Angel Face
(Click for Close Up)
…you come across something you’ve been hunting for for two years? And better yet, when it is sitting next to something you’ve been hunting for six months? How cool is that? In my case, I’ve been positively longing for an Angel Face rose for my garden. Everywhere I checked for Angel Face, they told me they hadn’t been able to get any in for a very long time, and thought maybe the grower wasn’t growing them any more. Roses do come and go in popularity, and it had been a decade or more since I had one in any of my past gardens. I had just about given up on finding one until two weeks ago. I stopped by my one of my favorite local nurseries (Lukas, for anyone in this area) and as I was walking along with my friend, Nicki, looking at plants, lo and behold! What did I spot right in front of me but one little Angel Face! I was so excited! And then, I realized it was sitting right beside a Double Delight, the rose I had been trying to get for at least six months. Double Delight was still being sold everywhere, but somehow I always arrived the day AFTER the last one had been sold. Yet…here they both were, side by side. They may as well have had a sign over them saying, “Yooohooooo! Marcia! Here we are!”
Double Delight
(Click for Close Up)
Being nobody’s fool, I grabbed them both up, and they are happily planted in my backyard now. It’s the little surprises along the way that make everything worth while, I think.
Both of these roses have heavenly, old-fashioned fragrances, and are prolific bloomers. They are subject to black spot in Florida, like pretty much all but the antique varieties, but overall, they are generally vigorous plants. Double Delight is a hybrid tea, and Angel Face is a bushy little floribunda. I’m tickled to death to have them both in my garden, now.
Any of you guys been hunting for something you really want but can’t find?
Photos found online.
Who's Your Granny? 
Are roses hard to grow? I’d love to plant some, but I always thought they were difficult, and I am not a very good gardener.
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It depends on where you live. They can be “needy” in some areas (like where I am in central Florida). However, in hot, dry areas, they grow like mad. In San Diego, the poorest little houses you see have roses the size of trees, practically, with dinner plate sized blooms on them.
Down here, the antique roses from centuries past are usually the easiest, with the modern roses needing a lot of fertilizer and a lot of spraying for black spot and powdery mildew. I mix mine in with other plants so there something going on when they look bad.
The good thing about them is that they are very forgiving. You neglect them, they will look awful. But if you come back and trim them, feed them up, and water them good, they bounce back. That’s MY theory, anyway.
😀
For your own area, I’d say ask your local nurseries. You may find that certain ones are very easy. Good luck.
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Double Delight is one of my favorites as well. Unfortunately, it does not love the MN climate.
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HI, Sue. Do you have trouble with roses in general there, or DD specifically? Just curious. Roses in Florida, especially from central Florida southward, are a pain in the neck, but I love them too much to ever do away with them completely. I HAVE quit growing whole beds of them, because part of the year, they are going to look terrible. Now I disguise them with other stuff when I can.
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