Flower Carpet Rose Amber
Whether or not you are a fan of them, the Flower Carpet Rose Amber and others in this series of Roses gives a grand show.
I was always very reluctant to try out these Flower Carpet Roses. My concern was that ground cover Roses simply did not appeal to me. If I had taken the time to read about them I would have been aware that they weren’t simply ground hugging plants, in fact I am very pleased to now have a few of them in the garden.
The picture above, is that of the very first bud to open on Flower Carpet Rose Amber, and what beautiful shades of orange, yellow and peach it has.
As you can see above, further into the Summer season the shading of colours were less pronounced but nevertheless still very attractive.
There are a good few of these Roses available, bred by the German Rose breeder Noack Rosen. Amber is one of the next generation flower carpet roses where it is said that the refined breeding has produced improved heat and humidity tolerance on top of its already existing disease resistance. Well I am happy regarding the disease resistance however the heat and humidity thing is of little consequence in Aberdeen, seems to me Noack has introduced a cold resistance tolerance which he perhaps is unaware of.
Below is a list of some of the Flower Carpet Roses available.
Flower Carpet Amber
Flower Carpet Apple blossom
Flower Carpet Coral
Flower Carpet Pink
Flower Carpet Pink Supreme
Flower Carpet Red
Flower Carpet Scarlet
Flower Carpet White
Flower Carpet Yellow
Some of the traditional gardeners who grow Roses may perhaps be a little reluctant about having Roses such as these in their gardens. However, personally I am reminded of the late Gardeners World Presenter, Geoff Hamilton who would refer to some plants as good doers.
Well, Amber in our back garden has been a very good doer, displaying masses of blooms in this its second year. Smothered in buds in June and because of the cold wet Summer they did not open until the first week in August, last year it was early July when the show started.
Taking all things into consideration Flower Carpet gets the thumbs up from me. This fully hardy Rose bears masses of blooms in Summer and is said to carry over a thousand blooms in a good year. Height is about 2/3ft 60/90cm with a spreading habit. Reported to be virtually disease resistant, and as for pruning in late Winter, well it couldn’t be easier, simply cut it back to a third of its height or even less and Bobs yer uncle.
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This one below, Flower Carpet Rose White was added to the front garden in Spring of this year. The height of the white form is expected to be 2ft, this is shorter than Amber making it more suitable for the front garden.
The semi double flowers of pure white have a yellow centre and have fitted in perfectly with the perennials and annuals in the borders.
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This white variety did remarkably well in its first year considering the weather and the fact that they were not planted until mid April.
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Finally, Flower carpet Gold, shown below, brightening up the West facing border in the back garden before being overwhelmed by the Stipa Arundinacea.
I don’t think I am colour blind but Flower Carpet Gold I found to be a pleasing shade of lemon rather than gold. It was flowering away nicely before becoming smothered, due to the ornamental grass which grew much more vigorously than expected. I will possibly shift these two Roses, I believe the flower carpet series perform very well in containers.
The Mail Order links which I provide normally did not open in a separate window or tab, they do now thanks to Esther of Esthers Boring Garden for drawing my attention to this. Oh by the way, visit Esther, you will be anything but bored.
On the other hand now that I have had a little time to think of it. Does it really have an advantage opening in a separate window, I mean we all know clicking the back button will take us back to the page which we just left. I would be really keen to hear your views on this.
— Mail Order —
We do of course have some of the more traditional Roses in the garden which I will talk of at some time.
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Apart from the numerous garden birds which visit regularly we have Hedgehogs, Squirrels, and the Wood mouse often shows an appearance, even young Deer I have spotted walking up the avenue where we live. However one evening last week after dark and when the outside light was switched on to encourage Purdee to come indoors, here is what we saw looking back at us.
Well, I suppose it may be a common sight for some folks, but this is the first time the Fox has visited us.
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The council people killed them off a couple of years ago, but look whose back, we are happy enough to have you share the bird feeders.
Oh, I should let you know, the reason for a cull on the Grey Squirrel is because of the threat to our not so strong red ones.
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If I go back fifteen years or so the Wood Pigeons did not visit gardens in town. Now they are a common sight. This is the first time I have seen them feeding on the Rowan berries.
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A pair of Bullfinches at the garden feeder, occasional visitors who usually prefer to pick off the young buds on some of the trees
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Seems like in the last few years the Song Thrush abandoned us. Very pleased to see its return in October of this year.
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Not so many years ago the Goldfinch was another garden bird which did not frequent town gardens. Now this most colourful of British birds is a very common sight. The first time I spotted five of them by the garden pond I thought they must surely have escaped from an aviary.
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