Spring is in the air in Tampa

What a delight to see and smell blooms on 'Mme. Antoine Marie', "Pink Cracker Rose", 'Marechal Neil', "Barfield White Climber", Rosa bracteata, "Fairmount Prosperpine', my own hybrids 'Gainesville Garnet', 'Sarasota Spice' and 'Gold Blush' plus 'Reve d'Or', "Maggie", 'Teasing Georgia', 'Archduke Charles' and 'Cramoisi Superieur'.

I was blown away yesterday ...the mailman brought me a GIANT specimen of a mega-rare climbing rose I've wanted since 1994....'Easlea's Golden Rambler'. And it was FREE from Cliff Orent of Desert Roses! I was on the phone with a local friend as I opened the box and got teary eyed when I read the tag! Attached is a link to a site with data and photos, plus I will attach a pic posted here recently by a Canadian rosarian of a PORTION of his monster plant. I've only met it twice....once at Peter Beales' nursery in England, and in author Bill Grant in Aptos, California, a huge hulking plant the size of a large garden shed. Thanks Cliff!!!!!

http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.1698&tab=1

Woo Hoo!

Yesterday I got my roses' sales royalty check for 2011 from the good folks at The Antique Rose Emporium.....$35!  I better work harder promoting my rose breeding work!

So much to be thankful for.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXDMoiEkyuQ&feature=youtu.be

'Duchesse de Brabant'

This old Tea is easily in my Top Favorite Roses list. I love the very complex, dry mingling of Tea and hardwood smoke and citrus peel into the evocative fragrance. The transparent colors 

remind me of the interior of a conch shell.

"York Street Yellow"

Years ago Denver rosarian Toni Tichy discovered this charming, vigorous and VERY cold hardy shrub rose in a yard on York Street some blocks south of Colfax Avenue, on the east side. Heavy hip setter of BIG hips; I got one so-so hybrid of it. I still suspect that it is a Brownell hybrid. It failed here in Tampa a few times but is now fairly happy in a Restricted Drainage tree pot, and once again it grows and buds and blooms best when cool. To my nose, the petals are Tea scented, but the stamens are fairly spicy, with a touch of the cinnamon-clove of Rosa moschata. I plan on crossing it with 'Duchesse de Brabant' just to see what results a few years down the road. Thank you Toni! In the late 1990s I mailed starter cuttings of it, and most of Toni's remarkable finds at Denver's Riverside Cemetery, to Heather Campbell at High Country Roses in Utah so her steadfast work  can appear in many gardens....I think she still carries it plus some of the Mystery Roses I discovered in Denver's Fairmount Cemetery plus my own hybrid 'Four Inch Heels'. John

A Honeybee Enjoying 'Old Blush'