Early May saw flowers return to the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden.

The Rose Garden Blooms Again

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Who minds a little rain when it makes the roses this pretty?

Shrub rose Rosa ‘Belinda’s Dream’ (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)

It is a very special rose that bears the same name as a very special rose garden.

Hybrid Tea rose Rosa ‘Peggy Rockefeller’ in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)

Even the roses of May are beautiful in September.

Floribunda rose ‘Cinco de Mayo’ (photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen)

Many people think of June as the month for roses. And while it’s true for many, here at The New York Botanical Garden we generally have two peak seasons for our roses. They first come into their glory in late-May, with both the repeat flowering roses and the one-time blooming old-fashioned types exploding with color and fragrance throughout June.

The repeat blooming roses take charge for the rest of the season; some of them flowering almost continuously, while others take a four to six week hiatus before re-flowering.

We expect a lot from the roses in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden so we pamper them as much as possible. They are fed multiple times during the growing season with an organic rose fertilizer in April, again in late June immediately following flower, and one more time in early August. Compost tea is used as an additional foliar feed throughout the season.

Cow manure and Epsom salts are added to soil in the spring, and compost and worm castings are added later in the season to create a fertile growing environment. A loyal troop of volunteers come to the Garden every week, and under the careful supervision of the Rose Garden Curator, Peter Kukielski, they weed, deadhead, mulch, water, and fertilize the flowers in this beautiful, historical garden.

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Celebrating the explosion of color that is the summer garden, one hue at a time.

Photos by Ivo M. Vermeulen

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Celebrating the explosion of color that is the summer garden, one hue at a time.

Photos by Ivo M. Vermeulen

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This peony is named 'Kevin'. Not that far off from a moss named 'Mark'.

I have been editing a lot of articles for nybg.org recently that involve long lists of the names of the many hybrids and cultivars we keep on Garden grounds. Anyone who has ever edited a long list in HTML can tell you that it is one of those tasks where it really is okay to let the mind wander a little. It has given me a lot of time to daydream about what kind of plant I would like to have named after me, if, you know, someday I just happen to meet the right hybridizer …. And I know I’m not alone in thinking about this, because when I posed the question yesterday on Twitter, “What would you most like to have named after you? A rose? A daylily? A hosta? Tell us!” the responses came fast and furious.

NYC_Living would “love to have a Tree named after me…a very large strong tall with deep green leaves and a long life!”

jmarkowski0 wants “an ornamental grass that thrives in clay and laughs at the nearby deer” named after him. (If you can breed that, we’ll help you lobby for the name!)

thinkingstomach would do with “a fruit tree, some kind of crazy-good nectarine.”

electrobloom wants “a moss! mark the moss has got a nice ring to it!” (It does, actually.)

graceyhearts is a girl who knows what she wants, and it’s “a white lily, like this one.”

garrickdetroit stays true to his urbanist roots and hopes that “any of the cityfied volunteer trees that sprout on (or in) poorly maintained buildings!” could be named for him.

ashleywillhite is hoping for the ‘Ashley Willhite’ hyacinth so that she can be planted in “a garden full of tulips of every color imaginable!” (Sounds divine!)

michele_owens goes subterranean with her wish to give her name to a “New parsnip variety, for sure.”

BloominChick shows her wild side in dreaming of “Something hardy, strong & beautiful. A tiger/wild Lily? (Those striking orange ones).”

There were also votes for a hosta, an orchid, a waterlily, and a butterfly (not technically a plant, but since so many plants can’t live without flowers, we’ll allow it).

And finally agardendiary, RedneckRosarian, AvasFlowers, ambianceflorals, and quite honestly, your blog editor, would all like to have a rose named after us. Rosa rafalko has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

So now it’s your turn, blog friends. Tell us: If you could have any new plant cultivar or hybrid named after you, what would it be?

Another beautiful pinhole photograph of the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden from NYBG Member and horticulturist Joel Kroin.

Click to enlarge image (Photos by Joel Kroin)

We’re so lucky to have such creative and enthusiastic visitors! Do you create art at the Garden? We would love to see it! If you would like your Garden-themed art featured on Plant Talk, email an example of your work and a little bit about yourself to blog@nybg.org.

Did you know that there’s a second rose garden at NYBG? It’s much smaller, but it’s even less pampered: It’s the EarthKind™ Rose Trials beds, just south of Daffodil Hill. The goal of the EarthKind™ program is to identify cultivars that combine beauty with proven durability in the landscape. These roses get no water other than what falls from the sky. In fact they get almost no attention at all (other than an occasional trim), and yet they thrive. If you think roses are fussy and hard to grow, check out these beds for some great choices for your own yard.

Check out this short video on the subject hosted by the rose garden curator Peter Kukielski himself.

Photo by Ivo M. Vermeulen