Tagged With: Flowering Shrub

Ripe Gooseberries

Photograph taken on Monday, June 22, 2020 by Henry
Ripe Gooseberries

Ripe Gooseberries

The gooseberries (Ribes uva-crispa) are just about ripe. The squerrals are eating them as they ripen up and I don’t think we’re actually going to get much of a harvest. That’s our own fault, because we haven’t protected them and aren’t going out each morning to pick them as they ripen up. I don’t mind, terribly, although I have been picking and eating them when I do go out. They are just the right combination of sweet and tart. If I had a bit of land and used some of it for vegetable gardening, I think I’d plant a row of these and put a net over them. I might put a net over this one next year, although it’s against the fence and that might make it tricky.

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Rose ‘The Poet’s Wife’

Photograph taken on Thursday, June 25, 2020 by Henry
Rose ‘The Poet’s Wife’

Rose ‘The Poet’s Wife’

In April I ordered three David Austin Roses. They arrived on May 3 and because they were bare root, I put them in a pot until I could get around to planting them in the ground. I planted them two weeks later on May 17. This is the first of them to bloom. It’s called ‘The Poet’s Wife’ and it’s not clear for whom it is named. As you can see, it’s a yellow rose and along with the other two, I’m hoping it will do well in our garden. It’s supposed to grow to about four feet tall, although measurements like that are generally very specific but in practice fall within a very broad range. We’ll see.

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Rose ‘Munstead Wood’

Photograph taken on Sunday, July 05, 2020 by Henry
Rose ‘Munstead Wood’

Rose ‘Munstead Wood’

The second of my three new David Austin roses has started to bloom. It’s called ‘Munstead Wood’ and as you can see, it’s a very double, old fashioned bloom. What you cannot get from the photo is the fragrance, which is very strong. I had to put some hardware cloth around this and one other because the rabbits were biting off the buds and eating them. Now that it’s protected, it’s going to town, with quite a few buds getting ready to open. Of course it’s still a relatively small plant, less than two feet tall, but I’m expecting it to be large enough that it provides a nice point of color in the middle of the garden.

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Rose ‘Boscobel’

Photograph taken on Thursday, July 30, 2020 by Henry
Rose ‘Boscobel’

Rose ‘Boscobel’

This is the third of my three new roses planted this year. This isn’t its first bloom although it did take longer than the other two did to bloom. That has more to do with the rabbits nipping off the buds than anything else. It now has a hardware cloth fence around it and it’s doing much better. This one is planted near the back fence and should be visible from the house once it gets a bit taller. I have high hopes for all three of these roses and was glad to get them planted back in mid-May.

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Rose ‘Perle d’Or’

Photograph taken on Friday, August 28, 2020 by Henry
Rose ‘Perle d’Or’

Rose ‘Perle d’Or’

I’ve posted photos of this rose before but it deserves to be shown a few times each year. It’s a small China rose called ‘Perle d’Or’, bred by Joseph Rambaux in 1884. It has a wonderful, fairly strong fragrance that sits in the air outside our front door (where the rose is) and we are often treated to is as we go out or come in. I don’t think it’s been without at least a few blooms since it started in May. Some years it’s hurt by a particularly cold spell but we’ve had relatively mild winters the last couple years so it’s doing particularly well now.

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Rose ‘Munstead Wood’

Photograph taken on Wednesday, September 09, 2020 by Henry
Rose ‘Munstead Wood’

Rose ‘Munstead Wood’

It rained today and I didn’t really get to go out until pretty late. The water on this rose, (the David Austin rose ‘Munstead Wood’) was pretty so I took a few pictures of that. This rose was only planted this spring and it’s doing quite well. The flowers are now up above the top of the hardware cloth fence that I put around it to keep the rabbits off. The flowers are now blooming just below the level of the black-eyed Susans and soon they will be above them. I’m really looking forward to the display we get from this next year.

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Camellia x ‘Winter’s Star’

Photograph taken on Thursday, October 15, 2020 by Henry
Camellia x ‘Winter's Star’

Camellia x ‘Winter’s Star’

I bought this camellia, called ‘Winter’s Star’, from Camellia Forest and planted it along the fence at the north end of our back garden. It’s doing well and is coming into bloom. This is a cross between Camellia oleifera and Camellia hiemalis ‘Showa-no-sakae’ and as you can see, it has single, pink flowers and is a fall bloomer. It’s only three or so feet tall at this point, but it should get large enough to be a really striking fall feature in that part of the yard. I bought and planted two other camellias at the same time. These others are both C. japonica and are called ‘Hokkaido Red’ and ‘April Rose’, both spring bloomers.

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Pink Hydrangea

Photograph taken on Wednesday, November 04, 2020 by Henry
Pink Hydrangea

Pink Hydrangea

When fresh, the flowers on this hydrangea are mostly white with a touch of pink on the edges. As they dry out, however, some of the petals deep in color to a dark pink, bordering on red. It’s not as showy as some flowers and overall, the plant is moving into winter mode. Nevertheless, the color of the petals is quite nice, especially when the late afternoon or early evening sun is shining on them. The deer have done considerable damage to this plant over the years but it keeps fighting back and had a good run this year. Hopefully that will continue.

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Rose ‘Perle d’Or’

Photograph taken on Monday, November 16, 2020 by Henry
Rose ‘Perle d’Or’

Rose ‘Perle d’Or’

The forecast said we’d have a freeze overnight tonight so I took some photos of this rose, outside our front door, figuring that they would be the last of the year. As it turns out (I know because I’m posting this two weeks after the fact) it didn’t get down below about 38°F, so I was a bit premature. Nevertheless, we’re likely to have a real freeze before too long, so I’m not upset. As you can see, although it’s the middle of November, this plant is still going strong. I have to say, it was definitely a good buy.

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Camellia japonica ‘Hokkaido Red’

Photograph taken on Monday, December 07, 2020 by Henry
Camellia japonica 'Hokkaido Red'

Camellia japonica ‘Hokkaido Red’

This spring I planted three camellias. One was a fall blooming hybrid between C. oleifera and C. hiemalis ‘Showa-no-sakae’ called ‘Winter’s Star’ (see Thursday, October 15, 2020). The other two are spring blooming Camellia japonica varieties. One of them, however, has a bloom that’s opened a bit early. It’s called ‘Hokkaido Red’. My understanding is that it was selected from plants grown from seed collected on the northernmost parts Hokkaido, Japan and grown at the National Arboretum. It’s supposed to be one of the most cold tolerant C. japonica and also blooms prolifically over a long period in the early spring. It’s a relatively slow growing shrub and of course mine was only planted this year, so it will be a while before it’s of any stature. But it looks very promising.

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Rose ‘Perle d’Or’

Photograph taken on Friday, May 21, 2021 by Henry
Rose ‘Perle d’Or’

Rose ‘Perle d’Or’

It’s rose time. This little China rose, ‘Perle d’Or’, bred by Joseph Rambaux in 1884, is putting on a fabulous show right now. Especially on warm, humid days like we’ve been having, the fragrance hangs in the air all around the bush. You don’t need to get close, it’s wonderful. This first flush is, of course, the best we get from it all year. Nevertheless, it will have flowers on it pretty reliably until well into the fall. It’s not a big bush but it’s as big as it’s ever been and it probably needs to be pruned back a bit, but certainly not right now.

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Vitex agnus-castus

Photograph taken on Saturday, July 03, 2021 by Henry
Vitex agnus-castus

Vitex agnus-castus

We’ve talked off and on about getting a chastetree (Vitex agnus-castus). The question we haven’t answered yet is where we’d put it. I wouldn’t mind cutting down the holly that’s growing near the intersection of our front walk and driveway and putting it there, but so far, that’s just me. It would be a big change and for a little while it would make the area look comparatively empty. I think it’s worth it, frankly. I’m not a big fan of holly trees, especially when I’m outdoors barefoot and step on the leaves. Hollies are evergreen, of course, and the robins do like the berries in the winter, but those are the only real assets, as far as I’m concerned. The holly tree is a native plant, of course, but we’d have to change a lot if that was going to be a reason for growing something. It does bloom, it’s true, but the flowers are nothing compared to this. The Vitex flowers are small, but they are fragrant and are lavender to pale violet, attracting bees and butterflies in great abundance. I’m a fan of bees and butterflies.

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Rose ’Dr. W. Van Fleet’

Photograph taken on Sunday, May 28, 2023 by Henry
Rose ’Dr. W. Van Fleet’

Rose ’Dr. W. Van Fleet’

A few years ago, my cousin Lyn gave me a rooted cutting of this rose from the plant growing behind his house in North Carolina. It came to him from one belonging to Virginia, whose husband Archie was Lyn’s grandmother’s (and my grandfather’s) first cousin. Virginia gave a cutting of the rose to Lyn’s mother and Lyn took a cutting from that. It may have belonged to Archie’s mother before he and Virginia lived in the house. I don’t know for sure but since it is almost exactly like the rose ’New Dawn’ except that it only blooms once, I’m pretty sure it is ’Dr. W. Van Fleet’, of which ’New Dawn’ was a sport, discovered by Somerset Rose Nursery in New Jersey in 1930. As you can see, it is making itself at home on our back fence, and doing quite well.

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