That green blob is the rose Enjouée I grew from seed. It’s growing really really well, put on maybe 1/3 of new growth. Head to toe foliage everywhere. I’m not sure if it is wanting to be a climber or stay shrub-like yet but it is extremely vigorous either way. It already has flowerbuds and it’s in contention with a few other roses to be the first rose to bloom. Either way I’m excited about it.

I want to cross this rose ‘Crépuscule’ with this rose, ‘Arethusa’ and plan to this summer, after checking on my rose seeds in the fridge today I know it’s gotta be done.

They are tea-noisette and china hybrids from the early 20th century, both introduced in a two year span between 1903 and 1904 and both are certainly representative of what was in fashion at the time. A lot of the roses from that era are really my style. Lots of yolky buffs, apricot, yellow and pink.

‘Crépuscule’ is the tea-noisette, something of a climber with apricot-buff colored flowers, while ‘Arethusa’ (named after the fountain and its namesake nymph) is a short, bushy buff-pink hybrid-china, starting off apricot and going through a color shift to more of a pastel pink as it ages. Most china roses come in shades of deep scarlet, medium reds and deep rose-pinks so ‘Arethusa’ is a bit atypical of its class due to it’s coloring, which no doubt was and still is its novelty.

Both plants due to their china and tea blood are not terribly cold hardy, but ‘Crépuscule’ is a very healthy plant with shiny peach-leaf like leaves that have a distinct droop, while ‘Arethusa’ while not as healthy foliar wise has compact size on its side and a bit more hardiness. Both are known to be very fertile,  ‘Crépuscule’ while it forms hips is said to be more useful as a pollen parent and I’ve been told by a professional rose-breeder to put its pollen on everything, as it often breeds good yellows and other apricot buffs like itself. ‘Arethusa’ is a good seed parent with good germination rates. I applied pollen from an electric (and I mean electric )  hot pink shrub rose ‘Lynnie’ onto ‘Arethusa’ which took and formed a hip in late summer, which I harvested. Checking on the seeds from that hip in the fridge today I saw I had good germination and just planted them up in a tray to sprout. That for me attested that ‘Arethusa’ is easy to work with.

The goal of the cross would be something of an in-between both plants; to tame ‘Crépuscule’s sprawling and rambling ways and have a more mounding smaller shrub as opposed to the porch swallowing mass it can become. Essentially put it’s coloring and foliage onto ‘Arethusa’ shrub size and habit and I’m good to go.

Leucothoe fontabesiana ‘Girard’s Rainbow’

Leucothoe, doghobble or fetterbush, is a relatively rare shrub in the Ericaceae, or heath family (one that also includes Pieris, the blueberry family Vaccinium, as well as Kalmia and the showy Rhododendron family of shrubs) that is native to the mountains and forests of the southeast United States and the Mid-Atlantic region. The slow growing evergreen shrub’s new growth and leaves often blush red in cooler weather and blooms in spring clusters of drooping white flowers that very much resemble those of Pieris and Vaccinium; small bells that remind me of small individual legs of old fashioned bloomers clustered together in a lily-of-the-valley like manner.

‘Girard’s Rainbow’ is a very interesting variegated sport from 1949 whose foliage is splattered, mottled and striped with all shades of green, cream, maroon, and pink. Extremely colorful with multi-seasonal interest, and generally though not 100% deer resistant, this small shade and moisture loving shrub fills a niche that not many native shrubs tend to fill, which is the ability to go toe to toe with the showier and more common evergreen landscaping shrubs in our area in terms of that cultivated “look”; mainly pieris and rhododendron derived from Asian species. I have planted a plant of this at my cousin’s house and here in zone 7a Maryland, the plant does not like being in full sun or out in the open and instead flourishes in a sheltered, shady location. So plant near your home, under some trees and near a wall. A good compliment to dark evergreens as its colors stand out better against a dark backdrop. It’s more of a dwarf than the species, being slightly less robust, which means it can make excellent company to larger shrubs to hide their “ankles” or lower halves, if taller and leggy, as well as blend rather easily with perennials that enjoy the same conditions.

Being said , it’s a wonder to behold. I have a young plant whose current overall variegation is  mostly pink at the moment so it’s very funny to walk past a “pink” shrub every day. They are appearing more and more at nurseries as people discover this native plant’s merits, at least last year and this year where the first time I saw it at the nurseries around here so I’d like to think its popularity and use is increasing. So while it is a bit fussy and calls for the same conditions as many exotics do for the shade garden (moist), I’d say the look is unusual enough that it is worth it, as it is also hardier than its appearance looks (some say hardy down to zone 5, -15-20 degrees Fahrenheit) and is native to a good portion of the country. Very novel and worth the attention.

(Source: fantasticplants.com)

My own rose seedling, now given the moniker of ‘Enjouée’ which means playful, cheerful, kittenish or gamesome as a pun on one of its presumed parents ‘Plaisanterie’ which means ‘joke’, ‘prank’ or ‘trick’. What does a child do when they’re acting kittenish? They pull pranks. (Hur hur hur)

This rose has somewhat of a bi-color staining and color shift on the outer parts of the petals, which are about an inch in diameter. I attribute this to ‘Plaisanterie’, which starts out with cherry-orange buds, open buff colored and then age to pink with some darker ‘staining’. The color shift in ‘Plaisanterie’ is a trait inherited from and is the hallmark of its own pollen parent, ‘Mutabilis’, a china rose. The other presumed parent to this particular seedling, ‘Sven’ doesn’t have as visible mottling, but will compare flowers next time both are in bloom.

Each flush the flowers are becoming a bit prettier and cooler weather has brought out that raspberry-pink stain even more. I’m thinking this rose hasn’t settled into it’s proper bloom form yet, so I may get an increased petal count next year. Overall, it’s a cute rose, can’t wait to see what it does.

I’m so proud of this.  I designed and planted (most) of the plants here for my cousin’s front yard. She let me design it with some input of what she liked and didn’t like, but has pretty much given me free range and trusts my taste. It has a long season of interest and looks quite different during different months of the year.

Their house’s siding is mostly a creamy pale-yellow siding, sort of like unsalted butter, very light with black shutters. They also have stone siding too, which has shades of orange, ruddy-maroon, slate-blue and other rusty tones all sort of marbled together.  To compliment I chose a palette of dark greens, true dark purple-red maroon, silver, a lot of light periwinkle purple-blues to provide a hazy, dreamy look at sundown, generous doses of scarlet in the spring from quite a few azaleas and then peonies, and then in mid/late summer as seen here through crape myrtles and red annual vinca and verbena. I also included some white and pale yellow was also added via some shrub roses thrown in to echo the siding. There’s also some pink, but that appears and disappears depending on the season, it’s not a constant. Personally I would have had the walkway, if it was my money and house with their siding and colors, have done in either a blue-slate colored stone or a darker more rustic cobblestone in a slight winding ‘S’ shape manner instead of a straight promenade, but that’s just me…I didn’t have a say in their hardscape choices when I began work on their yard, they had already chosen it out and had it set.

All of this was started being planted last June or so and we’ve been adding more and more as we tweak and edit. My cousin is a saint at watering, so the plants generally are thriving if not almost two times bigger than they should be and it is such a thrill to see everything come together as I sort of imagined it in my head. I’m not a very technical designer, I’d like to think I more “paint” with the plants, as obnoxious as that sounds, but it’s more how my thinking process goes when it comes to color and texture of the plants and maintaining an aesthetic balance. 

A lot of my ideas when it comes to landscape design are much out of my reach monetary wise, for both my family and myself as a working individual. That fact hinders a lot of my horticultural projects for myself at home, and for some of my clients as well. I can’t go buy all that I want to buy and often have to compromise, so to be able to work somewhat in a sandbox environment for my cousin, who is quite financially secure and has been a glowing patron, is fantastic.

For my 1,000 post, I thought I’d put a picture of my assumed to be open pollinated seedling from ‘Sven’ which currently runs under the moniker ‘SvenOP’ until I think of something more creative and witty. It’s my first “pretty” seedling I’ve ever been able to raise and something I’m rather proud of to say “I grew that from seed”. It’s smaller in all regards to its presumed “mother” with flowers sorta being under to about an inch in diameter, and sadly doesn’t have much of a scent, but the petals being darker colored with a distinct paler inner reverse are rather attractive. We’ll see how this one matures and ages. 

I’ve put my first seedling that looks promising enough to be planted into the garden up on HelpMeFind rose cultivar database. That puts me as a rose breeder on the site thus cementing my “status” I guess as I now have documented accounts of any rose seedling growing.

It’s not technically my first surviving seedling, I had one seedling from I think maybe 2007 survive long enough to bloom and be planted outside but it is a sickly and a rather homely, stunted seedling of what I believe to be ‘Queen Elizabeth’. It’s dwarf, single blossom type of white-pink that turns used-tissue ugly. Needle thorns. Defoliates during summer. I keep it out of pity for being the first one I ever grew from seed. Being said my success rate can be implied to be abysmally low until this past winter. Winters 2008 and 2009 were also me growing flats of rose seedlings in my dorm room or tried to keep them at home but they just didn’t work. 2010 I was lucky and had four seedlings that performed well and I stuck with them. Three are “sisters” being that they came from the same batch of seeds and probably from same hip, which I lost identification for but I assumed they were open pollinated seedlings of the small shrub ‘Sven’.Thus this currently goes by ‘Sven OP’ but if I like it enough and it performs well it might be renamed something else.

I’m looking forward to see if there are any improvements. Of the three “sisters” it had the healthiest foliage during the summer as I subjected them to live in their own quart sized pots on the steps of our back porch. Two sisters became afflicted with powdery mildew rather easily, while this one stayed relatively clean in the same conditions. I left the two other sisters in their pots over the winter while the clean one got planted in the fall. If they survived the winter in the pot than I would plant them out as it would mean rather hardy vigor and might be worth a second shot. They both unfortunately died, which was disappointing, as I like second chances or comebacks, and they had interesting flowers, but they weren’t strong enough.

It’s not in bloom yet, so sole picture is of a green blob, but considering how large it was when planted (tiny) and how vigorous it’s showing in terms of spring growth, pretty much doubling in size. It has smaller foliage than ‘Sven’. I’m very curious to see what it will be like and its disease resistance this year while in the ground. It did bloom a few times for me last year, which is good for if a seedling shows remonancy that young it means it probably a rather reliable bloomer. The flower was small, less saturated purple-white sort of lilac colored flower I’m remembering, with a decent scent. Hopefully that too might be improved with age.

My page will continue to fill up, I will add the ‘Plaisanterie’ seedlings that have done extremely well so far, I have over a dozen seedlings of that right now that show no signs of dying on me..yet…but we’ll see. I’ll add them as they age and start to bloom actual flowers.

Tom Jones (1963)

Zinnias

‘Isabellina’                                                 (solid buttermilk cream double)

 ‘Persian Carpet’                                        (bi-color gold, orange, yellow, red and browns single to double)

‘Whirligig’/’Carrousel’                 (bi-color  single to double multi-color single to double)

‘California Giant Daffodil’                           (two-toned gold yellow double)

‘Old Mexico’                                                  (bi-color double  red and gold and brown double)

‘Redman Super Cactus Zinnia’               (extra large dark red cactus type)

‘Scabiosaflora Mix’                              (rose, pink, yellow and orange bicolor, pincushion type)

STILL NEED:

Burpeeana mix OR Giant Cactus mix

Benary’s Giants OR Giants of California mix

Candy Cane/Peppermint Stick  mix

Tomato

-          ‘Japanese Black Trifele’     

-          ‘Missouri Pink Love Apple’  

Summer Squash 

-          ‘Tondo Scuro Di Placenza Squash’ 

-          ‘White Scallop Squash’ 

Melon

-          ‘Pride of Wisconsin’

Plant Cultivars and their Namesakes Part III. ‘Jenny Lind’ melon.

Jenny Lind (6 October 1820 – 2 November 1887) ” The Swedish Nightingale” was a Swedish born opera singer, philanthropist, and professor who had an extremely successful period of popularity as an opera sensation in 1838-1850’s Victorian Europe and America. An illegitimate daughter of a schoolteacher, Jenny’s singing talent was discovered at age nine and became by age seventeen, a favorite at the Royal Swedish Opera. In 1850 P.T. Barnum encouraged Lind to do an American tour, which she did, and proved to be wildly popular with America. She was well known for her philanthropy work, she held many a free concert to raise money for charitable purposes and even converted a house into a 20 bedroom sick-house named the “Jenny Lind Infirmary for Sick Children”. During her much hyped tour of America with P.T. Barnum, she earned $250,000 from ticket sales, an unheard of amount of money. She gave most of it away to charities.

Being popular as she was, she had many suitors throughout her career, being acquaintances of and pursued by composers Felix Mendelssohn, who wrote the soprano part of his oratorio Elijah with her specifically in mind. Other friends and suitors included Frédéric François Chopin and writer Hans Christian Andersen. Jenny Lind inspired three of the latter’s fairy-tales, “The Ugly Ducking”, “The Angel,” and “The Nightingale,” the latter believed to have helped influenced her name as ” The Swedish Nightingale”.

The green fleshed, netted muskmelon, originally bred in Virginia and introduced in the 1840’s was probably named adoringly after the singer during P.T. Barnum’s campaign to advertise and hype her up before she arrived in America and began her tour across the East Coast. The melon is known for it’s odd turban-like shape, with a pronounced “button” or “bellybutton” on one end, the blossom end scar. I may be growing her this upcoming summer. Some people may find it a bit odd or insulting to have a MELON named after you, but, to be honest, if you’re a major foodie, it’s a severe compliment. Melons are incredibly seasonal divine gifts from the gods capable of putting people into fits of ecstasy from their scent. Seriously, if they could bottle the scent of ripe melons in the garden….let’s just say people could market the stuff as a libido potion. The bland cantaloupe and honeydew most Americans eat year-round are poor example of what melons can be and one can only really experience a good melon during the summer here. Hell most Americans haven’t eaten a real cantaloupe, what we call cantaloupe are actually musk melons, cantaloupes often have super hard shells and are much more popular in Europe. 

Again, gonna try this next summer maybe, it’s not supposed to be a huge melon, so a small plot might be fine.

(Source: liberterre.fr)

plant cultivars and their names part III. rosa ‘Danaë’

Bred in the U.K. by Rev. Joseph Hardwick Pemberton and introduced in 1913, ‘Danaë’ is one of the first generation “hybrid musk”, roses bred from the multiflora-musk hybrid ‘Trier’. What is ironic about this family class of lax, languid semi-climbing family of mostly creamy buff colored hybrids, are that they really are not related to the Rosa moschata, otherwise known as the musk rose in which they are named after.

‘Danaë’ is named after the princess Danaë of Greek myth, daughter of Acrisius, King of Argos. Distressed about not having a male heir, King Acrisius consulted the Oracle at Delphi and instead of getting a solution, he was told a prophecy that Danaë’s son would end up killing him. Worried, like most kings given this prophecy in ancient Greece, he locked the unmarried (virgin) Danaë up in a cloistered bronze chamber in his palace’s courtyard, a relatively good idea, care for the skylight at the top. While inaccessible for men, it didn’t stop Zeus from falling for Danaë, literally. Changing into a shower of gold (its been interpreted as real gold, gold coins, or a golden rain), he fell through the chamber’s skylight and into Danaë’s lap, where she shortly thereafter due to the contact, conceives the future hero Perseus. Rather chaste or passive aggressive way of seducing considering the other forms Zeus had previously taken to woo and or rape objects of his desire. Gustav Klimt’s 1907 painting of Danaë’ gives a rather erotic interpretation of their encounter, with Danaë obviously enjoying the tryst.

Acrisius, angry at his daughter getting knocked up miraculously and having, surprise, a son, locked her and the newborn infant in a chest and threw them into the sea. Zeus, hearing Danaë’s prayers while locked in the chest, made Poseidon calm the sea and the chest washed up at Seriphos, where they were rescued by Dictys, a fisherman and brother to the king of the island, Polydectes. He adopted them into his family and raised Perseus as his own son, who later returns the favor for having raised him well, by,after the petrification of Polydectes via the Medusa head, makes his adopted father king.

The rose itself, being yellow colored and lax, most certainly usable for an arbor, is not surprising that it would be named after a princess seduced by a shower of gold.

rose image courtesy of

www.mooseyscountrygarden.com