Raking marathon

For a week or so it’s been manifest: we can no longer fake it but must start to rake it. 

Summer is certainly gone. It is about time to keep the rakes at hand and carry the garden furniture to the barn for the winter.

Except for the white chairs in the yard. They are of metal coated with enamel and one of the longest-lasting items I’ve ever found at an online auction. I’m afraid I used to be a bit of an addict, practically a pro at searching for fabulous finds for this place.

Porch standards

My modest rose tour ends by the porch table where Jack used to have his bed whenever he was outdoors but we weren’t. He slept there practically every summer night and also quite some time in the afternoons all through the colder season.

I bought this bright red standard rose last year keeping it in a pot on the porch until very late in the autumn. Then I took it to the glassed-in veranda for the winter. We are keeping the temperature several degrees cooler there than elsewhere in the house for such purposes as the barn is too cold and the cellar too humid to overwinter plants in.

It survived perfectly and is flourishing on the porch again. The only improvement I’m planning to carry out this wintering season is that I will prune the rose earlier to ensure earlier and more abundant blooming next summer.

As for the porch, no matter what amendments I made in our eyes it will never again meet its former standard of joy now that its most frequent occupant is no longer with us.

Roses for Jack 5/5.

Using pink

In my thirties, I was quite a pink lady. I suppose my wardrobe will always contain some bluish pink items because those hues compliment my fair skin tone. So it is obvious there should be some pink shrub roses in my garden, more specifically some pale pink ones as there were some growing outside my window when I was a teenager.

I don’t think a shrub rose could be any more romantic than this Bonica 82 (var. Meidomonac). Well, perhaps if it had a stronger scent, one that you could distinguish without having to stick your nose into the blossom.

Nevertheless, this is a very hardy variety guaranteed to bloom until night frost. I am keeping a flower or two in a tiny vase in both the bathrooms.

Roses for Jack 4/5.

Climbing success

The Pink Showers climbing rose has been one of the happy accidental successes in my very amateurish garden. It is just three years old but again it has been blooming throughout the summer cascading its large and showy flowers by the side door. It still holds a few clusters of blossoms and buds.

All the above photos were taken in late September and all the below ones just two days ago.

Even though my body doesn’t fully agree the plants are shouting it loud: we certainly have had it mild this season.

Roses for Jack 3/5.

From pot to bed and back

This is another of my roses I don’t know the name of. I got this potted rose from my son on Mother’s Day, which is the second Sunday in May around here. When it started to show some serious signs of no longer feeling happy indoors I thought why not give it a try in the garden and planted it in a flowerbed.

Amazingly, it immediately started to sprout a fresh set of buds and was blooming until very recently. I should have known he is not the kind of a son who would choose from the ‘Mother’s Day selection’.

The blossoms were remarkably long lasting and gorgeous like cut flowers you would buy at a florist’s. I must make sure to store this rose up in a pot through the winter. I am hoping I might still find the original pot from the pile in the barn to be able to check the name of this lovely rather dark red variety.

Roses for Jack 2/5.