May Blooms in my Georgia Garden: Roses Everywhere!

Well, gardening tasks last month got me pretty far behind on my blog posts, and I missed a week in April. It's now almost the middle of May and the garden is in full bloom. Roses are blooming all over the place, so I'll show you the pictures I took this week, beginning with the most common, the very popular Knockout Rose.

We now see Red Knockout Rose every where we turn. There's a reason for its popularity. As its name implies, the Knockout Rose truly knocks you out with it's bright red blooms that completely cover the large shrub. It is so easy to grow that it is used in just about every landscaping project whether commercial or private home. You just can't beat the Knockout Rose--it will bloom almost year round in our climate.  Although the grower's tag that comes with the plant states these roses will get about 3 feet tall and wide, they grow to at least 6 feet tall every summer. I'm sure one of my Red Knockout Rose Bushes is at least 10 feet tall. I didn't prune it at all this year. I'm trying to see if it will grow as tall as the house.

This Pink Knockout Rose called 'Blushing Knockout' is a lovely soft shade that complements everything else. It doesn't seem as vigorous as the original Red Knockout, in that it does not need as much pruning to keep it the size I want. I wouldn't prune this one either, but it's planted below my office window, and I want to be able to see out. Even though this shrub is not as large as the Red Knockout, it's still well over 6 feet tall and just as wide.

We have another Pink Knockout Rose but the blooms are a deeper shade of pink, and they are double. It's eyecatching, isn't it? This one might be my favorite Knockout Rose. I just love a vivid shade of pink. My goal is to have it hide an ugly fence, and I think it'll do just that by the end of this summer, if not before. Pollinators are crazy about this rose. I think I'm not the only one who loves it.

My Yellow Knockout Rose is called 'Sunny Knockout.' Visitors tell me all the time that it's the prettiest yellow one they've seen. The photo does not do it justice, because of my lack of photography skills. I should have taken that class at the library last year. So far, Sunny Knockout has required no pruning to keep it within bounds, not that I'd want to. This one is about 4 feet tall right now, and I've had it a couple of years. I don't want to keep this shrub a certain size anyway, since it has the same job as the double pink one--to hide that ugly fence.

Carefree Beauty is one of my favorite roses. The voluptuous pink blooms are huge! This is a rose that just keeps on giving, because it blooms over and over and over again until the first frost. Blooms are as large as my hand. There is a light fragrance, especially when the bush is covered with her large flowers. Carefree blooms begin opening in April and continue to the first frost when the shrub is always still covered with buds. Large orange rosehips develop and are quite showy into the winter. This rose tolerates our very poor clay soil just fine. It is a lovely specimen rose as shown in my photo, but Carefree Beauty would make a great hedge too. I'm picturing a hedge of different shrub roses with mixed but either coordinating or contrasting colors. 

Mutabilis Rose is an old-fashioned China Rose. Single blooms begin as yellow, change to a peachy apricot, then to a deep pink, and finally reddish pink. These bright flowers in different colors all on the same bush at the same time are quite eye-catching and the reason for the common name of Butterfly Rose. This is another rose that will get much larger than the grower's tag will lead you to believe, because ours is at least 10 feet tall and even wider than that. Although blooms are not fragrant, this shrub rose is definitely spectacular in the garden. Another asset is that this rose has very few thorns, so you can clip it or prune it without gloves. I hate to wear gloves, so this is definitely a bonus for me.

My most recent acquisition is a German Rose known as the Blue Rose. Veilchenblau is a rambling rose that is almost thornless, and as you can see, it really is a shade of blue. The small blue/purple blooms with purple stamens cover the whole plant. Even though this rose blooms just once a year, I am excited to add it to my garden.  The fragrance is very nice too. Veilchenblau is classified as a multiflora rambler. This growth habit offers several growing options. It can be grown as a free-standing shrub by pruning it hard right after it blooms. It is lovely grown on a fence as shown in the photo. Or it can be tied to a pillar or column like a climber. It would be beautiful on a trellis or arbor. 

Butterflies and Tips for a Butterfly Garden

Butterflies are probably everyone’s favorite garden creature. They are beautiful, mysterious, and romantic. It’s a goal of many gardeners to attract these lovely butterflies into the garden.

Butterflies need just 3 things: Water, a nectar source, and host plants on which to lay their eggs.

Water
All living creatures need water. The preferred source of water for butterflies is a mud puddle. This can be easily created by filling a large clay saucer with clean sand. Place this in a sunny spot in your butterfly garden and keep it moist at all times.

Butterfly on Buttonbush

Food Source - Nectar for Adult Butterflies

Nectar plants are the food source for adult butterflies. You’ll need Butterfly Bush of course, which is now available in many colors. Lantana can’t be beat for attracting butterflies. Clethra is a large-growing shrub that produces sweetly scented flower spikes up to 6 inches long in either pink or white and attracts butterflies by the hundreds. You'll enjoy the fragrance as well, which reminds me of fresh honey. Clethra, also known as Summersweet and Sweet Pepper Bush requires moist soil and full to partial sun. Joe Pye Weed comes in many forms. Helianthus is another late-blooming flower that butterflies love—it has large yellow sunflower-type blooms on tall stems. Of course all the beneficial insects, including butterflies, love Blackeyed Susan, Gaillardia (Blanketflower). In September, butterflies are attracted to Stonecrop (Sedums like Autumn Joy, Matrona, and Vera Jamison.) Dianthus flowers just about all summer, and butterflies are particularly attracted to this plant. You can fill in between bloom times of the perennials with annuals like cosmos, marigolds, and zinnias. 

Fennel is a Host Plant for Butterflies

Food Source for offspring (a place to lay eggs) - Host Plants 

Host plants are those on which butterflies lay their eggs. Yes, the larva will eat the plants, but without a place for the babies to grow into the beautiful adult butterfly, you can’t have the butterflies! So plant extra parsley, dill, fennel, and milkweed, so you can have plenty to share with the butterflies. An added bonus is that these plants also attract many other beneficial insects!

 

I did say that butterflies need just 3 things, however there is a 4th thing that is the most important of all: Never use pesticides in your garden. Using pesticides would kill the butterflies you are trying to attract. Use insecticidal soap instead.

Clethra Attracts Hummingbirds and Butterflies to the Garden in Summer

If you're lucky enough to have a moist spot in your garden, consider Clethra alnifolia. Clethra is also known as Summer Sweet or Sweet Pepper Bush.

Blooming in the middle of the hot summer is enough reason to name it Summer Sweet, but I think that common name derives from either the sweet fragrance or the sweetness of the nectar. Butterflies, hummingbirds, and other pollinators love it as much as you will, and they'll appreciate you for planting it in your garden.

Once the blooms fade, dark black seeds are visible on the tips of the stems, hence the other common name Sweet Pepper Bush.

There's a Clethra suitable for just about every garden, since a variety of types are available.

• Ruby Spice has rosey pink blooms on a large growing shrub up to 10 feet tall.
• Hummingbird has white blooms on a more compact plant around 3 feet tall. This is the one seen growing around Hummingbird Lake at Callaway Gardens.
• Sixteen Candles 6 inch long white flowers on a tidy shrub about 4 feet tall.

All Clethra varieties are very fragrant, reminding me of fresh honey.


Clethra is easy to grow, but does need regular water. Perfect around a pond or stream, but you can grow it right in your garden as long as you can water it weekly.


Clethra grows well anywhere in USDA Zones 4-9.


An added bonus is that Clethra displays lovely yellow foliage in fall! 


For Clethra plants by mail, go to Shady Gardens Nursery.

Four Oclock: Fragrant Blooms for the Evening Garden

If you like fragrant plants, the old-fashioned Four Oclock will be one of your favorites. Small pink blooms scent the garden with their sweet perfume every evening during summer. Mirabilis jalapa is a shrub-like multibranched perennial plant that emerges each spring from a large carrot-shaped tuber. The common name Four Oclock comes from its fascinating habit of opening its blooms around 4 oclock in the afternoon. That alone is enough to intrigue me, since I have a natural interest in plants with unusual traits. Although it's called Four Oclock, in our garden Mirabilis actually opens her blooms around 5:30 pm, perfuming the air right about the time it begins to cool off enough to sit in the shade on the patio.

Four Oclock is very easy to grow. Easy to please, four oclock can be grown in sun or shade. Our plants get morning sun and afternoon shade, but four oclock grows equally well in full shade with a reasonable amount of water. She's not a water hog, but good soil with regular water will keep the plant looking healthy and green with plenty of those fragrant blooms. Just so you'll know, plants in our shade garden get very little water, yet still bloom and multiply with profusion. Plants in the sun that receive occasional water perform just about as well as those in dry shade. The few Four Oclocks we have in dry sun are just surviving.

I can't really describe the fragrance--it's just a sweet, pleasant scent that invites me to relax outdoors. You might not notice the scent until your plant gets large with many blooms. And if you're never outdoors in the evening, well...you'll just miss out entirely.

Another important feature of the fragrant Four Oclock is that hummingbirds just adore it! The hot pink blooms are tubular and full of nectar for both butterflies and hummingbirds. You'll further enjoy sitting on the patio observing the tiny creatures flitting about around the plants.

Four Oclock dies to the ground with the onset of winter in colder zones, but re-emerges again in late spring. Hardy in USDA Zones 7-11, mirabilis can be grown anywhere in the southern half of the United States.

I must tell you also that Four Oclock is definitely a reseeder. Toward the end of summer you'll notice small black cannonballs on the plants and the ground beneath. Those are very viable seeds. If you've had no luck growing Four Oclock from seed, that's because these very hard seeds need a cold treatment to break them. It's best to plant them in fall, but most gardeners don't think about it then and seeds often are not available in the big box stores at that time of year. You'll have nearly instant gratification if you go ahead and purchase a tuber instead. Heavy black carrot-shaped tubers will send up a stem very quickly after planting in warm summer soil. Four Oclock tubers are available for summer shipping from Shady Gardens Nursery.

Antique Shrub Roses for A Carefree Rose Garden

Now that our weather is cooling off a bit, roses are beginning to give us another great show. Even the most popular repeat blooming roses often bloom sparingly during our summer heat. I don’t blame them—I don’t think I’d bloom either! But roses, like us, enjoy this time of year, because the temperatures are more to their liking. Mutabilis Rose is one of my favorites. Sometimes called the Butterfly Rose, because the multicolored blooms look as if a flood of butterflies have landed on it, Mutabilis Rose is an antique rose from China. Single petals open yellow, change first to orange, then to pink, and finally turn crimson, with these different colors on the bush at the same time! Mutabilis Rose is almost thornless and retains its glossy green leaves with no spraying. Carefree Beauty is a large growing shrub rose with huge, fluffy double blooms to match. The pure pink blooms are more vivid during the cooler fall season. This rose literally blooms until the first frost, and I've had buds on mine in winter. Blooms are large—up to 5 inches across. Red cascade is classified as a miniature rose, but that’s because of its small leaves and flowers. This rose is certainly not miniature in size or flower power! Once established, Red Cascade is simply covered with blood red double blooms from spring to fall. It makes an excellent groundcover for steep banks but is equally beautiful climbing on a fence or trellis. These roses really bloom continuously all summer, but the fall show is simply spectacular and very welcomed in my garden. If you’re too busy to spray roses, try one of these—they are truly trouble free. Fall is an excellent time to plant roses, because the roots will have plenty of time to become established before next summer’s heat wave. Since we still are not receiving enough rainfall, remember to water regularly after planting, as long as Georgia continues to remain under extreme drought. At least it’s cooler. Enjoy Fall!