As this unopened bud is, most of the flowers for this tree were hidden within the dense foliage. I'm hoping, now that the tree has finally begun to bloom that each year we'll see more and more of these beauties.
This is one of two of our wood nymphs that we found at Lowe's. This one resides in the birdbath among the glossy abalias and the gold St. John's Wart. The other resides in the birdbath in the HOSPICE bed we created from plants we bought at a HOSPICE Auction two years ago. These two nymphs add the bit of whimsey needed in our garden.
This is a rose of note - Anne Marie de Montravel. It all started in 1987 when we bought our home in Lancaster suburbia and I wanted a rose garden. Husband bought me a rose through a club he joined and I decided I needed a few more to finish the bed. On a trip to Home Depot, they had an antique rose called Anne Marie de Montravel, so I got it thinking that it would be nice to have an antique rose in the garden. It turns out that the rose was misnamed and actually was Frau Karl Druschki, which is also classified as an antique rose, but is a hybrid perpetual bred in 1901in Lambert Germany.
On the other hand, Anne Marie de Montravel is a polyantha bred by Francois Dubreuil in Rambaux, France and introduced in 1879. Anne Marie de Montravel is a much smaller rose than Frau Karl Druschki and since I have both in my garden, I will say that in my garden, Anne Marie is the far better rose. She towers at almost 6 feet tall and nearly 10 feet wide which makes her almost 3Xs the size she's supposed to get. This rose will cover itself with tiny white blooms several times a year.
When it was discovered that the rose I originally got was not Anne Marie but actually Frau Karl Durschki, I searched for Anne Marie but a friend told me it was not available in the US. In 2002, the year we moved into this home, Anne Marie de Montravel became available in this country in limited quantities through a grower which many considered questionable. Still I ordered the rose. It came so absolutely tiny I had serious doubts if it would make it. But I planted it anyway, right into the ground. The first year, a rabbit got it and chewed it to the ground as it began to grow, so I put a cage around it to keep the rabbit at bay. It lived until the next spring, still very tiny but outgrew the cage quickly and I had to free it. 10 years later, my very tiny, brand new rose is pictured above.
Two floribundas I had planted around it succumbed to the powerful Anne Marie de Montravel. One of which I will be replacing in the spring should another spot open up in the garden somewhere. She rivals my breathtaking Marie Pavie who often crowds Happy, a smaller bright red polyantha given to me by a friend. Happy doesn't seem to mind to much though.
It's funny, I have a lot of trouble with Hybrid Tea roses, but when it comes to the "Old Garden Roses" such as Ann Marie de Montravel (1879), Marie Pavie (1888), Happy (1954) and Leonie Lamesch (1899), all polyanthas, Some of the stronger hybrid perpetuals such as Baronne Provost (1842), and the exquisit Gruss an Aachen (1909), considered the 1st floribunda, just to name a few, grow so nicely in my garden with strength, disease resistance and breathtaking ease. These roses were bred to grow in a garden. And with these roses I'm quite happy.
There are other roses in the garden, most of which are the older, proven varieties that I grow in my garden. And I'll leave some of those for another day.
