Roses, Take Two

My first trip to the Antique Rose Emporium was this past April. It is a great place to visit. I purchased 4 roses and planted them around the first of May. (here’s the May post about ARE)

Now, to recap…I planted four new rose bushes at the beginning of the hottest and driest summer in recorded history in a freshly built raised bed.

Within a couple of months I had a lovely flower bed with four dead rose bushes. I also created and planted several other large flowerbeds this spring and the watering was just too much for me to keep up with. Most everything survived, but my poor roses.

So, I have a new strategy…fall planting. Mike Shoup owner of the Antique Rose Emporium recently mentioned this in an article he wrote for Neil Sperry’s magazine.

“Newly established plants (those planted this spring) showed a lot of mortality. It was just too difficult to get enough subsoil moisture to carry the plants into the hot summer. The lesson here is to plant in the fall to establish a good root system.”

I went back to ARE on Saturday and purchased 3 more roses. This time I bought Le Vesuve and Maggie (same as last time) and White Heritage. I decided to forego Cecile Brunner for White Heritage which has larger blooms and is white, which will give my bed a little more color variety. I replaced my Belinda’s Dream a few weeks ago with one from Buchanan’s. Now, it’s a matter of occasional watering and hopefully summer 2012 will be more forgiving.

This weekend also happened to be the Fall Rose Festival at ARE. I wanted to make it up there early enough to hear Felder Rushing speak, but no such luck. I have had too much going on lately which has left me catching up on my sleep every weekend and my alarm clock just wasn’t loud enough to get me out of bed.

However, I did catch a little Shakespeare. The Rose Festival included Shakespeare in the Gardens, presented by Brenham H.S. theatre students.

I took a quick stroll around the grounds. The number of butterflies was amazing.

I also noticed the yellow brick road, which I guess I missed during my last trip.

I couldn’t stay as long as I would have liked, so I will definitely have to make another trip out there some time.

You absolutely must go to the Antique Rose Emporium

The first weekend in April is the renowned Antique Weekend in Round Top and the surrounding towns. My mom and I ventured out there as a last minute weekend getaway. My big find was this old piece of fence. It serves two purposes in the garden, decoration and a barrier to my dogs running through this bed chasing after squirrels.

On our way back to Houston, I thought we could swing by the Antique Rose Emporium since it was on our way home, well more or less on our way home.  I’ve heard about the Antique Rose Emporium for years, but I had no idea what was in store when we headed down the country roads to get there after days of shopping in Round Top and Warrenton.

The GPS took us on the scenic route, which was ok with us since we weren’t in a hurry and it was bluebonnet season after all.

Upon arriving at the Emporium, it was obvious that it is more than a nursery. It is a destination. Even if you have no intentions of gardening in your lifetime, this is a beautiful place to take a leisurely stroll along the garden paths.

We spent the first hour or so of our visit just wandering around the gardens.

We were also lucky enough to be there during their first Fragrance Festival which I will talk about more in a future post.

 

The rose is Queen of Bourbon

Columbines

Dianthus with an unknown purple flower

The poppies were planted in abundance in many of the front gardens.

I LOVE this bottle tree!

The final resting place

Now, you know I did not go home empty handed. My mom gave me the great idea of starting a rose garden and I knew just the place for it. I had my list of fragrant roses that I liked from the Fragrance Festival so we started rose shopping. The staff at the Emporium are extremely knowledgeable, turns out that many of the ones on my list smelled great, but did not have the growth habit I was looking for.

Below are the 4 roses I purchased. The photos are all from the Antique Rose Emporium.

Cecile Brunner

Maggie

Le Vesuve

And the popular Earthkind rose, Belinda’s Dream.