The Story of a Rose on Both Sides of the Ocean

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet."

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

-Shakespeare

About six years ago, anticipating a roadtrip vacation to Maine from our home in Cincinnati, I saved up many pennies and bought my first SLR camera. (For those who don't know SLR, it means Single Lens Reflex, which means what the photographer sees behind the lens is also the same image captured by the camera, with no delay. Or the big kind with detachable lenses...) This SLR was nothing fancy--actually I even bought at Target, but I squeaked by with enough money leftover to buy a decent macro lens to attach to it. I had always dreamed of a having camera to capture what I saw, and the trip to Maine was the perfect opportunity to give more serious photography a try.

The weather in Maine couldn't have been better the week we were there-- brilliant skies, azure sea pounding up against beaten rocks, whitewashed lighthouses sparkling in the sun. This photo of Portland Head Light is one of my first favorites.

Portland Head Light, Portland, Maine

One misty morning, I captured a photograph of the intensely fragrant Rugosa roses which thrive amongst the Seaside rocks.

Coastal Maine Rugosa Rose

Ever since that photograph and that trip, I have become captivated with photography and the ability to capture the world that I see, to share. And also, I became a fan of the resilient roses doused in heady fragrance, the Rugosas.

A Rugosa, just on the other side of our Prague fence

Since moving to Prague, Czech Republic, last summer, I noticed many unruly roses growing wild in the vacant land surrounding our home. And this week, I discovered just what those roses are: Rugosas. Even now as I type, windows and doors wide open (as the air-conditioner-less Europeans do) I can smell the lusty fragrance lingering on the breeze, from the Rugosas next door.

Czech Rugosa Rose

Though I also enjoy cultivated roses, the finicky delicate ones which unfurl in passionate spirals, I must admit to my hope to be like the Rugosas-- those who can bloom and thrive despite difficult growing conditions, on both sides of the Ocean ...

By the way ... my website has just emerged from a redesign and updating. I'd love to have you stop by, and would also love to hear what you think. http://www.jenniferlynking.com/  Thanks!

Starting the Conversation: What plant / flower do you appreciate for its durable disposition? Do you have a favorite "difficult to grow" flower?

To Delight in a Rose

Given the state of the all current news (sour) and the economy (abysmal), and given the fact that outside my window as I write this, snow falls atop inches more of snow, I have to write about something colorful, something beautiful, and something that lifts my spirits (as I hope it does yours)—roses. Ah, yes, roses … life should be a beautiful bouquet of roses. Especially around this time of year, when the ground and everything surrounding it appears dead and brown, and the snow washes everything clean and white, and our eyes forget the riches of Nature’s beauty in the color that spring so lavishly brings. Yes, roses.

The roses I’d like to share are no ordinary roses. These roses are … my favorites, which mean these rosebushes are ones which have withstood the tests and trials of time in my backyard garden in Zone 6 Southwest Ohio. It also means these beauties have outlasted one very feisty old dog and her tricks and three young men who constantly test the roses’ durability with soccer balls and the like. These roses, Jennifer’s favorite roses, are ones that, with enough abuse, can survive and flower beautifully in any other garden, too—including yours. Of course, I’m being funny, but it’s true—these roses I’m listing below are ones which have bloomed in profusion despite everything I do wrong. I hope the photographs I paste in bring you a slice of fragrant springtime …

Jeanne LaJoie: One of the most beautiful roses I have ever seen. The two in my garden, I bought at the clearance table at a local nursery one year. They have produced abundant blooms every June and then throughout each summer and into fall. Both top out at about six feet tall, and send up new canes for even more blooms each year. Technically, Jeanne LaJoie is a Miniature Climbing rose. Click here to find it online.

Double Delight: This rose is one of the roses my grandmother loves most, and so I also planted it in my garden a few years back. Every rose seems to be different, with a unique and exquisite blending of cream-colored white and crimson red. Combining its looks with its captivating fragrance, this rose is a definite favorite. Mine has always remained somewhat small, and the leaves never look very attractive, so I’ve interplanted mine with other perennials, but the blossoms are amazing. Technically, Double Delight is a Hybrid Tea. Click here to find it online.

Tahitian Sunset: Truly, I have to say that this rose has been the one, besides the climbers, to continually produce oodles of blooms. Not only is it robust and its leaves are attractive, but it has a wonderful fragrance and is resistant to the blackspot that normally disrobes my other roses by mid-summer. But the best part is that I have had the pleasure of cutting a dozen long-stemmed apricot-colored roses from my single Tahitian Sunset rosebush. Many times. Amazing, in my mind. Click here to find it online.

Peter Mayle: This is my absolute favorite in the rose world—Peter Mayle. The fragrance on this Hybrid Tea rose is beyond that of any other in my garden, and the blossoms—well, the photograph speaks for itself. Heat has never seemed to affect its flowering, and a single long-stemmed rose lasts for over a week in a vase. Yes, this is the one I love most … Peter Mayle. Click here to find it online.

I would love to hear your stories and favorites from your yards. Please add as you like to the comments below. Enjoy the day! Looking forward to a color-filled spring-- Jennifer.

Enduring the Cold

This past week’s weather has been blisteringly cold for most of our nation, and dipped below zero a few times even here in Southwest Ohio. I really can’t imagine living any farther north. The USA Today weather page had an interesting fact a few days ago—at -37 degrees F., the rubber on tires freezes, meaning that the flat spot from being parked remains when driving at or below -37 degrees. Thump-thump, thump-thump …

It’s no wonder, then, that roses can hardly survive the cold, especially the beautiful ones, the hybrid teas. As I look outside now, our backyard gardens wear a thin veil of snow to protect them from the cold. Not enough, I’m afraid, to withstand the cold from the last week. We’ll find out if any survived in April …

Every year in November, I go about our fifty or so rosebushes and dress them for the winter. I am not a finicky gardener—in fact I’m probably more of a minimalist. With a normal garden shovel, I heave a mound of nearby soil over the base of most rosebushes, depending on what they are, to help them endure the cold.
For the shrub roses, like the very popular (and rightfully so) Knock Out, I don’t do a thing. In my experience, the Knock Out roses, along with all Rugosa roses and other shrub roses, can withstand a chainsaw pruning and bloom beautifully even still.
Knock Out shrub rose

For English roses (cultivated by the legendary David Austin), I use substantially more care. Not only do I hill dirt and mulch around the base of the plant, but I also gather bundles of spent Becky daisy stems and work them into the branches to the base.
English roses, Evelyn, Jubilee Celebration, Jude the Obscure, and Redoute

For floribundas and grandifloras, like Simply Marvelous, I do the same as for the English roses.
And finally, for the most demanding of all roses, the Hybrid Teas, I accommodate them with a bit more attention and ensure the dirt, mulch, stems, and grass straw all cover the base and first foot of each plant. I have to admit, I love Hybrid Tea blooms.

Double Delight, hybrid tea

That leaves my handful of old roses to cover, which includes one of the old beauties, Baronne Prevost, whose visual beauty comes nowhere near her amazing fragrance. I treat the old roses for the winter basically the same as the floribundas.

Baronne Prevost, an old (1840's) hybrid perpetual

Climbing roses, I don’t touch. Eden and New Dawn are favorites of mine that have survived every Ohio winter since I’ve planted them nearly ten years ago.

New Dawn, an unstoppable climbing beauty

As far as other annual maintenance for the roses, I leave the pruning and sealing of canes for late April, and fertilize with a liquid fertilizer that also incorporates systemic to keep diseases and pests at bay.

In truth, I always lose at least a few rosebushes each year. This year, I’ll probably lose more than a few—but in my gardens, as in the rest of life, nothing goes just the way I think it will. I figure the ones that die leave room to try a few new ones each spring. And as a result, every year I seem to find a new favorite.

Whatever time I spend tending to roses—one hour in fall preparing roses for winter, and one hour in spring whacking the dead canes off and fertilizing—I find the pleasure and joy I gain from having roses far outweighs the work. Walking amongst the lingering fragrance and petals floating about on the breeze, and cutting rose blooms for enjoyment indoors remains one of the greater pleasures of having a garden. And when the dew dazzles like diamonds atop a rosebud on a heady summer morning, maybe, I think, the experience is one of the greater pleasures of life and living.

Next week, I’ll plan to share a few photographs of the roses I enjoy the most.

And, on the 23rd (this Friday), I’m hosting my friend and fellow writer, Keri Wyatt Kent to talk about her latest book, entitled Rest. For a preview, visit her website at http://www.keriwyattkent.com/.

Finally, a huge thank you to the editors at the renowned author website, The Red Room, for giving me the honor of the "Red Room Rising Star." Visit their home page to see more: http://www.redroom.com/. Thank you!