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Saturday 8th June, 2013

Roses roses and more roses

Hi

Winter Solstice heralds the cold weather ?

OMG wasn't that rainfall on Tues just torrential. I always say to people  that the number of days that are that are too wet to work outside are few and far between but Tuesday was one of those days. That deluge of rain that we had in the arvo was just the icing while I had four of us packing rose mail orders as the whole packing shed floor seemed to just about disappear  under a layer  of water. Talk about making a process a tad tricky. I had to take all the paperwork home just to dry it out, to complete the process on Wed.
Other than Tues its been one of the most pleasant rose potting seasons that we have had and today we have finished the rose pot for another year. The last of the standards went into bags and have been put down and tomorrow all we have to do is put a few pillars and some 1.8 weepers into bags and its complete.
Now its all done I have put my order in for some good old fashioned frosts so that the roses don't now spring into life. We need them for the garden too as it tells the plants to finally go to sleep for the want of a better expression. Then we can all get stuck in and prune them. Usually the worst or coldest weather always seems to happen after the shortest day so maybe we will get lucky and from now and get a whole heap of frosts. It will also mean that the trees will finally drop all their leaves and we can get that final leaf clean up done. Dads sister is visiting from Canada and very nicely offered a hand so not to look a gift horse in the mouth gestured  to all the leaves around the place and left her raking for an hour or four. I did promise to pick all the piles up and found that she had done way more than I had anticipated. Not bad for an ole girl!!

Sweet Chilli Jam

Chillis in the Garden, Harry is feeling quite clever with his latest cooking project that I have to say was quite a sucess. It all started with this huge bag of cayenne chillis that we had looking stunning in the garden. He picked the lot before the first frost was going to decimate them and decided to turn them into sweet chilli sauce. He trimmed the ends off and put the lot ( whole with seeds) in a large pot, added cup for cup of white vingear and sugar so that they were just slightly covered and simmered them for ages until they disintegrated. He ended up with this jam textured sweet chiili sauce or I'm going to call it Sweet Chilli Jam and its just devine with cheese on crackers.. I guess if the mix was simmered slightly less he would have ended up with a suace texture.

Whats The Diff? Hybrid Teas and floribundas

I always get asked the difference between Hybrid Teas and Floribundas and very generally HT's have what I describe as a formal bud flower like what you would get from the florist. HT's traditionally have one flower per stem and floribundas( which are next weeks story) are cluster flower roses that generally have less petals than HT. These generalisations have become more and more blurred as we continue crossing modern roses striving for perfection

Dainty Bess has always been one of my fav roses, an old Hybrid Tea

The birth of the ubiquitous Hybrid Tea rose occurred around the mid 1880's and eventuated from some fairly random crosses between Hybrid Perpetual and Tea Roses. The resulting off-spring were not called Hybrid Teas but classified according to the dominant pollen parent. It wasn't until 1884 that Hybrid Tea Roses were listed (in a catalogue put out by Dickson's of Northern Ireland) as a distinct group. Many years later in 1898 the National Rose Society finally accepted these "new" roses as a separate class. In modern times Hybrid Teas have been re-classified officially as "Large Flowered Roses". However in all my many years of working in horticulture I have never heard them referred to as such and it seems the term Hybrid Tea is here to stay.
 
La France, a beautiful pink rose bred in 1867 by French nurseryman Jean Baptiste Guillot is acknowledged as the first official Hybrid Tea. Henry Bennett from the UK, to whom the term Hybrid Tea is attributed without any sense of pride or prejudice, was also an important early breeder of Hybrid Tea roses. Henry's lovely rose, Lady Mary Fitzwilliam (1882) figured in the parentage of many future cultivars. Another rose to command early attention was Mme Caroline Testout (1890) named after the Parisian dress designer. Madame promoted this bright pink rose in her salon which, "voila" led to its instant success.
 
Modern Hybrid Tea roses, of which there are literally thousands of cultivars, have quite a mixed pedigree but are characterized by their sturdy long stems, pointed buds and large elegant flowers that open out to display a symmetrical spiral of petals, usually of good substance. Naturally Hybrid Teas repeat well and are often fragrant with glossy leathery foliage.
 
Here at Wairere we love the sweet simplicity of Dainty Bess, Ellen Wilmott and Mrs Oakley Fisher, 3 desirable single roses bred in the 1920-30's. Big Purple, Double Delight, Elina, First Love, Ingrid Bergman, Loving Memory, Pascali, Remember Me and Tequila Sunrise are all fine examples of quality Hybrid Tea roses and of course no list would be complete without the much loved Peace rose which has been an enduring favourite since 1945. Click here to check out our full list of Hybrid Tea roses.

Its sunny so far, today being Sat, so enjoy!

Have a great weekend

Cheers
Lloyd, Harry and the Wairere Team

Make it a Wairere weekend where gardening's not a drag

Wairere Nursery
826 Gordonton Road, RD 1, Hamilton
07 824 34 30
www.wairere.co.nz

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2013 Newsletters...

New Year and Crepe Myrtles (8th February, 2013)

clivias and Roses (15th February, 2013)

Roses in the beginning (22nd February, 2013)

The Albas (1st March, 2013)

St Patricks day (9th March, 2013)

Cabbage Roses (15th March, 2013)

Hirsute Roses (22nd March, 2013)

Portland Roses (28th March, 2013)

Bourbon Roses (4th April, 2013)

Big boots to fill ... (11th April, 2013)

True Love and Large Hips (11th April, 2013)

Happy Birthday (10th May, 2013)

Tea Roses (17th May, 2013)

Hybrid Perpetuals (24th May, 2013)

Planting and caring for your new roses (29th May, 2013)

Polyanthas (31st May, 2013)

..... Hybrid Teas

Floribundas (14th June, 2013)

Austin Roses =?utf-8?Q?e298bc?= (23rd June, 2013)

Different Coppers (29th June, 2013)

Pendula or weeping (5th July, 2013)

All in a days work (19th July, 2013)

Daphne (26th July, 2013)

Hydrangea Secrets (2nd August, 2013)

Maples high worked (9th August, 2013)

Magnificent Mags (16th August, 2013)

Mags Part two (23rd August, 2013)

Hedges (30th August, 2013)

The fluffy stuff (12th September, 2013)

Fluff and Stuff (12th September, 2013)

PC Irises (20th September, 2013)

Beardless Irises (27th September, 2013)

Lavender (4th October, 2013)

The Ilams (12th October, 2013)

Maples (17th October, 2013)

Maples (18th October, 2013)

Maples Part two (24th October, 2013)

Maples Part three (1st November, 2013)

It's Rained (8th November, 2013)

Busy week (15th November, 2013)

Hydrangeas (29th November, 2013)

Its rained some more (6th December, 2013)

Who's pinching my Peaches (13th December, 2013)

Merry Xmas (24th December, 2013)

HL Nurseries Limited t/a Wairere Nursery
826 Gordonton Road, R D 1, Hamilton 3281 Ph: (07) 824 3430 Email: