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Sjoerd
nominate your own title
Hoorn, the Netherlands
Westerland Rose13 Apr '06 11:13 am
When I first visited this site a few weeks ago I saw a small foto on one of the pages which I recognized as a Westerland rose. I have this rose myself and am totally overwhelmed with it's beauty and fragrance. I'll tell you...when I saw that, I KNEW that I had discovered a good forum!
I only have two sorts in my flower garden and am finding that managing the roses is much easier than I originally thought. I was sort of "over-cautious" with their care in the beginning as I wanted them to have every chanve of establishing themselves. They were lineing-up to take the mickey at my care regimen...but they are quieter now as the results have been stunning so far...and I have had them only one year! The westerland you have to see in person to appreciate what a wonderful thing it truely is.
Thanks for having the piccy, Head Gardner... |
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moosey
head gardener
13 Apr '06 5:40 pm
Roses are con-artists. They think they need this special fertiliser at exactly that time of year, plus all sorts of little accesssories - liquid seaweed, not too much overhead watering, not too much overcrowding, and so on. Well I reckon that 90% of the roses I grow here get on just fine - often without a single spraying session!
It's Autumn, and Westerland (the bush itself is totally scruffy) is showing a few last blooms. These flowers are amazingly much darker and deeper in colour than the ones I enjoy in early summer! I wonder why that happens? It's not just a trick of the softer light, is it? |
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Sjoerd
nominate your own title
Hoorn, the Netherlands
Westerland Colour diff.13 Apr '06 9:33 pm
Ha ha ha...it sounds like yours is doing great, HG. Do you have it in the bush form? It is a "semiclimber" y'know. I'm training mine up an arch. Their furtherest(sp?) tips almost touch at the top of the arch now (±2 meters). They are sharing the arch (for the moment) with two Lonicera-types. I noticed a colour difference also in the early middle and late blooms. I'm not sure for certain, but I suspect it's the "sugars" reacting to the climatic changes that may be the reason to the colour changs. I suppose if you sat and thought about it you could come up with several factors that will have changed over the course of the year that could be the reason. Additionally, I believe that the intensity of the sun may also contribute to the more blanched colour during the summer months. I thought at first that it was my ground, but I'm not at all sure... I'll see what they will do this year. I find their flowers so lovely that I use a foto of them on my desktop (from time to time). I have a program to rotate them every time I start my compi up).
BTW your more relaxed method of caring for roses is one that I plan to adapt this coming year--I just was adament about molly-coddling them that first year. Chuckle.
Cheers...
--- UPDATE---After looking back and checking the dates (well, approximate dates)of my piccies, I notice the inverse is true where my rose was concerned. Boy!!...My brain seems to be deteriorating...Don't draw-up the certification papers just yet, Moosey....give me another chance. I'll get a cuppa and be ok.  |
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