Heavy clay soil may seem challenging, but it offers unique advantages for certain plants. Discover the best edibles and ornamentals that thrive in clay, along with practical tips to embrace your soil’s natural properties for a vibrant, productive garden.
Jason from Fraser Valley Rose Farm concludes his fascinating series on old garden roses with one of his personal favorites—the Portland roses. Often overshadowed by their more famous successors, these roses represent a critical turning point in rose history. Their story intertwines with the excitement of reblooming roses in Europe, a genetic puzzle, and a…
Roses are celebrated for their beauty and fragrance, and selecting varieties with the most alluring scents can take your garden to the next level. Jason from Fraser Valley Rose Farm shares his top picks for fragrant roses, highlighting their diverse colors, growth habits, and distinctive scents. While roses share an underlying “rose” fragrance, their scents…
I don’t have a very good excuse for pairing these two roses together: one’s a gallica, the other a rambler, one has huge flowers, and the other has tiny ones. However, they were both in bloom on the back fence of our farm at the same time, so let’s just call it a marriage of…
Discover the Scots Rose, a hardy and versatile species known for its early blooms, fine-textured foliage, and stunning black hips. Learn how to grow and appreciate this historic and adaptable rose.
Five years ago, this farm was a blank slate to us. From the time we finished clearing the brush on the north end of the property, we’ve been in an ongoing process of adding defining features: the squash field, the children’s play area, the winter garden – and the rose garden was actually one of…
Think all roses have thorns? Think again. Discover thornless beauties that are perfect for patios, pathways, and family-friendly gardens. From classics to modern picks, find the right rose for you.
In the succession of flowering times for garden shrubs, the Forsythia comes early, and perhaps because it’s such a bright (or even objectionable, depending on who you ask) shade of yellow, rose growers use it as a reminder to get out there and prune their roses. If you lack a Forsythia, you definitely use the more…
The simplicity of this rose makes me think that it’s close to a species rose, but nobody knows for sure. It’s classed as a gallica, maybe for lack of better information. While most near-species roses are nicest grown as a free standing shrub, I think you’ll find it rewarding to give ‘Complicata’ something to climb….
Discover the timeless charm of old garden roses—fragrant, resilient, and steeped in history. Learn about their origins, unique traits, and how to grow these living connections to centuries of gardening tradition.
You know this rose, even if you don’t know that you know this rose. ‘Bonica’ is so widely planted by landscapers that you’ll see a light pink rose at a strip mall or gas station, my first bet would be ‘Bonica’. I grow it because it’s a great garden rose, but I did pause in…
I might never take a picture that properly captures the blooms of this rose. I could blame that on my lack of photography skills, but I also have an excuse: ‘Sophie’s Perpetual’ has an unusual kind of translucence to its blooms. The petals are often much darker pink towards the edges. So go ahead and search…
If you were to look up ‘Rose de Rescht’ in a book or on another website, you’d probably read that this rose was discovered and collected by a prominent rosarian near the Persian city Rasht (spelled differently in French, apparently, and now in Iran). A bit of history like this can fire the imagination, and…
I don’t have a great nose for scent in roses, but when my timing is right, I can find a good Damask scent in ‘Stanwell Perpetual’. If you don’t know the scent I’m talking about, it’s what you’d smell in a perfume made with rose oil, which is harvested and distilled from Damask roses. As…
