A gardener in winter dreams.
Endless reveries of lush greenery dotted with sweet blousy flowers... A gardener's best gift on Valentine's Day is one that will last for seasons to come.
These mini-roses are from a local big box department/grocery store. I couldn't decide between the peach and the yellow, so I asked Mark to pick, pretty sure he'd go for the yellow - a favorite of his. He couldn't decide either, so they both went into the cart.
Even buying two of them was less than the bargain rate for a dozen cut roses in this area. How can you go wrong?
A decadent taste of summer.
These will be unhappy in a month. They never transition well from the production greenhouse to the dry environment of a Michigan home in winter. They will fade, drop leaves, look sad. I will pot them up into larger temporary pots, put them on the unheated porch in mid-March when they get particularly bedraggled, and find a place for them in the garden come spring.
By July they will be thriving again, and throwing blooms for us to enjoy. This is the best kind of gift.
My sweety's the best!
Jenn, those are beautiful.
One of these days I am going to have to get a rose bush.
Posted by: zoey | February 21, 2006 at 07:03 PM
It's wonderful you get these rose bushes to come back to life. Helpful tips. Will these survive winter? They are gorgeous.
Posted by: Judith | February 23, 2006 at 04:32 PM
They are already dropping their lower leaves. By the time it gets warm enough on the porch to put them out there, they will look like a lost cause - bare stems with a leaf or two here or there... I pinch off any blooms that 'blast' and once they drop more than 50% of their leaves, I'll pinch any buds that develop.
Once the frost is past, I'll put them in the ground with some nice compost, and they will releaf - think about the southern gardeners and the enforced dormancy they have to create to produce flowers and keep the plant's health, and that's approximately what I do here.
And then they releaf, and usually bloom again the first year. The little own-root roses are typically pretty tough stuff. They just look like ugly ducklings when they go through their adjustment period.
Posted by: djinn | February 23, 2006 at 04:47 PM