BUSY BEES AND PUZZLING ROSES
By llew
17 comments
After some trials and tribulations in recent weeks, I finally got some much needed time in my garden today. I weeded, hoed, deadheaded and generally had a good look at everything and there’s lots happening out there. :o)
Whilst I was kneeling down weeding round the lupins, a bee decided it was time for work. I was so close to him but he completely ignored me. I spent a very pleasant 10 mins watching this little fella going about his business. He was gathering nectar from the lupin and he was so methodical in his pursuit of pollen, it was fascinating. He literally went from one blossom to the next in a circular fashion, gradually working his way up the plant. As he landed on a flower, he parted the petals with his back legs, gathered his pollen and moved on to the next doing the same thing over and over again.
I caught some movement out of the corner of my left eye, and a completely different species of bee was also going about his business on my centaurea.
I wandered round the garden taking a few pics of a few things that have made some good progress.
This is my little survivor. My Pink Patio rose that I thought had died. I doubt he’ll give much of a show this year, but he does seem healthy.
Clematis ‘Voluceau’
My buddleia was very hard pruned in March. Down to about 12 inches. It’s growing so well now. Lovely and upright and about 5 foot tall. No blooms to show you, but I’m well pleased with it.
My spuds are doing rather well in their little black sacks too. I can’t believe how many leaves they produce….and Soooooooooooo bushy, lol. Another rose that needed some TLC in front of the spuds with some buds on, so I’m in for some more lovely blooms. :o)
The Iceberg didn’t like all the rain we had yesterday so has decided to sulk today. I’m not too hopeful that the blooms will lift again now. I still love it though.
But, my Frycassia patio rose, obviously did like the rain and it’s looking beautiful.
Delphinium. The first I’ve ever grown. The blossoms aren’t as tightly packed as I thought they’d be, but I still quite like it.
My Jasmine ‘Stephanense’ is beginning to flower now too.
So, if you’ve read this far, you’re probably wondering where the puzzling roses come in. Go on, admit it..you are, aren’t you? Yeah, you must be curious by now, lol.
Well, here’s the puzzle.
I have this rose…(and isn’t it beautiful?)
and I also have this rose…(not the same mini rose that I posted a pic of previously).
Now the puzzle is…..wait for it……are you waiting……still there?
OK.
……………………..
They’re on the same plant!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, I swear I haven’t planted two roses in the same pot. It’s a small 6 incher so I wouldn’t even plant one rose in it, never mind two. A few years ago, I bought one of those house rose gift type plants and it didn’t do well, so I stuck it outside and forgot about it. It was red, I definitely remember that. Anyway, this rose hasn’t bloomed for a couple of years (at least, not that I’ve seen) but as it’s always had leaves on, I kept it and this year, put it in the blue pot in my group of pots. As I’ve not had much gardening time recently, I hadn’t noticed anything amiss with this although I did see that it had buds on it. I was astounded to see this today. There are four distinct stems in the pot, but obviously I can’t see any bud union as these house things seem to be potted differently. So, have I got some sort of sport here or are there two roses in the pot? The pink one has a cluster at the top, yet a single stem with bud at the bottom. The reds are single. Both the pink and the red have large green leaves and lighter coloured smaller leaves.
So, what d’ya reckon, eh?
And, I was wondering. When you were kids, did you grow carrot tops? You know, mum was cooking the sunday roast and you stuck the top end of the carrots in a saucer of water and grew the lovely ferny plant, lol. Well, I did. All the time. What I never grew was a swede!
But today, I found a swede at the back of my veg basket (I really must clear this basket more often, lol. My last find was dried chillies, ha, ha). So I went back to my childhood, cut the top off and stuck it in water. Will it grow? In fact, can I plant it in the garden? (and do you know, I almost cut the top off a carrot to join it, lol).
My day in the garden finished with a couple of the old aircraft from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight going over.
The Lancaster.
The Dakota.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
Well, both of course, but I really liked the fluke of catching the bird in the foreground and everything in shadow.
So that’s it. My day in my garden. The cherry on top though was the postie brought me two new rose books. The RHS Encyclopedia of Roses and the Botanica’s Roses so now I have about 6000 pictures of roses to drool over. :o)
16 Jun, 2009
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Comments
Wow, Llew, you have had a lovely day in the garden. I love the pics of your plants. The delphinium is lovely. Is this it's first year flowering?
Your mini rose may be two seperate plants. Usually the minis you buy at the grocery store have more than one plant per pot and the plants are very young. Possibly as the one plant got older it started producing paler flowers....that sometimes happens and is one of the reasons why patented roses are usually not released for sale for a number of years.
Loved the pics of the fly past. Reminds me of being in Bridlington as a kid. The planes used to fly over all the time. There must have been an airfield close by. Sometimes they were the old ones, sometimes jets breaking the sound barrier.
17 Jun, 2009
Lovely blog Llew and your photos are great, can't comment on the rogue rose though !!!
17 Jun, 2009
Loved reading your blog. What a puzzle about the rose ? Maybe a sport as you say. It happened to a fuchsia I had once - pink on one side and red on the other.
Yes I remember the carrot tops. I used to get some sand and put it in a box, then I'd place a mirror on it and some sprouting carrot tops around the mirror, and I would pretend it was an oasis in a desert. lol. The carrots looked like palm trees. I had a little toy plastic camel that I used to put there aswell. - Oh childhood memories. Mind you I haven't grown up much since then anyway :o)
17 Jun, 2009
fab pictures and what a wonderful rose
obviously had an argument withitself and came to a fab decision to be both
hehehe I remember the days of growing veg tops, all lined on my mums kitchen window sill
aah the memories
x x x
17 Jun, 2009
Thanks, guys. :o) Glad you liked the blog.
Gilli, yes. It's the Delph's first year flowering. I planted it in April about 4 inches tall. :o) Is that good then? And what about the Pink Patio Rose, eh? That was one of those that had 'died'. (changed the name, forgot the Orange Parfum was in the bed - got them mixed up). I used to live in Brid when I was a kid too. My dad was Coastguard there.
As for the rose, could it be that two were grafted to the same rootstock and both have decided to flower? I know a bit about roses, but no clue whether these house things even have a rootstock/bud union in the soil. Whatever the reason, that baby will definitely be planted up properly in the autumn now. :o) Mind you, other flowers, such as Blod's fuchsia don't have root stocks do they?
Hywel, totally love your story about the mirrors and oasis, lol. How cute is that?
Bob, I thought there were more bees around this year too. I used to run like hell from them, but not anymore. Fascinating little creatures I think. :D
17 Jun, 2009
Lovely blog and photos, Llew. I was so busy looking at the photos and reading your narrative I forgot all about the puzzling roses until you mentioned it again! Glad you had such a good day in the garden.
17 Jun, 2009
Llew, mini roses are usually grown on their own roots. Although there are exceptions. I would think that this one is probably on its own root. Are there two stems coming from the soil or does the different colour come out of the stem of the other rose? If there are two seperate stems I'd say you have two seperate plants.
Your patio rose is fantastic. What a great come back it made. Roses are really surprising sometimes.
The delph is wonderful. You may find that as the plant gets older (as in next year and the years after) that the flowers will be more tightly packed along the stem. That happened with my 'Royal Aspirations' delph.
We had a caravan in Brid that we spent every summer at. I loved it.
Hywel ~ I loved your story of the carrot tops too.
17 Jun, 2009
Separate stems, Gilli. In fact there's 4 distinct stems in the pot. I would be inclined to think it's different plants myself except for the fact that both have large and small leaves of different greens.
I really want to whip it out of the pot and have a good look, but obviously I can't do that, lol.
17 Jun, 2009
Love all the roses, Llew, are they scented? We have 'Iceberg' in our garden as well. The white for Yorks, and an as yet un-named red for Lancs.
17 Jun, 2009
The pink one has more scent than the red one, Silver, but neither are very strong.
17 Jun, 2009
I would tag the different one Llew....tie a little string on it or something....then wait until they go dormant in the autumn before you dig and explore. I'll lay money on there being 4 seperate plants. I did that with one of my grocery store minis and now have 4 seperate plants.
18 Jun, 2009
Yep. Tag it, I will. :o)
18 Jun, 2009
I had one of those house rose gift type plants as a gift and when it finished flowering I decided to prune and repot it - and found it was four tiny plants in the one pot. So it looks as if they put two different types in your pot - perhaps the pink one didn't flower the first year. Love the bees - they are absolutely fascinating to watch, aren't they?
18 Jun, 2009
Ahh, right. Thanks for that, Wagger.
It does seem to be the consensus of opinion then, and I'm sure you're all right. Bummer though, I was hoping I had something 'special', lol.
18 Jun, 2009
It IS special Llew.....it is a hidden 'surprise' rose. :o)
19 Jun, 2009
Great blog! I've only just now "discovered" it!
Your photos are really good. I love the close up shots of the bee on your Lupin spike, by-the-way, all the bees we see around our flowers are female workers. The males don't go out looking for nectar or pollen to take back to the hive.
I have had several mini roses growing on my balcony for several years. I don't have space for normal size rose bushes! LOL!
It would seem your puzzle is actually two different varieties in the same pot. Did you do as was suggested by Gilli & tag them to later separate them & pot them up individually? I thought you could do that before I got down as far as Gilli's suggestion!
13 Mar, 2010
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Wow! thanks for your day in the garden, Phew I'm exhausted now :o) I really do think bee's are fascinating creatures, they never tire of going around and around constantly collecting. I don't know about you Llew but I really do think that there are more bee's this year, what do other GoY members think? Your flowers are gorgeous and your roses too, unfortunately thats the one flower my wife cannot stand, and to top it off you had a fly-past oooooh impressive, I love the old planes especially the Spitfire and Lancaster, we don't have a yearly airshow at Barton anymore and I miss it. Thanks for your blog it was lovely.
16 Jun, 2009