Dawn and Dusk Flowers Again

                               Clematis 'Etoile Violette' close up.                                                                                 

It's that magical time of the year when my 'Dawn and Dusk combination of  clematis 'Etoile Violette' and climbing rose 'New Dawn' flower. Despite last spring's disaster when the rose was blown down off the porch pillar during a storm and had to be drastically pruned, it's still blooming very well. The clematis usually leads the way by a few days, with the rose following--the rose hasn't reached peak bloom yet, and yet, what a marvelous sight!

In the evening shadows, the clematis looks so different, almost as if it changed color. I rarely look at it from the porch, because that's the corner where my lime tree spends its summers, but it was worth the effort to squeeze in there to take this shot. I love the way the dwarf Colorado blue spruce looks against the flowers!

My other roses in the bed by the driveway are also putting on a nice display, though the one I planted last year, 'Mauvelous' didn't make it through the winter. With the deer constantly browsing this bed, I question the wisdom of replacing it with another rose. Perhaps it would be better to find some other plant that wouldn't be so appealing to deer. But I still dream of fragrant roses, so it's hard to decide at this point.

Shrub roses 'Petal Pushers' and red 'Simplicity' rose.

My garden is a source of inspiration for my art, so while the garden blooms, I sketch what strikes my fancy or piques my curiosity in my botanical journals. Here's a few pages of this spring's sketches.

The Asian lilies are starting to bloom too, but they aren't quite as spectacular as they will be next week-- I'll post about those next, stay tuned.

The Extravagance of Roses

Double Knockout rose

For gardeners, roses are the ultimate extravagance: the queen of flowers! My mother cultivated more than twenty varieties of roses in her tiny Falls Church garden, along with countless other garden standards--her aim was to have "a garden for all seasons," but roses were her favorites. In those days there weren't many deer in the suburbs so she was able to enjoy her roses without having to worry about their depredations. I'm not so lucky here in Front Royal--voracious deer roam all about, and every year I do my best to try to fend them off with repellent spray, so I can enjoy some of their lovely flowers.

Climbing rose' New Dawn' and clemtais 'Etoile Violette'

Shortly after moving here I saw this combination of a climbing rose 'New Dawn' intertwining with the lovely clematis 'Etoile Violette' advertised as "Dawn and Dusk" in a gardening catalog--such an evocative phrase! The following spring I ordered the two plants to train up one of the columns of the porch of our new home. It's been seven years since I planted them, and the display becomes more spectacular every year.

'Petal Pushers' shrub rose with red 'Simplicity

Bed on the west side of the driveway with pink peony and Allium moly

The next year I began to extend the small, linear flower bed on the west side of the driveway and planted three 'Petal Pushers' shrub roses and a pink peony. Over the years I kept expanding the flower bed to include some bearded irises, flowering onions (Allium sp.) and a few more roses: a red 'Simplicity,' the yellow 'Molineux,' and one of my favorites, the hybrid tea rose 'Peace.'

'Molineux' rose

'Peace' rose or grandiflora rootstock?

The 'Peace' rose suffered greatly one very dry winter and died back, but the next spring it eventually came back. I have no idea if the tea rose was grafted or on its own root, and it was the rootstock that sprang forth, but it has gradually been growing and flowering. This rose doesn't look like a tea rose to me, but more like some sort of grandiflora, although it has a similar coloring to 'Peace.' In any case, it's beautiful, healthy and growing. I don't find much to recommend 'Simplicity' other than its bright color and easy care, although the rose hips that form after the flowers fade are attractive.

The only disappointment for me is that so few of these lovely roses have much of the traditional rose fragrance--'New Dawn' has a light scent, and 'Molineux' too. How I long for a beautiful, easy-care rose loaded with perfume! I peruse my gardening catalogs, and am determined that the next rose I plant must be fragrant to the max!