Thursday morning found me up on Nose Hill again, where I discovered a large pocket of white wild roses. Our two wild rose species, Rosa acicularis and Rosa woodsii, usually flower in various shades of pink, and I was delighted to come across white ones that were not simply pink blooms washed out by age or sunlight or drought. Very pretty!
Other than a miniature rose with gorgeous pink blooms that my former landlady “lent” me about a decade ago, I don’t grow any roses at our apartment complex. Fortunately, the mini hangs on from year to year with my minimal care – although it was touch and go this spring. For awhile there, I actually feared it had finally been done in by the weather, but it surprised me with its perseverance. Good thing, too, because my former landlady still lives in my building and she regularly checks on the plant (which was a gift from her granddaughter). It’s just starting to put on flower buds now, much later than usual…but I’m just so relieved it’s still alive. Here’s a photo from 2006, when it was fairly new to the garden. (I’m surprised to find that I don’t have any recent pics of it – I will rectify that once it blooms. Of course, it’s not a whole lot larger now than it was back then!).
Okay, it’s your turn to brag about your roses…let’s hear about the ones that are performing best in your garden this year, the ones that you love most, the ones you’re dreaming about! Please feel free to put up a link to your blog in the comments if you want others to check out any posts you’ve made about your roses – I know I’d certainly be delighted to see them!
Flowery Prose 
I’m waiting for the second blooming of my roses I had hundreds of beautiful roses in June. Gorgeous photo’s of beautiful roses.
Oh, to sit in your garden with all of those wonderful roses! 🙂
beautiful picture of the wild rose, I really like the look of the foliage with their bluish tint!
The foliage is really complementary! Such a nice sunny morning, too – the light was just right. 🙂
Hope you’re having a great weekend!
I love seeing wild roses and my rosa rugosa has done quite well this year, not getting too straggly as in some years. Maybe this year I will finally try making rosehip syrup, but the hips look so pretty on the plant it’s a shame to pick them! Have a good week Sheryl!
I do love the rugosas…they’re so fragrant and beautiful – and they’re hardy enough to take the cold! Maybe you’ll have enough hips this year to make a very small batch of syrup…and still leave some on the plant!
Enjoy your week as well, hope it’s a great one!
Lovely white rose. I am fond of roses, love the botanic and old fashioned fragrant roses best, but of my more than 100 different roses there are also newer roses amongst them. Actually I love all roses. Made in June rose petal syrup which is delicious for use in icecream, cakes and lemonade.
I’ve just been over to browse your blog – what a spectacular garden you have! Your photos are absolutely fantastic!
I’ve made rose petal jelly in the past, and syrup from the hips (but not the petals, I will have to try that). Definitely a wonderful flavour.
Have a great week!
love roses, sadly have nothing to brag about, I grow mine in containers and they dont like it enough to flower profusely sadly…
It’s still wonderful to grow them at all, even if they’re not excellent bloomers! 🙂
How wonderful to find wild white roses; how lovely to find wild roses, full stop! My roses have just had a very big prune. Not looking pretty yet. Here’s one of my miniature roses in November 2012 http://silkannthreades.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/dear-mother-a-posy-for-you-%E2%99%A5/#comments
Oh I adore that colour! What a beauty.
It is a sweetie. 🙂
I’m relieved that your little rose bush made it through the winter!! I wrote last summer about a rose standard we had planted–the garden diva. But she was too much of a diva to deal with our harsh winters and she didn’t make it. 😦 Now we’re sticking to the wild roses that seem to thrive no matter what!
The wild roses are made of stronger stuff, that’s for sure! This past winter was so hard on the more delicate ones, so sorry to hear you lost yours.
The only brag I can make about my rambler roses is that they survived the winter. I thought sure they were dead, but thanks to being grown on their own rootstock as opposed to grafted, they eventually grew right up again out of the ground. They’re only about 1/4 the size they were last year, but being ramblers, they’ll catch up and then some.
That’s a great thing about ramblers – they’re really, really tough! Hopefully this coming winter will go easy on them as well.
I have never seen a white wild rose, it is very pretty. I will have to search the internet to see if it grows in my area.
I had never seen them before this, either – what a treat! I hope you’ll find some as well.
I have never seen wild white roses – nice!
Definitely a wonderful find!
I love roses but they will not grow at my place. Thank you for sharing your beauties in pictures. Hugs
So glad you enjoyed them! It’s tricky to grow roses here as well!
No roses in my garden … I’ll hope you give me a suggestion! Not too challenging and not loved by deer (and groundhogs, rabbits, etc). Beautiful pictures!
Critter-free roses would be awesome, LOL! We’ll have to figure out how to breed some like that – we’ll make a fortune! 😉 And once we’ve figured out the roses, we can get started on the petunias and all the other plants the rabbits have taken out in my garden….
I’m not sure of your hardiness zone there – you must be around 5, is that right?
“It’s been a good year for the roses”! Sorry, it just came out! They have performed brilliantly this year, both shrub and species roses. A few are still hanging on, mainly Rosa gallica, which was later to flower. Many will repeat if I keep on top of deadheading, but the main flush is over.
So wonderful that you’ve had an excellent season for roses, it’s such a pleasure when that happens! And that you’ll have some repeat bloomers as well…that’s always a delightful bonus at the end of summer.
This was a hard year for roses so many have yet to bloom or are so short in shrub or vine you can barely see the blooms…best were my native swamp rose which has the most intoxicating rose scent.