x2, A great red, no scent, but awesome form. Victorian Spice Vino Rosso Vista Voluptuous! VooDoo Weeping China Doll Whisky Mac - Good scent, loosey goosey blooms. Moved on. Whoopi - Cute mini, occasional excellent form. Wild Thing Wildfire William Shakespeare - As reputed, not the best Austin around. Someday I'll try WS2000. X-rated - Gotta love the name. Gorgeous mini. Pairs well with Gemini. 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