Plant Notes

PLANT OF THE MONTH: May 2007	Rosa Species
Definitely roses this month!      Georgous fragrant blooms! Virginia Kean of Redwood City thinks that the roses liked our cold winter and she brought us a collection of beautiful ones. Two were English, or David Austin, roses. "Fair Bianca" (1983) a pure white with pink buds and "Claire Rose" (1986) i a delicate, blush pink. Virginia also showed two outstanding miniatures bred by Ralph Moore of Sequoia Nursery in Visalia. He is considered the "Father of Miniatures". "Twister" (1997) is a climber with double, dahlia-like blossoms with clear red stripes on white. "Earthquake" (1983) (just love that name!) has fully double blooms with red stripes on lemon yellow. A sport of "Earthquake" is a vigorous climber with the same flowers. We were also treated to a a selection of wonderful old roses; white Damask rose "Madame Hardy" (1832) said to be the perfect rose of its type; Moss rose "Henri Martin" (1863) with semi-double, bright crimson blooms and a soft pink, very old Bourbon rose.	Miniature Rose "Earthquake"      Moss Rose "Henri Martin"
Barbara Worl with her great interest in heritage roses brought some shrub roses for us to admire and consider. The first R. wichurana variegata is a large rambler or climber with single, white roses and foliage nicely variegated with white. The second was R. roxburghii normalis. This is a large, deciduous shrub with single, pale pink flowers in spring. It has prickle covered hips that turn red-orange in fall. Her third example was R. r. plena with deeper pink, double flowers.
	Rosa roxburghii normalis