With a committee to tend them, my roses will flourish.
Last summer I confessed that I Hate Gardening and gave up on my four-year experiment — trying to grow roses in the front of our house. I ripped them out and planted low-maintenance spirea in their place. However, instead of throwing them out I donated five of the bushes to the roof garden of our city apartment building.
The morning they came out of the ground I wrapped the bushes in old bed sheets and brought them back to town, where the capable ladies of our building’s garden committee gave them a brief soak then planted them in large containers on the roof. That was late last Spring and they had already started to bud. So despite constant watering, the transplants remained shocked and shriveled through the summer. At one point, they were even mistaken for dead. That blistering heat was followed by a long frigid winter with record snow and the cool spring with only two days over 60 degree between October and April. I didn’t take photos – it was hard enough to look at them.
But I always believed the roses would do better in full sun seventeen stories up given the sea air of the city versus the humidity of the woods further north. And with an entire garden committee to tend them, they could get the great quantity of care and attention they need. I wanted them to have a good home.
Oddly, the one that had looked the most sickly — and was pushed to the back of the roof in a corner — bloomed first. It’s a David Austin Winchester Cathedral, with such a profusion of fragrant blush-white blooms that white petals are already blowing around. It looks like the day-after-the-wedding up there.
In the past, the combination of white rose varieties — Jackson & Perkins White Simplicities, David Austin Winchester Cathedrals and hardy Icebergs gave me lovely little bouquets like this. Now an entire community can enjoy them.
Given the space devoted to the roses on the roof, they are certainly in position to enhance the views.
Wow – those are so delicious…and made even more stunning by the location – great views!
Jan
Those blush-white blooms are absolutely beautiful. Thanks for visiting my blog.
Such gorgeous roses and what a view!
Happy White Wednesday,
Susan
Now this is a success story! Love seeing your roses on the roof! Beautiful! Happy WW!
Beautiful roses and a beautiful view, Jane! Wow!
xoxo laurie
Your rooftop roses look so beautiful! I’m sure as long as you water them when needed they will do well and make your pretty cityscape look so romantic
LOVE that rooftop!!! GORGEOUS flowers too!!!
Reading is Fashionable would LOVE the book list!!!
how wonderful they are doing so well now ! I also tried to grow a rose bush… I’ll try again some day but right now I’ll enjoy yours
)
Good job growing roses in a planter on a roof top.
Joyce M
Very pretty! We very much enjoyed a potted rose tree on our porch that we were given last year. But I let it get too dry, and probably too cold over the winter, and it went the way of my household plants. –If they have roofs overhead so God can’t water them, I kill ‘em.
gorgeous blooms!
How pretty! I’ve never been successful with rose bushes for cutting. Only Lady Banks. Would love to have a cutting garden. Your roses will be enjoyed for years.
Those white roses are beautiful, which reminds me – I need to go water mine today!!
What beautiful roses!
The roses look beautiful on the roof top, they seem happy there! Thanks for your lovely comment on my Wisteria surprise, it was so nice of you!
xo,
Abby