Along the back of our house, we have put in a big blank canvas of landscaping ties that are filled with gravel.  That particular part of the house gets full sun for quite some time over the course of the day and is great with respect to drainage so I decided to plant roses in the back.  I tried to chose roses with different fragrance notes.  Oh, also, I am a little eccentric an will name all of my plants so if you, as a reader, see a random name, that’s most likely what is going on there so don’t be surprised.

 

 

This rose is very robust!  We planted it and it took off and it has an extremely strong clove fragrance.  It’s an amazing rose to have in the yard and so very attractive. The flower type is more of a “globular” type and it has a pretty good rating for disease resistance.  I named this rose Fran.

 

 

 

This rose is such an attractive rose.  It does have a nice spicy scent.  I call this rose my Alice in Wonderland rose.  It reminds me of the scene from Alice in Wonderland with the Playing Cards and Alice when, at the Queen’s request they were “Painting the Roses Red.” This picture was taken right after we planted so there weren’t any real good representative roses, but when it is in bloom I will take better pictures because the blooms are just so neat to look at overall.  It’s considered a “double bloom” and has a pretty good amount of disease resistance.

 

 

This rose has a wonderful strong rosey fruity scent.  Its a beautiful rose and gives off several shades of color over the course of it’s bloom cycle.  It starts off as a darker orange to pink shade and as it matures, it becomes a very nice pale peach color. The bud shapes in this rose are classified as “pointed, ovid” which is what people think of as the classic rose bud shape.  This one is  my mother-in-law’s favorite of all of the roses we planted. Also, the petals from this rose make wonderful candied treats!

 

 

 

I purchased the Angel Face because of the citrus notes that it gives off as a fragrance, which can be smelled halfway across our yard.  The picture on the card is a little deceiving though; while the picture of the rose is a nice soft pink, ours are more of a pinkish white.  These also have an “pointed, ovid” bud shape.  It’s a very nice and attractive rose though.

 

 

My pride and joy is a rose that I have had since Hurricane Katrina.  I purchased it from a grower in Louisiana just before the hurricane hit in 2005 and I am so happy that I did.  I named him Sparky.  He is a Rosa chinensis viridiflora.  This particular rose smells like black pepper.  He is a very unique rose because he is an heirloom rose, not grafted and is relatively hardy and will bloom all year long in the right growing zones, and of course, he does not look like the traditional rose.  The petals are shaped like sepals.  One of the main problems that we have with Sparky is that he is VERY VERY prone to blackspot.  Since I generally don’t like to use fungicidal products on the plants because of the pollinators, he generally has blackspot for most of the season.   Here is a picture of newly developed buds and growth as we have been attempting to clone him for about a year (unsuccessfully, after several technique attempts).  Maybe next year will be the charm.