henry and gertrude

here she goes again, more pictures of roses. brother.

how about a little story about the couple that planted this rose garden.
 
henry and gertrude were the couple that lived here for 65 years before we took over.  they raised 3 kids in this house which blows my mind because the two of us trip over each other.  henry was the gardener at the adjoining mansion to this place so whatever was leftover or unwanted was brought home.  i'm told all the roses here came from that estate. gertrude loved her roses and you can tell because when we got here there were dozens of vases in the basement.  she gave roses to everyone and brought them to church every sunday.   there are close to 100 rose bushes and trees here, most of them are estimated to be at least 75 years old.  when we began renovating, you could barely tell this was a rose garden, it was basically dead.  henry had passed away and gertrude had to take care of the place by herself.  so things had fallen into disrepair.  while larry worked indoors i spent most of my time outside watering, pulling weeds and trying to separate what had essentially become a big bramble field.  so now three years later all that effort (and tons more) is paying off.  people are asking me what i'm doing to produce such big blooms, but other than feeding them every 6 weeks during the growing season and digging in home-made compost once a year they are just doing their own thing.  i've always read and been told that roses don't like overhead watering but henry set up a basic system that consists of two overhead sprinklers.  we figure if it worked for them, why change it?  so we deep soak the roses twice a week during the hot summer. right now the garden is producing roses at an astounding rate.  the more i cut the more they bloom.
 this can't last, can it?   every room in the house has roses in it and once they are inside they keep getting bigger.
seriously, what is up with this?



wishing you all a pretty weekend

xo

janet