ROSA 'FRIESIA'

Rosa 'Friesia' (synonyms: 'Sunsprite'; 'KORresia') is a rose variety developed by Reimer Kordes and introduced in 1973. The rose was derived from the cultivars 'Friedrich Wörlein' × 'Spanish Sun', and is one of the most successful floribunda roses. It was named 'Friesia' after the region Frisia (Friesland), the home of the breeder, and was one of the first roses to be given a code name (KORresia for Kordes).

Its sunny yellow blooms are large and flat with 17 to 25 waved petals, reaching an average diameter of 8 cm and have a very strong fragrance. The high-centred flowers appear solitary or in small clusters in a blooming period lasting from June to September. Their bright yellow colour hardly changes with age. The flower is not well suited as a cut flower as it has short stems and only lasts for a short period of time after cutting.

The plant has light-green, glossy leaves, forms upright, bushy shrubs with about 40 to 75 cm height and up to 60 cm width, is very disease resistant and hardy (USDA zone 6b) and can be grown on the ground or in containers. It is used as a parent rose, leading to cultivars such as Rosa 'Sun Flare' (Warriner 1981) and 'Morden Sunrise' (Davidson & Collicutt) 1991.

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SUMMER FLOWERS

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TEASING GEORGIA

Rosa 'Teasing Georgia' is a beautiful climbing rose. The rosette blooms are a rich shade of yellow, the outer petals falling back and fading to palest yellow, providing a most pleasing two-tone effect. There is a lovely strong Tea Rose fragrance. It is a DavidﾠAustin rose introduced in 1998.

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RED ROSE HEART

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RAINY ROSE

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GRANNY SMITH

The Granny Smith is a tip-bearing apple cultivar, which originated in Australia in 1868. It is named after Maria Ann Smith, who propagated the cultivar from a chance seedling. The tree is thought to be a hybrid of Malus sylvestris, the European Wild Apple, with the domestic apple M. domestica as the pollinator. The fruit has hard, light green skin and a crisp, juicy flesh. Granny Smiths go from being completely green to turning yellow when overripe. The acidity mellows significantly on ripening, and it takes on a balanced flavour.

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and also part of the My Corner of the World meme,

and also part of the Nature Notes meme.

ROSA "EVELYN"

Rosa "Evelyn" from David Austin was bred from Tamora x Graham Thomas. The rose has the typical Austin cupped /rosette form. Evelyn is known for the beauty of the blooms, for their fragrance and for a marvellous display at flowering time.

The plant has a neat vase shape at the base, then reaches both up and out. It grows to about two metres tall with some canes spreading about the same width. Basals are produced readily, and throw candelabras of bloom - bearing huge, lush, drooping panicles of soft pink blossoms. Older canes tend to bloom with single buds, or in twos and threes.

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JAPONICA

Chaenomeles japonica is a species of Japanese Quince in the Rosaceae family. It is a thorny deciduous shrub that is commonly cultivated. It is shorter than another commonly cultivated species C. speciosa, growing to only about 1 m in height. The fruit is called Kusa-boke (草木瓜) in Japanese.

Chaenomeles japonica is also popularly grown in bonsai. It is best known for its colourful spring flowers of red, white or pink. It produces apple-shaped fruit that are a golden-yellow colour containing red-brown seeds. The fruit is edible, but hard and astringent-tasting, unless bletted. The fruit is occasionally used in jelly and pie making as an inferior substitute for its cousin, the true quince, Cydonia oblonga.

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ROSE

"A rose is a rose is a rose." - Gertrude Stein

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'JUST JOEY' ROSE

Rosa 'Just Joey' was bred by Cants of Colchester, United Kingdom, in 1972. It was named for the wife of the Managing Director of Cants of Colchester, Joey Pawsey. This Hybrid Tea rose performs well throughout Australia and there are many fine specimens in Melbourne gardens, beginning with ours, where we have no less than four bushes of this variety! It really is one of the most beautiful of our roses.

The plant is vigorous and grows well, achieving a height of 1.5 m and width of 1.2 m. Flowers are borne one per stem and can be of an impressive size (up to 20cm in Spring and Autumn, slightly smaller during Summer). The bush is disease and heat resistant and tends to survive well with a little care. The flower is an eye-catching ripe apricot colour with a loose, informal display of pretty frilled petals.

Probably its most seductive feature is its intense, spicy fragrance which will quickly fill a room, when a bunch is placed in a vase. This perfume is inherited from its parents (Fragrant Cloud x Dr. A.J. Verhage) also renowned for their strong scent. It has been awarded the Royal Horticultural Society Award of Merit 1993 and World’s Favourite Rose 1994. When introduced, its colour and size of flowers were considered breakthroughs. This lovely rose is readily available and will reward and delight any rose lover!

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ICEBERG ROSE

'Iceberg' is a floribunda rose cultivar that was bred in Germany in 1958. It is also known by the names 'Korbin' (the registered cultivar name), Fée des Neiges and Schneewittchen. It is among the world's best known roses. Iceberg is a modern cluster-flowered floribunda rose cultivar. The cultivar is commercially available in two main forms. These are as a tall bush and a standard rose produced by grafting. Weeping and climbing forms are also available. Shrub forms of the cultivar have an upright habit and are 75 to 150 cm wide high and 60 cm wide. Leaves are light green and glossy. Blooms are about 5 cm in diameter and have 25 to 35 petals. Buds are long and pointed. The subtly fragrant flowers usually appear throughout the year.

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MY SUNDAY BEST MEME #153 - ROSE HIPS

Welcome to the meme, "My Sunday Best", which is a photographic and creative meme that allows you to showcase your talents in imaging. Every Sunday, you can post here showing an image you have created using your camera, (and/or) image processing software, and/or painting and drawing in the conventional way and have scanned in.

The rules are simple:

1) Create your image and post it up on your blog;

2) Put the "My Sunday Best" logo image link somewhere on your post so people can click and come by here;

3) Leave a comment here once you have posted;

4) Visit other posters' blogs and be amazed with their creativity!

Please do not use this meme to advertise your goods or services. This is a creative meme and any inappropriate links or comments shall be removed immediately!

The theme is of your own choosing, so post on any subject you desire.

Rose hips reddening on wild rose bushes can only mean that Summer is advancing and Autumn is on its way...

Last week, Klara in Poland posted some lovely photos of ducks, the one below being my favourite. Please visit her blog for more beautiful photos.

INDIAN HAWTHORN

Rhaphiolepis is a genus of about fifteen species of evergreen shrubs and small trees in the family Rosaceae, native to warm temperate and subtropical eastern and southeastern Asia, from southern Japan, southern Korea and southern China south to Thailand and Vietnam. In searching literature it is well to remember that the name commonly is misspelt "Raphiolepsis". The genus is closely related to Eriobotrya (loquats), so closely in fact, that members of the two genera have hybridised with each other; for example the "Coppertone loquat" is a hybrid of Eriobotrya deflexa X Rhaphiolepis indica.

The best known species is Rhaphiolepis indica (Indian hawthorn) from southern China, grown for its decorative pink flowers, and popular in bonsai culture. Rhaphiolepis umbellata (Yeddo hawthorn) from Japan and Korea has blunter leaves and white flowers. It is the hardiest species, tolerating temperatures down to about −15 °C. Its fruit is edible when cooked, and can be used to make jam.

Indian hawthorn is a mainstay horticultural specimen in temperate climates. It is often found in commercial as well as in private landscapes. Often it is trimmed into small compact hedges or balls for foundation plants. It has been successfully pruned into a standard form as well as small dwarf-like trees up to 3 metres in height. It is apt to develop leaf spot.

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'TROILUS' ROSE

'Troilus' is a David Austin old-fashioned rose with beautiful, large, deeply cupped blooms of a wonderful shade of honey-buff colour on a strong growing bush with mid-green foliage. It is a fragrant rose that performs outstandingly well when grown in a warmer climate.

Troilus was released by David Austin in 1983. It was named after the Trojan War hero in Shakespeare’s tragedy, 'Troilus and Cressida'. The Troilus rose flowers continuously from spring to late autumn. It is a sturdy, upright shrub of medium height.

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MOTHER & CHILD ROSE

Rosa "Mother and Child" is a hybrid from Rankin’s Roses released in 2015. The elegant strong stems of "Mother and Child" peak into highly fragrant clusters of dark pink flowers, with up to 10 flowers per stem. Set off by hardy, dark green foliage, the beautiful blooms of "Mother and Child" will flower profusely and will stay disease free (very resistant to black spot and mildew in gardens). The rose grows approximately 1.1m high x 0.6m wide. Rankin's "Mother and Child" sales will follow the tradition in supporting research into MND (Motor Neurone Disease) to find a cure for this terrible disease.

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GEUM

Geum, commonly called avens, is a genus of about 50 species of rhizomatous perennial herbaceous plants in the rose family Rosaceae, native to Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa, and New Zealand. They are closely related to Potentilla and Fragaria.

From a basal rosette of leaves they produce flowers on wiry stalks, in shades of red, yellow and orange, in midsummer. Geum species are evergreen except where winter temperatures drop below −18 °C. The cultivars "Lady Stratheden" and "Mrs J. Bradshaw" have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

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ROSE TIME

The roses are in full bloom at the moment in Melbourne and the mild, wet weather we have been having is ensuring they are flowering profusely.

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ROSA 'ALNWICK'

The Alnwick® Rose is an English Shrub rose bred by David Austin in 2001. It is an exceptionally reliable rose with richly fragrant blooms. It produces pretty, many petalled, cupped blooms of soft pink. There is a rich old rose fragrance with raspberry notes. It flowers in flushes from early summer until the first frosts. It forms a nicely rounded, slightly upright, bushy shrub with plentiful, glossy green foliage.

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CALLERY PEAR

Pyrus calleryana, the Callery pear known in the USA as the Bradford Pear, is a species of pear native to China and Vietnam, in the family Rosaceae. It is a deciduous tree growing to 5 to 8 m tall, often with a conic to rounded crown. The leaves are oval, 4 to 8 cm long, glossy dark green above, and slightly paler below.

The white, five-petaled flowers are about 2 to 2.5 cm in diameter. They are produced abundantly in early spring, before the leaves expand fully. The fruits of the Callery pear are small (less than one cm in diameter), and hard, almost woody, until softened by frost, after which they are readily taken by birds, which disperse the seeds in their droppings. In summer, the foliage is dark green and very smooth, and in autumn the leaves commonly turn brilliant colours, ranging from yellow and orange to more commonly red, pink, purple, and bronze.

Their dense clusters of white blossoms are conspicuous and very pretty in early spring, however their smell is commonly found unpleasant by many people (me included!). The smell is often described as 'fishy' and 'putrid'.

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BIRTHDAY ROSES

They are from the North, but roses they are nevertheless, offered in Winter, and their message is clear: Red for love, pink for joy and white for secrecy...

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