Two lovely ladies

First you will have to excuse my lousy pictures. I don't know if it is me or my camera or both. I can never get clear crisp shots of my roses no matter what setting I use when getting distant photos. I try to avoid bright light and wait till just when the sun starts to rise or at the end of the day but still the pictures look as is they were shot in the middle of a sunny day and are washed out. I would love a new camera! Ok, moving on....

I planted two noisette roses along the front of my chicken coop run last year, Mme. Alfred Carriere and Alister Stella Gray. Actually Mme. Alfred Carriere was a transplant. I originally planted this rose several years back next to a fairly young Sweet Gum tree hoping she would climb it. All it did for three years was grow two or three 4 or 5 ft canes and flower here or there and that is it. I wasn't sure what her problem was. When we built the new chicken coop and run I knew I wanted some climbing roses in front of it. So I decided to dig up MAC and try her in another spot before shovel pruning her. When I dug her up I noticed she hardly had any root system to speak of. Then I noticed that I had planted her on top of a pretty good sized root that I didn't realize was there when I first planted her. How I didn't notice that I have no idea.

This is her a few month after I planted her and to be honest I really didn't think she would make it with what she had for roots. Seriously it was like over night she put out growth! This doesn't look like much but if you saw her after I first planted her you would have seen how pitiful she looked.

This is her one year later and boy is she one happy rose! What a difference a year makes huh?

I love this rose. There is nothing I don't like about her. A few years and that fence will be spectacular!

Mme. Alfred Carriere

Alister Stella Gray is another charming, fragrant and healthy noisette rose. I must say that so far I haven't met a noisette rose I didn't love. She still has a lot of buds that haven't opened yet but I thought I would show you again what a difference a little time makes. Though I planted this rose last spring the picture taken below shows how much she had grown by early November. I just could not get over how fast this rose grew and now I am a tad worried that the fence will be swallowed up by these two gang buster roses. At least they will provide shade for the chickens. Did I mention they both smell delicious?!

Here she is today...

Alister Stella Gray

If you live in the south I think these are two "must have" roses you really ought to try! Why even if you don't live in the south they are worth trying! If you would like to read about the interesting story behind this class of rose click here .