Graham Thomas is also a yellow rose
Right. I was going to post some photos to go with my Old Mr Roses entry a few nights back and . . . got distracted.* So this is Graham Thomas. At Mottisfont, where this photo was taken, they have her** planted in drifts in the big courtyard that leads to the gate of the walled garden that is the human Mr Thomas’ masterpiece.
She has done extremely well for David Austin***; I’m not sure, she may even be the rose that put him on the map as a rose breeder; he’d been around for a while but she may have been his success fou. She was certainly the yellow Austin rose for quite a few years –including when I moved over here and started growing roses–and while she has theoretically been supplanted by later Austin yellows in practise there are still a lot of people growing her.
As I keep saying, I’m not the biggest fan of the Austin roses, but I seem to grow kind of a lot of them anyway.† When I moved into the cottage I did buy a Comte de Champagne, which is a new Austin yellow, because . . . well, really. I had to, didn’t I? And she is very pretty. †† But, having not thought huge amounts of the Graham Thomas I had at the old house, I found myself being sort of dimly aware of a Yellow That Wasn’t There. But there are so many things that aren’t there when you move from a two and a quarter acre garden to a handkerchief garden it’s like, so? Queue forms to the right. And then I walked past a rack or rank of Graham Thomases all nicely potted up at a garden centre and . . .
* * *
* I should have a dedicated ‘I got distracted’ short cut key so I can stop typing it out every time. The frequency I’d use it, all those seconds would mount up and I could, I don’t know, make chocolate chip cookies or ride Connie in the time saved.
** Remember that in my world all roses are she
*** What flipping is this! The dadblatted Austin site doesn’t list year of introduction/copyright dates! What is that about!
† They’re so effing ubiquitous. And I have a lot of trouble escaping a rose nursery^ without buying something.
^ No of course I can’t just drive past. My only hope is to find another way to get to wherever it is I’m going that doesn’t pass any rose nurseries.
†† Ratbags. I’m not sure I’ve got a good picture of her. Next year. Meanwhile:
This rose is named after Taittinger’s finest champagne. The president of Taittinger, M Claude Taittinger, is a descendant of Thiabaut IV, Count of Champagne and Brie and who introduced R. gallica Officinalis (The Apothecary’s Rose) from
Taittinger. No wonder I like her.
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Those are gorgeous!
good! :)
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This rose is soo pretty, and just the best colour – sunshine.
****** They’re so effing ubiquitous.
and so is David Austin who is cited at Kew as the advisor for their rose planting (currently grass as far as the eye can see)
Thank you for posting these!!
Yellow is definitely my favorite color of roses. The pictures are calming and inviting, it makes me wish I were there to absorb the fragrance and atmosphere.
My equivalent of “I got distracted” is “But I digress”. I have a sad confession to make; I am – sigh – A Babbler…
Those are lovely photos – and I can nearly feel the fragrance – I love the fragrance of roses – actually I have rose-fragrance-perfume, although I don’t often use perfume and then only in my hair because if I spray it on my skin… it’s in a lovely bottle and actually my mother’s and she said I could use it but she wanted the bottle back (that might just possibly be twenty years ago) Of course the fragrance I’m imagining is probably wrong – but that doesn’t matter, does it?
AND DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN?!? (wail of despair)
LOL! You have the soul of a blogger! :)
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***You have the soul of a blogger!:)***
I do? Oh, dear!
Well, I suppose that is a hint that I should resume my diary, that being precisely the sort of thing I would write. I haven’t written in it since (checks diary) – oh, not as bad as I thought! – 2006; on the other hand the entry before that was from 2003… I’ve had it lying about conspicuously hoping I might be inspired and grab it, but instead it has just stared at me reproachfully.
The thought of me with a blog, inflcting my kind of stuff on an Unsuspecting Public on a regular basis! I could blame – er, I mean dedicate it to you, thanking you for the idea! (Evil Snigger) Just think of the nasty e-mails you’d be getting THEN! (I am of course curious, and I’ve read that section of your website, vastly entertained and completely mystified – who ARE these people?!) But no – worry not, fear not, it won’t happen, I promise!:) (Talk about Menace to Society…)
You need a reason to keep either a diary or a blog. A desire to indulge your fondness for running off at the fingers will do, but *you* need a reason. Because you can’t order your audience. In terms of *having* an audience remember I have the benefit (?!?) of being a published writer, so people (if I’m lucky) will come out of curiosity and (if I’m luckier) stay because I’m amusing.
No. of course one can’t order one’s audience – people might stumble upon my (wholly-imaginary-never-going-to-happen) blog by mistake and be scarred for life – also I was joking!:)
Not about the diary, though – “running off at the fingers” didn’t use to be a “desire”, but rather a passion, a way to feel alive, to get a sentence to say exactly what I wanted was such a kick! Before my depression, before my illness, before my brain went to mush and my own thoughts started to bore me even sicker than I was. Also that is one area I do not want to compromise. Ever. I do not want to write badly – whether anyone else ever reads what I’ve written is wholly irrelevant.
As for an audience, even before before (if you see what I mean), when being an author was what I really wanted to be, I never counted on an audience; I always used to say about my novel:
1) I’d never finish it
2) if I did, no one would publish it
3) if it were published, no one would read it
Since I’ve written nothing for years, I’m still securely at number one – unfortunately if I can’t write I’m not really alive, and I suppose I’m not. How depressing – and I find my hands are starting to shake (literally), which is a sign to stop this – I could delete this whole comment, but I suppose this came for a reason, so will let it remain.
Anyway, to end on a more cheerful note – of course YOU have an audience and of course people come and of course they stay; and luck has NOTHING to do with it!:) I hope you feel better soon:) Sending sympathy, appreciation and admiration and thank you for your blog and everything else:)
Hey, kiddo–write. Get your notebooks back out, and write in them. The rest of it doesn’t matter. If you ‘can’t write then you’re not really alive’–then you MUST WRITE. There have been some amazing books written out of illness, whether they’re about illness or not. One word at a time will do. But don’t, you know, *hurt* yourself like this. If you can write blog comments, you can write your own words about your own stuff. Your three stages of novel writing are the same three stages everyone goes through. Just write.
Thank you! I will try, being able to write blog comments has actually made me wonder slightly too – if maybe I could? My writing tends toward silliness, lightness and fum – and that’s difficult to do with a mind bored! Well, in that case I’ve just one more thing to thank you for – and it’s a nice feeling (gratitude is underrated in modern society, I think!) I was wondering somewhat why I’d written what I had – but I felt no regret at having done it, because you inspire trust and because I thought you would understand…
I’ve had Mr. Thomas for years–very beautiful and reliable. My favorite fragrance is from Austin’s Abraham Darby. To me, that’s what a rose should smell like. :)
Where are you (geographically)? I had to give up on Abraham Darby, gorgeous as she is, because she had **dire** black spot, and I won’t spray.
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“Where are you (geographically)? I had to give up on Abraham Darby, gorgeous as she is, because she had **dire** black spot, and I won’t spray.”
I’m in Missouri. I keep the Darby away from everything else, to try to keep down the black spot. She’s suffered a bit this year with our VERY cool and wet summer. Hope she rebounds next year–nothing else smells so wonderful.
Watering like mad also helps, along with fertilising like mad. I *might* conceivably try her again, now I have so small a garden(s) there is a LIMIT to how many roses I can cram into it and therefore can fuss more per rose. :) However for sheer smell power–Mme Isaac Pereire.
“I had to give up on Abraham Darby, gorgeous as she is, because she had **dire** black spot, and I won’t spray.”
I have exactly the same problem in FL and I hate using pesticides and fungicides because they’re so dangerous, kill good stuff as well as bad, and eventually end up in the aquifier. I don’t even like using fertilizer too much because it eventually ends up in the aquifier too among other problems. I guess that’s why my roses are so pathetic. Sigh.
But I love going to my local Starbucks and getting coffee grounds to spread on the roses and my acid loving plants. Yay! They really seem to love coffee grounds and it also seems to repel slugs and snails! Plus I get an excuse to buy a fix of my favorite drug (tall lattes with lots of sugar- I know, I know, sugar bad but I can’t help it, besides I rationalize that it’s offset by the calcium in the milk anyway).
YOu can also try banana peels and tea or tea bags. :) I don’t agree about the fertiliser though–you MUST feed something that flowers as heavily as roses do. And there are plenty of honest fertilisers out there–I use so called sterilised chicken dung and seaweed.
I also put sugar in my tea so I am NOT scolding you, but it is NOT offset by the calcium in the milk. This is a controversial topic, but the calcium in milk is not very available to the human digestive system. Eat your dark leafy greens! :)
“Eat your dark leafy greens! :)”
Yes, Mom! [shoves dark leafy greens under table at dog when no one's looking]
; )
Well, never mind. Point well taken.
“I also put sugar in my tea so I am NOT scolding you, but it is NOT offset by the calcium in the milk. ”
As for the alleged “calcium” in my Latte, I DID say it was a rationalization.
You know, sort of like when you’re supposed to save your money by not SPENDING any but you rationalize it by noting that the shoes you just bought were hugely marked down and therefore you were actually SAVING money…. even though you now have a negative bank balance. You know, a RATIONALIZATION!!!!
Or maybe you don’t. Maybe that’s just me. Never mind.
Anyway, don’t worry, Mom! I’ll try to eat more dark leafy greens. But if you want me to give up my lattes, you’ll have to pry them out of my cold dead hands!!!
Thanks for the tips on other things I can feed my roses besides coffee grounds. I’m sure they’re looking forward to coming off the caffeine high.
I wouldn’t DREAM of trying to talk you out of your lattes. Everyone needs a few healthy vices. :)
According to Rodale etc., you can use a baking powder mixture to deal with black spot. I’ve had no occasion to try it–I can check the reference if Robin or Jeanine of FL isn’t familiar with the idea and wants more info.
It’s messy, troublesome, and doesn’t work all that well. But if you have a site address I’d be interested in looking to see if they’ve tweaked it since I tried it a decade or so ago.
*** I should have a dedicated ‘I got distracted’ short cut key
Just type ‘gd’! gd might mean other things elsewhere, but in Robin-space we’ll all know what it stands for. : )
LOL!
Don’t drown! Bank HOliday will be over soon! :)
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That color of rose is simply beautiful. I also like it when yellow roses have some pink in them.
I love reading your rose posts. Lately I’ve been spending too much time looking at The Antique Rose Emporium ( http://www.antiqueroseemporium.com/ ) and reminding myself I need to define a yard before starting a rose garden!
Why? Let an extending drift of roses define the yard!
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Hmmm…extended drift(s) of roses for the summer?
Add to that groves of antique peonies for late spring and swaths of the antique bulbs I’m coveting for early and mid spring and I could be a very happy camper. As would the barn kitties.
*makes lists and plots for next year* :)
“Why? Let an extending drift of roses define the yard!”
Exactly. Or don’t have a yard, have a rose garden instead. :)