102 ~ White Roses

I love white roses and never seem to tire of photographing them! Since we've had some heavy winds lately, most roses have had their petals blown away and one of my bushes of Iceberg has also suffered. But they will come back with a new flush of blooms very soon. In the meantime here are some photos I took a week ago.

(Click to enlarge photos below)

Iceberg

Did I say I love my white roses?


When I'm not taking closeups of Iceberg I go over to Margaret Merrill and admire her pretty rusty pink stamens.
These photos below were taken last year.

Margaret Merrill

I wish everyone a happy weekend! Here's hoping the clouds of volcanic ash from Iceland which has halted most European air traffic will soon abate so people can continue with their travel plans.

Thanks for dropping by, and hasta la vista!

77 ~ Oh What a Beautiful Morning!

A Blue Tit this morning

This morning I could have gone through the garden singing that old song from from the show Oklahoma...Oh What a Beautiful Morning...because it would have been very appropriate with sun shining, balmy warm air, twittering birds flying around the palm trees and many roses in bloom. Yes it's December 29th but it feels like spring here.

Here's what I saw while meandering around the front garden.

Iceberg

Queen Elizabeth

Strelitzia Reginae

Rheoe

Bibi follows me so closely underfoot that I sometimes step on her toes. But this time she's content to just lie and watch.

Grüss an Aachen

Gold Medal

Brugmansia

Barcarole

Tigger loves the sun

As I write this, it's Tuesday evening and Bibi has just jumped on my desk...and she's soaking wet, so it must be raining outside now. That's the best way to have the weather I think...a beautiful sunny day and a soft rain at night to water the garden. Now where's a towel so I can dry you off Bibi.

Have a lovely rest of the week and drive carefully!

I'll finish here with the beautiful voice of Eva Cassidy singing "What a Wonderful World".



¡Hasta La Vista! Sharon.

Photos were taken with a Canon EOS 30D DSLR and 50mm f/1.4 lens.

47 ~ My June Roses

Heinzelmännchen (Kordes Germany 1984)

(click to enlarge)

The roses in my Tenerife garden are blooming as I've never seen before. Perhaps it's due to the cool winter we had with much rain. Or perhaps it's because we pruned them later this year...near end of March instead of mid-February. Whatever the reason, they are showing their best display ever and it's such a pleasure to wander through the garden. Here are some photos I took this morning.

Margaret Merril (Harkness UK 1978)

What a wonderful perfume Margaret Merril has!
I love the rust coloured stamens and the slight pink blush on the petals.

Here she is again



Sonia (Meilland France 1974)

Sonia, a French rose, has turned into a large bush, covered in blooms.




Iceberg is a beautiful floribunda rose. It is rain resistant, growing into a well formed bush with dainty, long-lasting white flowers, often with a slight pink blush. It's an outstanding, popular rose. Bred in Germany, Iceberg is called Schneewittchen there.

Iceberg (Kordes Germany 1958)

Granada, a beautiful American rose, is heavily perfumed and is a stunning sight when the bush is in full bloom

Granada (Lindquist USA 1963)

Closeup of Margaret Merril

Heinzelmännchen

Iceberg



Heinzelmännchen

I hope you enjoyed a quick visit to my garden and will come another time to see what else grows there!

41 ~ This Morning's Garden

(click to enlarge photos)

I couldn't resist running back into the house for my camera while strolling through the garden this beautiful Sunday morning to see what had changed, if anything, since last evening. It's so good to see the sun after our rain and cloudy days. Everything growing is responding with such vigour that we have to cut back masses of bougainvillae and hedges just to be able to pass by. But this is the month when flowers are at their best and I have one particular rose which is putting on an outstanding performance. Anabell, a cluster-flowered floribunda has put out thirteen blooms on a single stalk.

Here you can see from the side, that enormous cluster rising from one cane.

I think that might be a record for my garden. I've had this one for over ten years and it seems to be perfectly suited to our warm climate. It's a rose created in 1972 by the German breeder Kordes and the catalogue name, if anyone wishes to know is KORbell.

So I will show you the rest of what I saw this morning. The dark mauve blooms are Brunsfelsia, a lovely little bush that puts forth masses of my favourite coloured flowers.



The white rose is Iceberg, a faithful and popular floribunda which creates masses of white blooms on a medium rounded bush which also does well in this warm climate.



The pink rose and bud were a gift to my garden and came without a name. I have that bush in a flowerpot where it does well in full sun.

The cala lilies spread so easily, we now have a whole bed of them. They started as one plant that was given to us by a neighbour.

A moth alights on a white osteospermum.

And learning to keep watch over the dish of dry cat food, is one of our baby blackbirds. He makes sure the cat doesn't climb the tree to steal breakfast!

(I'm buying more dry cat food for the blackbirds than I am for the cats!)