Valentine Old Garden Rose

Valentine; April 28, 2014

I’ve posted several times about Valentine — the old garden rose by my front door — but Valentine has done something I’ve never seen from a rose (at least not one growing in my yard).

The photo gallery below shows (from left to right); a cluster of 24 opened Valentine roses, the entire valentine rose with the cluster at the back right and smaller clusters throughout the bush, and a picture of the stems after the blooms began falling apart. The cluster of blooms lasted about 10 days.

Click on any photo to view a larger picture–these roses are just beautiful!

There were two sets of clusters in this magnificent show of blooms; one cluster had 18 blooms and the other had 6 blooms — a total of 24 open flower roses at once!

“Valentine” is very small (about 2 feet in height and diameter) and yet it produces blooms almost constantly (from February through October, so far).

Another bonus — I’ve not seen any fungal problems on the leaves or flowers — even though Valentine is growing about 2 feet away from a cluster of “Livin’ Easy” roses (susceptible to downy mildew during rainy periods).

Valentine is quickly becoming a favorite, easy care rose in my garden!