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Clark County Mini-Tour

It is a rare rainy day here in August (or more accurately, a wet, drizzly day). That means a break from watering and a good chance to catch up on blogging and other computer-related tasks. Before I continue with my England tour highlights, I wanted to share photos from this past Sunday's mini-tour of four gardens here in Clark County (an event sponsored by HPSO - Hardy Plant Society of Oregon). I saw three of the gardens on Sunday. I had already visited the fourth one, Lynne Heidsiek's native habitat garden, when she was part of the Study Weekend tour that we were on.  Our first stop was the marvelous shade garden of Margaret Stapenhorst. A bluestone patio is surrounded by towering mature trees that shade a woodland garden. There was a fern table and a moss garden, as well as garden art by Steve Farris. Loved, loved the waterfall. This is what I'd like to do in our front garden, but I don't know if we have the room. Just a few streets over is the garden of Eloise and Bo...

Rose Balling

'Double Delight' rose suffering from rose balling

It is not a pretty sight and can be alarming to wake up one day and find your roses looking like this. However, it is not the end of the world (or in this case, your roses). 

"Rose balling" is a disfiguring condition that is caused by cool, wet weather. Flower buds fail to open properly and turn dingy in appearance. This is caused by rain which saturates the bud and is followed by hot sun which dries and scorches the bloom. 

There isn't a remedy for this with the exception of cutting off the offending eyesore. The future flowers should be fine (unless the exact conditions happen again). Placing roses in full sun locations helps (although my rose is in full sun) and good air circulation is also beneficial. 

Hopefully, the next flush of blooms will look more like this -



Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy

Comments

  1. Some of my white rose blooms have this. I wondered what was the problem. We have had so much rain lately. Now we are drying out. I hope not too much. That last rose photo is yummy.

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  2. The flower in the second picture is breathtaking!

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  3. This happens a lot in the fall. It's really disappointing. But nothing is perfect.

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