ROSE RAMBLER 27.04.2017 …

Hello dear rose friends – phew, what a month this has been and thank you to ALL OF YOU who supported the events which we have been involved with, thank you for coming to the Rose Farm and thank you absolutely for ordering your winter roses/bare-rooted roses online during this past month that the online store at www.rosesalesonline.com.au has been open for winter ordering.

In coming weeks I will be uploading all the wonderful photos I’ve taken this past season – do take a look and please, if you see a photo which you don’t think does our website justice because it’s wrongly loaded, please can you shoot me an email.  I will happily add a free rose to your winter order as thank you for being my ‘online scout’ but you have to let me know … thank you so much!

NEW ROSES FOR 2017 …

Here are a few of the beauties we showcased at Tesselaar’s Garden Expo this past weekend – gosh, was it spectacular!

SPIRIT OF RURAL WOMEN
A healthy shrub which produces pure white blooms
displaying a swirling mass of petals on long, strong stems ideal for a vase.

ORIGAMI
Distinctly unusual rose with strongly angular red and white
petals which give the bloom a ‘square’ appearance,
similar to a paper folded flower – hence the name Origami.
Highly disease resistant and well clothed in mid green foliage,
plant singly, as a hedge or in a pot. Light rose perfume.
A Gold Award winning rose – Australian National Rose Trial Grounds.

BOSCOBEL
This David Austin New Release Rose for 2017
had people stopping to check whether the flowers
were real when we presented this magnificent rose at the
Tesselaar Plant Expo in April, 2017 …
what a rose and it just got better as it aged in the vase!

GRA’S GARBLE …

There’s all sorts of talk about how small business makes this country ‘tick’ – so easy to talk and talk and talk!  Please, Australians, buy as local as you possibly can!!!  We select products for our household shopping with diligent care – the one we like MUST preferably be ‘MADE IN AUSTRALIA’ or we’ll find an alternative product of similar or better quality to pop into our shopping trolley!

YES, the Aussie product will obviously be more expensive … H-E-L-L-O … we are SO WELL PAID that all the products we make and distribute here in Australia are always going to be more expensive than what is imported where cheap labour is used to produce our overwhelming need for more!

All worth a thought as our beautiful roses have been taken in luggage to India, Thailand and UK in past weeks.  It’s a small world and becoming smaller.

Q. What do snakes write at the bottom of their letters?  A. Love and hisses …

Hope you haven’t had issues with them in your garden recently – just a few sightings here this past summer and we’re now confident again with colder weather that they’re gone off to hibernate!

ROSES AND SHADE TOLERANCE … PERHAPS TIME FOR A REST TOO …

Here’s an email chat with Jodie in QLD who has received three consignments of roses, eco-products and Diana’s book, ALL ABOUT ROSES in recent months …

Think about it too … does NEPTUNE need a bit of fertilizer – it’s been flowering like a ripper … yes?  All the roses will be adapting to your climate, soil conditions and quite frankly, it’s a heck of a journey from here to you, being planted in a whole new environment and perhaps a bit of stress (ie, indicated by back spot on foliage) would be NORMAL???

Remember too Jodie … it’s that time of year when the roses are ready to have a break – there one means of losing foliage to become hardened up for winter pruning is to be riddled with black spot so the foliage cannot photosynthesise, it drops, the plant becomes bare, you prune it, it rests for winter and the next minute, it’s sprouting foliage again and then very soon after, it’s flowering!

It’s a cycle with a whole of lot of ‘stuff’ in between – most awesomely, beautiful flowers pretty consistently for around 7-9 months depending on the climate where you live … All very, very special … enjoy!

PERFUME – A ROSE DELIGHT …

Throughout the ages, humans have sought to capture the tantalizing, elusive perfume of the rose … here are some categories of scent …

• Aromatics such as aniseed and lavender
• Citrus
• Flora such as rose, jasmine or lilac
• Fruit such as raspberry, pear or peach
• Greenery from herbs
• Spices like cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon
• Wood and balsam – vanilla, heliotrope at the base.

On still, warm, sunny days, fragrance from roses is at optimum and strongest for even the most ‘hard of smelling nose’!  Blooms picked when the outer petals have fully reflected will exude fragrance for days at evenly warm room temperature – so when you pick a rose that you think is hardly worth popping in a vase, do it as you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the change in fragrance when vased in a warm environment!

Q.  What do you call a rabbit who tells jokes?  A.  A funny bunny!

GOOD TIP … to test for fragrance don’t just take a quick ‘sniff’ but rather hold a semi-open rose bloom in the palm of your hands, perhaps pick it and pop it in your pocket or place it under your cap for a short time and you will soon know whether it is or isn’t fragrant FOR YOU!  Remember, we ALL have a different capacity in our sense of SMELL!

I hope you’re digging and dunging the garden ready for planting bare-rooted roses this winter … next week I’ll give you some really good hints for what to add to the soil but if you’re out and about at a garden centre this week, take home a few bags of quality manure / compost / fertilizer … remember, it’s still autumn and the most wonderful season to sort your garden for this coming winter!

Enjoy the awesomeness of your autumn garden … take a drive out our way to experience the beauty of autumn colour in the ornamental trees … we’re basking in a whole other glory here at Clonbinane!