Organic Garden Dreams: January Roses

Organic Garden Dreams: January Roses: January is the month were I deleaf and prune my roses, so for that
reason and, of course, because it is winter even here in Southern
California, there are not so many roses blooming.

One exception last month was 'Pope John Paul II', though.

This beauty produced one last generous winter flush...

... which I tremendously enjoyed and...

... I had to wait with the pruning until it was over.

I know, I have praised this rose repeatedly on my blog,...

... but it is such an outstanding performer, that I think it is worth to point out its good qualities one more time. 

Besides that it is very floriferous, especially for a Hybrid Tea rose,
it amazes me that each bloom seems to be perfect from the opening of the
bud to the stage where it is slightly beyond its prime, as you can see
in these photos. 

Even the whole bush is not looking too bad for the winter time.

The two last roses of 'Belinda's Dream',...

...which actually completely stopped blooming after these two flowers were spent.

'Madame Alfred Carriere', classified as a Tea Noisette, in the
background to the left and 'Georgetown Tea', a Tea Rose, in the
foreground in the middle of the photo, have been a big disappointment
this winter. Both roses are exceptions in comparison to all the others
shown here today, as roses belonging to these rose classes are supposed
to bloom over the winter time in our mild climate, but they obviously
didn't.



I fed them with rose fertilizer around the middle of January...

... and even put a whole tray of "homemade" nutrient rich worm castings

from our very own worm bin to their feet, but nothing has changed so
far.

They may need a second dose of fertilizer or the drought is to blame for their lack of blooms. 

Another rose that also produced one last gorgeous bloom was 'Moonstone'.

At the same time 'Moonstone' is the rose, that out of all my roses, is
plagued the most by rose rust this winter. The photo above shows the
underside of a leave of this rose at the time I deleafed it. Deleafing
is not my favorite garden task, but for obvious reasons, this one I
actually couldn't wait to deleaf and prune!

'Irresistible' also gave me some nice flowers during January. 

Despite the blooms that I am showing in this post, most of my roses

looked like 'Pierre de Ronsard, the one on the photo above, last month.

The last blooms of 'Sweetness'...,

... before the winter rest.

Not a great photo, but I am very excited about this bud. It was one of

the very first new buds of the year 2015 and belongs to 'Captain
Christy', an older relatively rare Hybrid Tea rose. The rose is not a
very vigorous grower by any means and I almost lost it due to the heat
last summer. I deleafed it (there was nothing to prune, yet!) and
planted it from a two gallon black plastic pot into a big terracotta
container to keep the roots cooler this year and it has responded by
leaving out and producing four buds. I know that rose is still not out
of the woods yet, but so far it looks good.

I hope all my American readers have enjoyed a nice, long, restful

President's Day weekend! I certainly did and was happy to fit in a bit
of gardening as well.

See you in the garden!

Christina