Roses, Rain and Rainbows

Rainbow Sorbet

On Thursday, August 2, 2012 it rained. It has not rained for 45 days in Central Illinois. Central Illinois is known as the heartland. Famous for soybeans and fields of corn “knee high by the 4th of July,” the corn was fully chest high this year before the drought fully Continue Reading

Rose Garden, Redemption

Redemption Hybrid Tea Candelabra

Redemption. Rose Garden Redemption. That’s what I needed on this amazing summer morning, the year of the drought. As I observe one more mole tunnel I lament to that great cowboy in the sky just lasso my foot and drag me back to Texas.   OUI moved heaven and earth Continue Reading

Floribunda Rose Garden

The transition from USDA planting zone 7b (Lower South) to 6a (N. & Central Midwest) was a big deal for me. Plano, TX planting zone 7b, where I had over 200 roses is home to places like Dallas, Austin & San Antonio with long hot & humid summers and mild Continue Reading

A Rose Garden, Hope Springs Eternal

Rudyard Kipling said, “Remember Gardens are not made by sitting in the shade.” However, shade sitting is never quite so satisfying as when one is contemplating the beauty of a rose garden from the prospective of being in it and having created a rose garden in the sun. Here is Continue Reading

Roses, It’s About Time

It’s about time all gardeners have a rose garden. If they want one then they shall have one. The RoseDoc, Ted Mills, Chattanooga, TN wrote an article in the American Rose Society’s American Rose Magazine September/October 2011 edition called The Last Word…On Roses. He says the median age of the Continue Reading