Angel Face | Who's Your Granny?

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A couple of my roses had buds yesterday which I quickly snipped to save them from marauding flower beetles. I just had to share. The glorious coral-pink one was a rooted cutting given to me by my good friend, Felix. He didn’t know the name, but calls it Dulce Maria. This is the first time it has bloomed for me, and I just love the enormous petals and the vibrant color. The fragrance in this first bloom was very mild, but the flower makes up for it in size and beauty. The red one is Louis Philippe, which smells very nice, but these first blooms of the spring are a bit on the smallish side. It is never a huge flower, but is one that I love probably more than all other roses, for its history, as well as its blooming habit. And the third one is Angel Face, which is the most beautiful, feminine, and heavenly smelling little rose imagineable. The lavender color is fantastic, too. I wish my iPhone did a better job at capturing the colors for you, but maybe you can get an idea of how nice these three roses are.

And here is my cat, Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, checking out Dulce Maria. He’s a nosy boy! But he knows a pretty rose when he sees one! Again, click to see full sized photo.

Are your roses blooming yet? Which are your favorites?

Angel Face

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…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

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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.