Now that we’ve reached the end of the season, I wanted to show you a round-up of all my pretty roses.  I can’t say that I’m an excellent rose gardener.  My primary gardening technique is to keep planting things until some things don’t die, and that’s pretty much the same approach I use with my roses.  This means 1) I have kind of a random assortment and 2) I count things as a success even if I get only two blooms in a given year.  So nobody’s going to be terribly interested in my garden from the standpoint of roses.  Never-the-less, I really like roses, and so despite my rough approach, over the years I’ve managed to gather quite a few.  This year not all of them bloomed, but most did, so this will be a round-up of this year’s pretty blooms (and a touch of gossip on those who didn’t).

It was hard to decide how I ought to organize things for this post.  Especially as this year was hard for a lot of my perennials, probably due to some very very cold snaps we had last winter.  It would be nice to show my roses in blooming order, but some of them were just kind of off their game this year.  Also, I planted five new ones this year (we’ll see how many of them make it to next year!).  So, maybe it would be nice to show them in the order I acquired them…but I don’t think I’m quite that organized at the moment.  Therefore, below I present my roses in the most boring listing possible: Alphabetical.  But! even though it’s a boring way to list roses, at least it comes with lots of pretty pictures.  Maybe next year I’ll manage some sort of thematic order (or something).  But for this year, here we go!

P.S. I counted 22 different varieties (* including the 5 new this year)!  I mentioned this to my daughter, and she agrees that that sounds like a lot more roses than I’ve got.  Never-the-less…

Applejack:  Applejack is a wonderful rose I got years ago and put in two different locations, both of them shady (one of them really shady).  It’s meant to be a climber and has gotten stronger and bigger as it’s become more established.  This year it wasn’t quite the profusion of blooms I sometimes get, but was still simply lovely, there, amongst the plum bushes, making things look all woodland-y in the early summer.

April Moon: I planted a second April Moon this year in the hopes I might replicate the great success I’ve had with my first one, but the jury’s still out whether I’ll succeed.  I’ve put April Moon in my middle back bed, which is also quite shady (I have a lot of shade on my property), and when it’s blooming the white flowers glow so beautifully.  I didn’t get a rebloom this year (such a weird year), but who can complain about end-of-June blooms like this?

Austen Copper: My Austen Copper could do with more care than I give it, but so far remains one of my earliest blooming roses (early June), with a wonderful, faithful profusion of blooms, orange inside, yellow on the reverse side (though some of the blooms come out either pure yellow or striped, on the same canes as the rest).

(Austen Copper root-stock (unknown name): And a few years ago I found out that my Austen Copper is definitely grafted onto root stock of another rose, when that rose sent up a bunch of beautiful canes with dark red roses and a different blooming timing.  That rose didn’t bloom at all this year – the canes had all died in last winter’s cold snap, but it did send up new canes this year, so fingers crossed for more blooms next year.)

(*Awakening: Awakening is one of this year’s new roses, and while it did bloom a titch, I didn’t actually manage to catch a picture of the flowers before they succumbed to squirrels/rabbits and the hot, drying sun – fingers crossed for next year.)

Blueberry Hill: My Blueberry Hill is rather beleaguered as I moved it to a new spot last year where it’s not yet getting as much water as it would like.  Still it did give me one pretty lavender bloom around mid June.

*Crown Princess Margareta:  Crown Princess Margareta is another new rose this year, who definitely at least planned to bloom, but I think squirrels or rabbits got to it before we could see the full flower.  A promising beginning though, and I’ll cross my fingers for next year.

(Darlow’s Enigma: I do not have a picture of this year’s Darlow’s Enigma because it continues to just barely hang on in the even shadier spot I planted it, years ago, amongst the plum bushes.  I can say that it is thin and thorny, and when it does bloom it smells like cotton candy…)

*Dublin Bay: Another rose new this year, whose very pretty, very red bloom I did get a chance to see, in late July.  I do hope it survives to show off more gorgeous blooms in years to come.

Ebb Tide: Ebb Tide is a very pretty rose, in both color and scent, but it’s only recently I got it to be a bit more healthy (go figure, it liked being moved to a sunnier location).  It’s still not super strong, but it did give me a rebloom this year, even if that coincided with the descent of the Japanese beetles.  Can you spot the stalwart rebloom amongst the liatris?

El Catala: El Catala (also in my shady middle bed) is usually a pretty modest rose, but this year I think it definitely won Anna’s Prettiest Rose award.  Maybe it was the lots of rain we got at the beginning of summer, but it really got to show off its gorgeous two-toned petals (bright red and silver) to perfect effect.  A nice treat.

(Hi: Okay, I have a very tiny rose called Hi.  It lives in my front garden where a) it doesn’t get quite as much water as it wants and b) it disappears amongst my sedums, because it is Very Tiny.  It probably bloomed at least a titch this year?  But I don’t have a picture (though I did verify it is still alive).  Maybe next year?)

Knockout: Knockout is the rose you see just about everywhere around where I live in Colorado, usually looking fabulous.  I have two of Knockout but, you guessed it, they’re both in the shade.  On top of that, one of them is being constantly drowned in mint (I did not plant that there), and the other is often swarmed by oregano (…that might have been me).  So, in my garden, they still fall in the one-bloom-a-year-is-SUCCESS category.

*Louise Odier: Louise Odier is one of the five new roses I planted this year and, of the five, seems to be doing the best right out of the gate.  Fingers double and triple crossed it proves hardy for the Colorado winter as well, especially because a) it smells amazing – if anything smells exactly like roses, this is it, and b) it looks like it will happily rebloom.  This year I got a couple flowers in late July, and then again in late August.  Please keep it up, Louise Odier!

original-garden dark pink:  Okay, so now we’re to the part of the alphabet where I don’t actually know the names of these roses, because they came with the house.  This one is a simple, sweet miniature rose that blooms relatively early in dark pink.  Clearly it’s pretty well suited to my garden to have persisted so well, though I still have to protect it from the rabbits…

original-garden orange: The larger, orange rose that came with the house is pretty darned great, and I do wish I could tell you who it is.  It blooms relatively early (mid-June-ish), and sometimes reblooms a little bit.  Its first bloom is always a wonderful profusion of flowers, and my only real complaint is that they tend to open very fast, making it tricky to get a perfect, pretty rose photo that doesn’t also have several well-blown roses in the frame.  Poor me.

original-garden red: This red climber came with the house and is planted in two locations.  It tends to bloom around the Fourth of July, and then the one in the sunnier spot reblooms a bit later.  This year, though, that cold snap last winter killed all of the canes and they had to grow back from scratch and I got very few flowers, and just on the sunnier one (though those couple flowers I did get lasted a really long time).  I do wish I knew how to make this rose happier in general, though.  It is very beautiful when it’s properly able to get going – definitely the one that most makes me think ‘I have a garden with roses.’

(original-garden non-bloomers (x3): And now I’ll just mention that there are about three different rose plants in my gardens that I have never seen bloom.  At least one of them was looking healthier this year, so maybe next year I’ll get to see a flower? but I’ve been here for ten years and sometimes think those three are just non-rose plants with rose-shaped leaves and thorns…  Maybe next year I’ll remember to get pictures to show you their non-blooming impertinences.)

Peace: Peace was one of the two roses I got last year that survived to this year.  And you can never say Peace doesn’t have pretty flowers!  Not at all.  Unfortunately, this one was also pretty short lived, and I don’t think I got another one this year.  But we can always hope for more next year!

*Queen of Sweden:  Queen of Sweden is the last of the five new roses I planted this year and I do very much hope she manages to survive to bloom again next year.  Her blooms are just as sweet and lovely as her online pictures.  Most excellent for ogling.

Scabrosa:  The blooms of Scabrosa are very short lived and smell amazing.  I’ve had guests in my garden confused about where the wonderful scent is coming from when Scabrosa is over there under the tree with only a couple of blooms showing.  Probably I should have planted her somewhere more accommodating where she could really thrive, but I also can’t truly complain.

Teasing Georgia: I was very surprised that, of all the poor roses I planted last year, Teasing Georgia was one of the two that survived.  But also quite pleased.  This rose seems so delicate, with very bright green foliage that looks so nice with the soft yellow flowers.  I just have to hope it wasn’t a fluke and I’ll get to enjoy Teasing Georgia for many years to come.

Viking Queen:  Viking Queen I have had since before I moved to this house, and it seems to actually do better in a pot (or I had it in a terrible spot before in the ground, also possible).  This rose is a little bit spindly, but the flowers are really lovely, with a nice, delicate scent.  And Viking Queen reblooms, late in the year, so I get to still have roses in October!  I couldn’t put together this Roses Round-up until I’d got a picture of my beautiful October rose.  Isn’t she pretty?