The Last Rose Blooms of the Season

One of my most favorite roses is Koko Loco, a lovely mauve blend floribunda rose hybridized by rose breeder Christian Bedard in 2010.  Weeks Roses introduced it to the market in 2012 and I've been in love with it ever since. 

Although it has been described as having a mild fragrance, ours is fragrant enough to perfume the patio when the shrub is in bloom, which is most of the growing season.  Peach colored pointed buds open to blooms that are the color of milk chocolate latte.  As the blossoms age, the color evolves to an unusual blend of chocolate and lavender.  The blossoms are large - 4.5 to 5 inches in diameter.

Foliage is a pretty, medium green and semi-glossy. And other than the usual problems with snails and aphids on occasion (they are such a plague where we live...  I have to stay on top of our entire little container garden), it's amazingly disease resistant.  We never see any mold or mildew.

The shrub does well in a pot and is our most prolific bloomer.  It continued blossoming right up through the first week of December when I finally nipped off the remaining buds to force it into dormancy.  I stopped dead-heading in November to encourage it to set hips, which it does quite willingly. 

I previously posted about this rose in October.  Check out that post to see  the variations in color as the blossoms open and age.

I stopped dead-heading to encourage it to set hips.

Sugar Moon, photographed on December 6th

Sugar Moon is a beautiful pure white hybrid tea, also bred by Christian Bedard and introduced by Weeks Roses in 2012.  The blooms are large but ours almost always exceeded the average of 5 inches in diameter.  

With canes that can stretch to 6 feet or taller, we treat it like a short climber and let it trail along the railing on our patio wall.  Our last bloom of the year was an enormous white beauty that measured 6 inches across and was so fragrant, I sat next to it to read one afternoon, just so I could enjoy its heady citrus perfume.

Roses are still well-represented on our patio, however.   In November, I was gifted with several miniature red roses that were fully budded and just beginning to bloom.

Not sure what to do with them, for the winter, I planted them in the herb box in the area where the basil usually grows.  I moved the planter box closer to the apartment so it would get some radiant warmth from the building and more sun exposure.

Here we are approaching New Year's Eve and these little babies are still blooming cheerfully and the foliage is just as glossy and dark as the day I planted them.  Growing behind them on the left  is the last of the oregano.  I harvested it and used quite a bit of it in my tomato sauce last month.  Behind them in the middle of the back is some rosemary, and on the right side of the pot is thyme, two other culinary favorites that find their way into my cooking on a frequent basis.

When it's time to add basil to the planter in the spring, I'll have to decide where to move them but hopefully by then we will have moved to a home with a yard and garden and they can take up residence in a flower bed.

Beautiful Roses... Patio Perfection

Potted annuals on the table on the patio.

Our patio garden is thriving.  We have pots and pots of annuals -- I just replanted the window boxes with chrysanthemums and pansies in and amongst the calibrachoa and coleus which continue to thrive.

Our Meyer lemon tree will have a generous crop of lemons for us in another month or two and around the bottom of the lemon tree, spearmint is growing enthusiastically and will be a welcome addition to tabbouleh salad over the winter.

The mauve blend floribunda Koko Loco.

We continue to harvest thyme and oregano but I've fought a losing battle with the slugs over the basil.  And our succulents are doing equally well.  In fact, they've grown so much, they need to be repotted again.

But the stars of the patio are, without a doubt, the roses.  Neptune and Strawberry Hill just finished a bloom cycle; Neptune has a single bud remaining after a beautiful display of deep mauve-purple  blossoms. But Koko Loco and Sugar Moon picked up where the others have left off.

Koko Loco is a mauve blend floribunda bred by Christian Bedard in 2010 and introduced in the US in 2012 by Weeks Roses. We bought it for our garden in Newburyport as soon as it was available and I had it growing with Hot Cocoa where the pair made a fabulous combination.

Bud, barely opened, of Koko Loco

Here in California, the roses are much more enthusiastic growers and bloomers than the same roses grown in New England, with its much shorter growing season and variable weather. 

Here, we can really appreciate the color changes in Koko Loco. Considered a "mauve blend", the buds have a dark peachy color, open up as a buff that is close to the color of creamy hot chocolate, and gradually evolve to a true mauve. Having all of the different colorations present in different blooms at the same time on the shrub is a treat! 

It's coloration reminds me a lot of Bella'roma, a hybrid tea bred by Dr. Keith Zary in 2003. It was one of the first roses we planted in our garden in Newburyport and was one of my long time favorites, not just for its color but for its wonderful fragrance. Bella'roma is a peach-yellow blend, but in our New England garden, the colors were more subtle and before it turned brighter yellow, it was the same buff colored tinged in peach that I love in the Koko Loco.

The hybrid tea, Sugar Moon, crisp white and wonderfully fragrant.

The white bloom, one of the purest white roses we have ever grown, is Sugar Moon, another wonderful hybrid tea hybridized by Christian Bedard (2012). I was attracted to Sugar Moon not only because of the large blossoms and bright white coloring but because of the fragrance - a perfect blend of citrus and rose.

Although not as prolific a bloomer as the floribunda Koko Loco, the blooms are amazing and the rose usually has at least one blossom open and perfuming the patio at any given time. It's a wonderful cut rose for the vase as well, and I frequently clip buds to finish opening indoors.

Koko Loco,showing hints of peach and mauve.

The opening blossom of Koko Loco shows more of its peachy tones.

Koco Loco, bloom gradually shifts from peach to mauve

Early bloom is more peach in color.

Side of our patio, the coleus have thrived!

Front of our patio, with newly replanted window boxes; the snapdragon we planted in spring is still blooming vigorously.  In the background, the Meyer lemon displays fruit from several bloom periods.

Some of the smallest baby lemons from the last bloom a few weeks ago.

One of the earliest lemons is started to ripen but it will be weeks yet before it's ready to be picked.

This morning I discovered new buds - meaning yet another crop of lemons.  With at least four different crops from four different blossoming times, we should have fresh lemons over the winter and into the spring.

These were from the second crop and won't ripen for at least a couple of months.

This bud of Neptune will be open in the next day or so.  While the buds are a deep rosy mauve, the mature blooms are a lavender mauve and the roses has the strong citrus notes in the fragrance that I've come to associate with lavender roses.