If you grow roses, you know the first bloom each spring always boasts the largest, most gorgeous blooms! It is a beautiful time in the gardens. I have more than 30 roses in various garden areas, hybrid teas, floribundas, grandifloras, shrub roses, climbers, and a miniature too. Many of them are about 30 years old and doing well.
I added a new climber a few years ago to grow on an arch in the front yard. When I looked back at my planting records, I saw it was actually seven years ago. My, the years go by so quickly! Sally Homes is a lovely old-fashioned-looking rose with single blooms that start out pinkish and open more fully to white.
I am loving this newer rose! It is light on thorns, very disease- and pest-resistant, and easy to train on the arch. I must admit, though, that climbers take quite some time to prune in the spring, giving thought to where to prune as you train it to your trellis or support system. When this rose bloomed this year, the blooms were larger than ever! I don’t know why.
..fertilizer and other care were the same as previous years.
Perhaps it was the generous rain over the winter. At any rate, you can tell by the photo that the blooms were in clusters as big as balloons. Very magnificent! It has bloomed every year, but these were certainly larger than normal.
At the same time, I planted the climber, I purchased several other roses. These newer roses have been developed to be more disease-resistant, less thorny, with frequent, vibrant blooms, and supe.
