Friday Flower – Rosa Rugosa aka The Original Rose

If you haven’t already noticed, Oh Best Beloved, I am not a regimented gardener. My tastes run more along the lines of “Zowie! I gotta try growin’ one of those!” which rather destroys any chance of a planned or formal design. When I first found a nursery that would mail-order organic shrubs and trees, what caught my eye was the page that had seedling rugosa roses. It said, “Rosa rugosa is the hardiest rose known, withstanding fifty below temperatures with no damage.” Hello! Now that’s my kind of rose! I bought six, colors “assorted – no choice – but will be pink, red or white.”

When they arrived, they did splendidly, even in our thick clay soil. I was estatic! They grew like gangbusters from spring until early fall. And then, one morning, I looked out the window and…

No bushes. Not one.

Someone, someone with big long furry ears, whiskers, and sizable chompers, had mowed every single rugosa bush flat down to the ground and eaten every scrap, every leaf, bud and cane and even consumed the thousands of tiny sharp sharp thorns.

That was the day I ordered industrial-strength rabbit fencing for my future plantings, something which my gardening friends said I shouldn’t use as it would “spoil” the looks of my garden beds.

Um, didn’t the bunny already do that?!

I also called the nursery, to order more rugosas. To my surprise, the owner laughed and said, “Don’t worry. You don’t need to replace them. They’ve had a chance to establish. You watch. Next spring you’ll have lots of healthy vigorous canes shoot up from the roots.”

He was right.

Each bush is now over three feet in width. If left untrimmed they grow to over six feet in height. They’re completely unfenced, have survived numerous assaults by the bunnies, and are absolutely beloved by the local bumblebees. To my surprise, none of the bushes turned out to have red blooms; two have white roses; one has roses that are a very pale pink, and the others have blooms that are a deep candy-lipstick pink. The rugosas bloom in early summer, with literally hundreds of blossoms on each shrub, and bloom again in successive waves throughout the summer.

If you ever consider growing rugosas, I highly recommend St. Lawrence Nurseries, the nursery that I bought these from, btw. They carry an amazing variety of northern climate fruit trees (apple, cherry, pear and plum) as well as nut and lumber trees, which they will ship bare-root anywhere in the continental United States. They even have disease-resistant American elms, and a variety of native horse chestnut that is hardy in northern climes.

They’re organic growers, but if you’ve shied away in the past from buying organic because of higher prices you needn’t worry. These folks have fantastically competitive prices that beat the socks off of the prices you’ll find at most conventional nurseries.

One warning, if you decide to add these shrubs to your garden and aren’t already an organic gardener. Don’t use a drop of any synthetic pesticide (including insecticides, herbicides and fungicides) of any sort on or near a Rosa Rugosa. Synthetic pesticides are absolutely deadly for these lovely plants!

Friday Flower – Rose Lyric

I’m ready for some more flowers!

These lovely daylilies are a variety named “Rose Lyric.” I bought this plant on a whim when ordering from one of my favorite daylily farms, Bloomingfields Farm. Most nurseries don’t offer this particular plant, and I don’t understand why as it is a stellar daylily.

With blooms of rich red that don’t fade, and deep golden-colored throats on each flower, it makes a glorious display. I especially like that each clump produces scads of blooms, not just one or two, and it blooms for weeks instead of just a few days.

To my surprise, this daylily blooms prolifically in heavy clay soil while only getting morning sunlight. It even has richer colored blooms under those conditions than it did when I had it planted in “nice” soil and getting uninterrupted daylight.

The bunnies love this daylily, too – but not to eat! They hide under its nice thick clump of leaves.

Friday Flower – Brrr!

I don’t know about you, Oh Best Beloved, but I need a nice warm-looking flower photo today.

It was 15 degrees below zero here last night.

-15F.

That’s cold enough to freeze the whiskers off a bunny, especially as the wind chill was at -28F.

This purple coneflower (botanical name: Echinacea purpurea) is from a clump I started from seed a little over twenty years ago. The red daylily (variety unknown) next to it was a little bitty rather pitiful-looking root I got free through a mail-order nursery at the same time. Both have thrived and multipled, yielding a large clump of each that happily grow together at the side of our house. The goldfinches love the seed heads that the coneflower form, and use them as a food source from autumn through spring.

Ya gotta love plants like these – beautiful and virtually maintenance-free.

Oh – and the bunnies don’t like them.

All together now: awwwwwwwww, poor bunnies!

Flower Fridays

Yes, I know it’s Saturday. This post was supposed to be made yesterday. Best intentions and all that.

*Sigh*

Where was I?

Ah. Yes. Flower Fridays. I decided this summer to not post a “Garden Walk” as I’d done a year ago. My intent is to instead brighten up the winter with summer photos of the various flowers in our gardens that survived the nibbling attempts of several determined bunnies.

Of course, I’ll also post on occasion here-to-fore previously unseen photos of said bunnies, too. Fat bunnies, I might add, bunnies made fat and sassy from mowing down flowers willy nilly, flowers that every garden guide guaranteed are quite bunny proof.

HA! No one consulted MY bunnies as to their culinary tastes. Which can be summed up as: if it’s considered a flower and Judy paid for it, it’s delicious.

Anyways. Back to flowers. The flowers that didn’t meet their demise as Bunny Happy Meals…

This lovely flower is a Tiger Lily (botanical name: Lily tigirnum spendens. This is the first year I’ve trying growing them, and I’ve fallen in love with these beauties. They come in orange, yellow and red.

The bunnies, btw, absolutely love the red variety. I didn’t get a single red bloom as those plants were mowed down to the height of my rabbit fencing by James and Juan. Those two rascals stood on their hind paws and streeeeeetched as high as they could to grab leaves and pull down the plants to nibbling height.

If they’re worth that much effort, what makes tiger lilies look so special from a rabbit’s perspective?

Huh.

It looks sort of like an alien out of a late night SF flick actually… doesn’t it?

Find the Bunny

Happy New Year!

Do you remember those Highlights magazines from when you were little, Oh Best Beloved, where you had to find hidden objects in a picture?

If you don’t remember, you’ve either a) never had to sit in a doctor’s waiting room or b) are very very young, relatively speaking of course…

So, here’s a chance to relive your childhood… courtesy of James the Bunny, son of Stewart, who is in his favorite hiding spot.

Can you find the bunny?

Look closer.

And closer.

There he is!

(If you can’t see him, blame my poor little camera which did its best but just doesn’t have the optical zoom oomph to take a better image!)