Northern Gardener magazine writer visits today!

The winds were howling and the temps were in the single digits when Eric Johnson arrived at my doorstep today. Eric is the author who was assigned to do an article about me and my rose growing in Minnesota. I shared my favorite varieties and tips for growing roses in the North. The article is scheduled for the May-June edition of the Northern Gardener magazine.

A History of the Fragrant Rose

This is another book I finished reading this week, it is by Allen Patterson. It was published in Great Britain in 2004. This book has reproductions of many engravings and paintings that compliment the text. The author covers topics with chapter titles named" Rosa Mundi: roses in the Medieval World, The Wild Rose Tamed, and The Rose Consumed"to name only a few. The final chapter is titled" The Making of 'Peace' : the biography of a rose." I learned several interesting thing from this book but my favorite has an illustration of how the sepals are arranged in the unopened bud of R. canina. I will have to scan the illustration so you can see it also. It is explained by Professor W. T. Stearn in the title 'The Five brethren of the rose: an old botanical riddle'

In a summer's day, in sultry weather
Five brethren were born together
Two had beards and two had none
And the other had half of one.

Winter reading

The past few weeks I have been rose gardening through books from the Hennepin County library. One that I especially enjoyed is R is for ROSE by Carolyn Parker. Carolyn, the author and illustrator, took the letters of the alphabet and expanded it to a 208 page manuscript that I did not want to end. Each rose from Alba, rosa rugosa to Zephirine Drouhin has personal photos and comments about the rose. The book demonstrates Carolyns' artistic photographic ability and success as a rosarian and a rose arranger. You can tell by the quality of the photographs that this book was written over several growing seasons. It was published in 2005 and is a book that I want to add to my personal library.

We knew it would get cold again

One degree. Five degrees. Wild weather swings. All perfectly normal and expected for this time of year, I guess. Last night my friends at the Twin Cities Rose Club gathered for our monthly meeting to hear Kim, one of our members who is a chemistry teacher at Centruy College, talk about the Chemistry of Roses. I am not a science person, but I enjoyed learning the basics and seeing the beautiful roses that were alternated with important facts about chemistry. This time of year here, it is fun just to get together with other rose growers, enjoy the photos from last summer's gardens and dream about the next season. What else can a rose gardener do when the weather is five degrees?

As The Tumor Turns

As The Tumor Turns

This crazy weather has me worried

50 degrees, 30 degrees, 40 degrees now predicted10 degrees. This is a recipe for disaster when it comes to long term survival of the tender roses in my garden. It's times like this when I wonder why I try to grow tender roses in a climate where roses do not want to survive. I do all the heroic things to increase their chances for survival, then nature throws in wild swings of temperature that you try to plan for. Time will tell the effects of such variations.

Global warming or just a warm cycle?

The ground is not frozen today on January 5 and the weather feels like early March. This should be the coldest part of the year and we have a range between 30-45 degrees. It will be interesting to see the impact this weather has on the roses. Glossy rose catalogs arrive on a daily basis now to tempt the color starved eye. I know I will purchase too many and expand the collection again in 2007.

Where is a coyote when you need one?

This is not a good sign.

Freshly fallen snow, the first of the season that has been a drought year and what do I see? Upon closer inspection I noticed that the critter has been munching on my prized roses. The bush on the right is a "tasty" Canadian shrub rose 'John Davis'. You can even see the droppings if you look closely! :-(

Most of my roses are either buried or somewhat protected from the invasion of the winter rabbits. These plastic collars are filled with bagged top soil that I bought on clearance for 99 cents a bag. I do this to protect the plants from the quick change of the freeze/thaw cycle. I think it really works. I put the collars up when the ground begins to freeze and then fill them so the added soil will also freeze quickly. The white color reflects the sun seems to lessen the damaging effects of the January thaw.

New Year, New Dreams

With snow on the ground and freezing temperatures outside, one might wonder why I am thinking about rose gardening at this time. Because I have time to think and rose gardening it is my passion. I tend to about 150 roses and I am planning to expand that number by at least 40 or 50 more this year.