The summer people have gone home now that Labor Day has passed, school is back in session, and a few trees are definitely turning red - the early harbingers of the Fall Color season. I'm winding down the garden for the year and feeling a bit introspective and sad to know it will all be cut down with a frost at any time. As I walked around the garden tonight, there were some roses that really stood out. This is a revamped, revised and relocated garden in its first full season for everything I transplanted from the old house plus some new additions I couldn't resist ordering during the depth of our horrible last winter! Of my new roses from this spring, I just can't get over how wonderful the rose Julia Child is. This is a rose I chose because of all the great things I read about it, and also I chose it because my Mother's name was Julia - and she was my favorite cook. ;-) This plant had a pleasing shape right from the start when it arrived in bloom from Chamblee's, it has skipped any awkward growing stage and has had not a lick of disease in my no-spray garden. The blooms have been abundant all season - and will continue it appears, as long as we don't get any frosts to spoil all the little buds waiting their turn. I really love JC's color, more buttery than the gold of Graham Thomas, less lemony than Kordes' Solero, it is a pleasingly rich shade. I must admit that I'm not completely sold on the anise scent, but I do love JC's looks and she's everything I read about and more.

My surprise comes from a sturdy new cane on my (transplanted last year) four year old Jude the Obscure which now towers over the rest of the plant at a full 5 feet tall. (Well, 5 ft. so far - it hasn't really topped out yet!) I'm sure it won't survive intact over winter, but it is amazing to see it right now. I've never had an Austin rose grow over 3' (well, maybe Heritage at 4') tall in my life growing roses in zone 4 as I did. Evelyn (also transplanted) is much, much taller than she's ever been before, with 5 fat four foot canes. And here I worried about making my garden in almost pure sand but perhaps it is that just a half zone warmer that does the trick?

But of course, there always seems to disappointment somewhere - and that would be two new roses I regret adding to the garden: Golden Celebration, which as been weak and black spotty and stingy with bloom, and Kordes' Purple Rain, which is NOT purple in the least and is not self-cleaning, with icky brown petals that hang on in clusters forever and must be pruned off. No disease, I'll give it that, which is why I chose it - but otherwise a great disappointment. And then there is Bullseye, which the rose chafers seemed to love far more than I do. It has sadly been a 'blah' addition to the garden when I thought it would be so interesting. First every bloom it set was chewed to pieces before they could open, and then it sulked all summer. Now it is putting out a few new flowers but since It was planted in front of (and is completely upstaged by) the rugosa Polareis, which was equally mobbed by the chafer beetles this spring but has emerged for a glorious end of the season bloom, I don't even pay attention to poor little Bullseye. Perhaps it needs to be moved in spring to spot where it can shine on its own...presuming that it will shine as it matures.

There is another word I forgot in the title of this post and that is SCARY!! I planted a rambler Geshwind's Schonste in a corner by one of the patio posts, intending to wind it up the column (which has already been accomplished now in year two of it's new home) and also tying more of its 8 to 12' canes along the fence going outward. But Holy Moly, it is shooting out canes and laterals and more canes and loooong laterals left and right and right and left until I'm not sure how I will keep up with all the tucking and tying in that it requires! Now of course I will have to wait and see how many of these new canes come through the winter ahead but then I will have to decide how to proceed. If it is as hardy as I hope it might be now that we're in zone 5, I may have to abandon the idea of it being within the fenced garden and transplant it to the back of the yard where it can scramble up in the pines and over the shed, if that's the monster it wants to be!

One thing I have learned this year is that after all these years of growing so many different roses, it can still be interesting and challenging. I think I've had just about every bug that could possibly eat roses show up in my yard this year, LOL. I've hand picked those I could and ignored those I couldn't and just kept weeding and watering. And there are moments when I have to stop and admire that one perfect bloom, or take a deep whiff of the floral scent I love above all others - and I think how lucky I am. I may be getting older, but my love of roses never does. It's been a good year.