Penelope antique rose

I recall mentioning my Penelope antique rose in an earlier post, along with a promise to post pictures when it bloomed, so here they are.

This rose is available via the Antique Rose Emporium online. I have purchased several roses from them  and they deliver a good quality rose. It is best if you plant them in the fall here in the south. It allows them time to get established before our brutal summer heat sets in. 

I have found Penelope and Marie Pavlie both to be relatively disease free and they rebloom all summer. They are very much like knock outs roses in this respect.

I grow a few David Austin Roses, although I don't know that I would recommend them to southern gardeners. As you can see, their blooms are fantastic. But they suffer from every disease known to man, and they do not rebloom well here because of that. Of the four I have, I would say that Iceberg (bottom two pictures) reblooms the most reliably,  but the blooms tend to brown quickly because of our intense summer heat.

My Little Gem Magnolia has started to bloom, adding it's sweet fragrance to the mix in the air. These are terrific landscape trees for today's smaller lots. It will not get so large as to take up your entire yard and it blooms from a very young age because it is vegetatively propagated.

Here are a few pictures of some of my peonies. Because it got so hot, so fast this year, the blooms do not stay attractive for long. Most peony blooms will do better if given some afternoon shade.