I was hoping that, what with the milder than usual and extremely wet winter we had, the roses might be earlier than usual. Instead, they seem are behind again. And for the first time in 16 years, there are actual slugs in my garden!
The 2008 yearlings almost all have buds on them, except for a couple of very spidery plants and all the roses with one Alba parent. My mature albas are almost in bloom but these babies show no signs of buds at all.
“Fa’s Marbled Moss” has produced a bumper crop of mosses, and some very interesting things (and that’s before a flower even appears!) I got three seedlings from the ‘Golden Celebration’ x FMM cross. All stayed fairly small and only one survived the winter. But that one, while only two hands high, is covered in buds which are opening to show a pale pink. Too soon to tell if there will be any yellow. The plant has suddenly decided that, overall, it’s okay to grow, so I have a lot of hope for this little one.
I have one OP ‘Nightmoss’ seedling that has tons of green moss on the hip and the stem, but the sepals are clean…
And I have two OP ‘La Belle Sultane’ yearlings that have more moss per acre than any of the FMM yearlings.
‘La Belle Sultane’ has indeed given me quite a surprising number of different sizes, shapes, leaf colors and so on. The deliberately crossed seeds didn’t sprout, or sprouted, made tons of tiny leaves without making any stem and died; but the OP seedlings are a remarkably varied lot!
The first rose of summer, good old woodsii ultramontana, bloomed yesterday, so here’s hoping for a good season.