Rose Bush April 25 -- Well Over 400 Blossoms

I have passed the last couple of weeks in astonishment as the rose count continues to climb. On April 6 I was pleased to see 5 roses. but knew there were more to come because it was loaded with green buds. By the 13th I counted 36 blooms and only 3 days later it was 100! After that it became too hard to count, but on the 20th I made an effort and hit 235! Today I decided since they are mostly in clumps of 6 I'd just count clumps -- and hit 70 without even counting individual ones. So well over 400, probably 500 if I had some real way to manage!

The bees have discovered the bush, too. They have a nice, rose fragrance, although not very strong.

I don't see very many green buds now, so it is probably at its peak.

235 Blooms

Climbing Pinkie Earth-Kind® Rose

For Mother's Day, 2009, I was given a Climbing Pinkie Earth-Kind® Rose by my children. Now, almost a year later you can see it has grown really large! It had spots in November, but I ignored them. It wasn't bothered by the snow and temperatures in the 20s. I have not pruned it nor given it any special watering or fertilizing. I do mulch the entire bed. Now in April it is bursting out with beautiful, fragrant pink roses about 3 inches wide when fully overblown.

The Earth-Kind Rose Program was developed by Dr. Steve George and Texas A&M University. This is an excellent article about the formation and initial findings of the program, and this is a PowerPoint from A&M.

I was thinking I might need to prune it but from reading more it sounds like I don't need to, so perhaps this year I will just let it go and see what happens! It has just begun to reach the top of the fence, so hopefully my neighbor will get to enjoy them, too.

Links cited:

http://www.walterreeves.com/landscaping/article.phtml?cat=7&id=890

aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/earthkind/roses/media/EKRoses.ppt

Census Day, April 1, 2010

Every 10 years we participate in the U S Census and this year was the year!