Tuesday, 6th of July 2021

Since I can remember, I always loved roses. I Love all flowers, but roses are some of my all time favourites. Back in my country, Poland, roses are planted in most public spaces en masse for a stunning effect. I would always come closer to sniff them.

Rose needs to smell like a rose!

Just like some people say there are no roses without the thorns, I say there are no roses without a beautiful fragrance. In my childhood all roses had it, but as I grew older sometimes I would occasionally receive cut roses which didn’t smell at all. My sense of smell is one of my superpowers (not always a helpful one), so I really enjoy the fragrance. A rose without any felt somewhat artificial to me.

I’m not sure exactly when was it, but I decided that one day I will have a garden full of beautifully scented roses. I will in fact have so many of them, so I can cut them and bring home for extra pleasure.

How did I fare in my dream department? Quite well I shall say. I currently have 4 well established bushes and and at least 3 more to be planted after some adjustments that my garden will need to undergo this year. Ideally I would love a nice wall, just like the one my neighbours built this year, so I don’t ever have to worry about fence panels taken down by the next storm. The price of £5500 however, makes me wanna roll my eyes and get the fence. Well, I guess the time will show which one I decide on, but it has to be sorted before my fostering application completion.

Let me introduce you to my lovely roses

Before I digress too far, let’s just look at the subjects of this article. I introduced them already to my noise.cash family, giving each one of them an introduction it deserves, but here I can put them all together as a lovely rose family they make.

Red rumbling rose of unknown name

I’ll start with the oldest rose I have in my garden. Red rose is a must have for every garden lover. Stereotypically it is associated with Love, with which I of course agree. I might just add that I associate each and every rose and flower with Love, a beautiful gift from Gaia and our creator.

I don’t know the name of this rose, because it already grew in my garden when I got my house 7 years ago. A beautiful gift of love from one of the previous owners of this house. I was over the moon when I discovered this rose, even though I didn’t know it’s colour until it open its first beautiful flower a few months after I moved in.

This rose is a real monster. It is huge and with years it shoots more and more branches, which I don’t always prune vigorously, but at the end of this year it will need a proper pruning, because its health is deteriorating and it probably needs a good anti-fungal spray, which will be easier to do when it’s smaller.

Need I say that it has a lovely fragrance? Well, it does. Just like the roses I remember from my childhood. Not very strong, but still undeniable and very pleasant to my sensitive nose.

Pink hedging rose

in between these two, there was once a yellow rose, but it didn’t like the position I have chose for it or maybe it was struggling with an unknown disease. It had very few yellow blooms and never really established fully, then after maybe 2 years it died. What can one do? Death is a natural part of life and this one had a short life.

My pink rose however is just loving her position and it grows like a weed! I guess this must be the reason behind people using this bush often as a hedge. You can trim and prune all you like, but it just keeps on growing.

Fun fact about this rose is that it was meant to be a deep purple tea rose! I purchased it in the shop called Poundland, where everything used to cost just £1, the same as the yellow rose I mentioned earlier. Who can say no to £1 rose? You just need to try your luck. It didn’t turn out what the box said, but hey - it’s beautiful nonetheless.

Great thing about this type of rose is that bees absolutely love them! I can always hear buzzing whenever I’m near this bush. If bees love them, I have no choice by to love them too!

They love it even more if the flower is single rather than double, as it makes for an easier access for them. Here is an example from my witch friend’s garden. Same type of rose, just in white.

The fragrance? Intoxicating! You don’t need to stick your nose to, although you can if you wish. But just sitting close to it is enough to catch a drift of it when the wind blows it your way. Another true gift from mama nature. I think this is the type of rose they use for creating rose scented products of any kind.

Fun fact 2. I have yet another rose of this type from Poundland! This year it was camouflaged as a lilac tea rose and it turned out yet again to be a pink hedge rose. On well, one day I will find the rose in the colour I love, but for now I enjoy these two.

Orange rose named Super Trouper!

The time has come for a story most gardeners know for sure. I went to an amazing local rose-only nursery, ‘just to browse’ and experience this beautiful place. Needless to say I didn’t come back with empty hands! I hauled 3 pots of beautiful, scented roses.

First one of them is called Super Trouper. They were growing planted en masse in their display garden, just like the public gardens in Poland, coupled with deep purple ones. I searched my phone for the evidence, but to no avail.

One of the reasons why it is worth paying more for your roses is that you actually get exactly what the label says. In this case, classic tea rose bush, where each flowers grow on a single branch and it looks just like the rose you’ll get in a bouquet for your birthday or other occasion.

When it fully opens, it looks more like this:

My friend Nunzia and I were very fortunate to buy this one, because it seemingly wasn’t in stock anymore. But the two of us together just create the magic wherever we go and so we chatted up a young men, who was working at the nursery. We had enormous amounts of questions, which he was happy to answer, then we expressed our disappointment for not being able to find Super Trouper among many shelves with roses. This sweetheart went out of his way to find 2 pots for us hidden in a secret storage. Not only that, he also charged us a flat rate of £12.50 per rose, even though some of our choices were more expensive, because we purchased 6 roses altogether.

Last, but not least - the fragrance! It is very much rose-like fragrance, only slightly stronger than that of my red rose. The true beauty of Super Trouper however is in its incredibly rich and bright colour. Who can say no to this? Not me!

Sweet Child of Mine

Time for the last of 4 established roses of mine. It scent is as sweet as its name - Sweet Child of Mine! First blooms of the season were similarly scented to other roses, but as more and more blooms opened the real almond like fragrance intensified. I’m not sure about you, but I’ve never had an almond scented rose before!

The blooms? Well, you can see for yourself. Buttercup type flowers look somewhat different than any rose I knew from my childhood, but slowly the grew on me and before I knew it they stole my heart completely.

Another characteristic of this rose is that it’s the flowering habit called floribunda. Unlike the hybrid tea roses, floribunda type roses grow many blooms on 1 branch. When in full bloom the effect is spectacular!

it is such a vigorous grower, that even an army of aphids strengthened by even bigger army of ants can not take it down!

Here the two of them together in my front garden, which newly built wall and DollyLolly trying to steal the show.

Sweet memory of Ingrid Bergman rose

The third one of the 3 roses I purchased? Sadly it got stolen before I planted it in the ground. It’s sad, but some people have so little that they have to steal. I send them all my love so their life can improve, although with such deeds they only attract more sadness into their lives.

The only memory I have of the beautiful Ingrid Bergman is that on my niece’s drawing. She fell in love with huge blooms and drew it for me. It’s been hanging on my fridge since last year, reminding me of the precious rose I once had.

Not enough surprises!

After many surprise roses from Poundland, I couldn’t resist yet another attempt at getting the yellow rose which is missing in my collection. So far it’s just a small bush, growing in the pot and when I almost saw the bud developing, the next day it was on the floor, possibly munched off by aphids or other creatures. I shall update this article when it finally blooms.

For Your Eyes Only

And finally let me introduce you to my first successful attempt at propagating roses. I took a few cuttings from Nunzia’s rose - ‘For your eyes only’ last year. I watched some YouTube videos of how to do it and a few months later, some of my cuttings were still alive! Even better, this year, after repotting them to bigger homes they actually started to bloom!

I could look it up in the nursery catalog to tell you more about the growing habit of this rose, but I prefer to experience it fully, before putting it on the paper as mine. So far she’s just a baby and I can’t even remember it’s scent as it appeared and was gone so fast.

The fun fact about this rose though is that it has 2 different colours of blooms on one bush. I find this fascinating. It’s also a single type of bloom beloved by the bees and overall vigorous grower. I shall transplant in into the ground at the end of the season. Finger crossed it survives, as roses are known not to grow well on their own roots!

So here it is. My rose garden introductions ends here. I dream about many more roses in my garden. I would love a lilac one and double colour one amongst many many others. I am however very happy and grateful for what I have so far.

I hope you enjoyed a little peak into my rose garden.

Until next time 💙