Lopsided, lumpy - that's so cute. So is Eluane!
"my full shot garden would bring horror to most people's eyes" - I can relate. I photograph only small sections of my garden so I can pretend it's much bigger and grander than it is. :-)

Your bed looks very good to me.

Lovely pics Serena, your roses are very pretty but Eluane is the most beautiful of them all :D Can you tell me how you grow Mr Lincoln since we're in similar zones in the Midwest? Is he own-root or grafted and do you get tons of dieback with him? I would love to try a Hybrid Tea again.. and he looks so sumptuous.

Great shots of your roses serena! Welcome for the Distant Drums rose, it's looking good!
Where was that last pic shot with Eluane, statues, in it?

Your photos are wonderful Serena. I love the ones of Lincoln, beautiful rose! Your dog is so cute! I enjoy seeing pictures of her.

I love your photos of Lady Emma, Serena. My favorite photo though, is of Eluane at the church. May she always be blessed!

Juliet

KG,

Beautiful shots all, you are beginning to master your wonderful camera. Lovely composition as well.....love Eluane playing football at the foot of the Master :-)

I am envious of both your Mr Lincoln and Lady Emma as neither of mine seemed to weather the winter well and may not survive the SP. I certainly can live vicariously through the exquisite shots of yours though.

Nice job on the war against the Evil Bunny. I'm currently at war with a gopher.
I love Distant Drums.
Renee

Awww, thanks so much Jim, Boxo, Lovemysheltie, Huttnem, Juliet, Renee, and RamblingRozez.

Lol, Huttnem, I wish this were an issue of bigger and grander, but in truth, it's hiding all the lumps and lopsidedness, haha! I have to rely on the Good Lord to have that beautiful church as the substitute "garden", hehe! Renee, I heard on the organics forum that if you place mothballs at their holes or hang fabric softener sheets in places of your garden, they run for their lives. Hopefully soon you can keep that gopher away from your gorgeous garden and roses.

Jim, Eluane is at the Church of the Ascension. It is a very lovely, beautiful church. Mine is also beautiful, but it was too far away for me to drive on that Friday evening because I had to go to an Arts Exhibit at the time at my mother's church. So we went from church to church, lol!

Boxo, who needs LEH, when one has your GORGEOUS Abraham Darby, hee-hee! I just love, love, love your A.D! And Lady Emma Hamilton is not as fragrant as Gertrude Jekyll either with your lovely bouquets. I saw your Gertrude Jekyll at my local nursery and had to get a whiff of it, it had a great raspberry scent and smelled stronger than the other Austins. I wanted to go smell a genuine Boxofrox bouquet rose! :D

Juliet, LEH is actually a heartbreaker, because her fragrance smells exactly like my beloved Gemini tree rose that died from ancient canker at its bud union. The only difference is that my sport-fragranced Gemini had a very strong fragrance, whereas LEH's scent is far more faint and light. But she is a sweet rose and tries so hard to please and so far she's clean from any blackspot (I only do organics). I am actually pretty concerned about her survival during the winter, as Boxofrox mentions; I don't believe LEH is a very strong rose from what other growers have likewise said.

Lovemysheltie, both my Lincolns are very cane hardy and this second year in my garden they are going crazy with blooms. I think the reason why is because they are fed with Gardenville sea tea once a week. I did a terrible thing to all of my outside roses. They got absolutely no winter protection and we had record-breaking colds-- no mulch, no covering of leaves, even the graft was accidentally semi-exposed because of weather eroding some of the soil. The only thing that endangers a Lincoln is rabbits! Rabbits can permanently disfigure your Lincoln because Lincolns do not like to be pruned or wacked down and it will retaliate if it is severely pruned. You have to let it tower (keep it way to the back of your garden and it needs real organic fertilizers with weekly feedings, not the fake MG stuff, but real fish foliar sprays and sea teas. If you feed him, he will actually be the most prolific of the hybrid teas. His first year in my garden he bloomed like a moderate hybrid tea would except with more flushes (because of being the earliest in the Spring and the last in the winter). But his 2nd year he is one King Leonidas rose in sending out bloom after bloom. The blooms are huge and continual, one bud after another. The buds take a long time to develop because of the huge size of the eventual flower. Even in midst of December, he will still keep sending buds even in 23 degree weather. Again, I think it's because of that Gardenville sea tea I use. It really loves that Sea Tea. And as I keep saying just one solitary bloom you can smell 15'-20' away. Other roses depend on multiple blooms to waft fragrance into the breeze. Not Lincoln! It just takes a single rose... Color as you say is so gorgeous in fall and spring-the very deep dark red, but the hot days, it gets to be a warm cerise color (marashino cherries).

You take the best photos of Mr. Lincoln! I have looked & looked at red replacements and not one comes close. Finally saw Opening Night this week. It was bright red (scarlet?)! I'm on the lookout for Papa Meilland to see if it rivals Mr. Lincoln.

Thanks for the detailed advice Serena, I am definitely getting Mr Lincoln, yayyyyyyyy! I took notes and wrote them in my garden journal about how to care for him. How tall is he? You mentioned to let him tower? I have fish emulsion actually that I bought last weekend so I can use that for him :)

Awww, thanks so much Irisgal! Yes, I love visiting nurseries too, because I'm always comparing fragrances! I am obsessed with fragrances, hee-hee! But OGRs cannot be found in my local nurseries and neither can the rare hybrid teas, so it's having to rely on HMF ratings all the time.

Lovemysheltie, when you have the chance I would love to see your Sheltie. A rose grower who has such a wonderful name must be such a loving, fantastic owner as well! My neighbor a block away has such a handsome, calm wonderful-natured Sheltie. I also have a very close dog agility friend who lives in Chicago too! We can be Lincoln and herding dog pals :D and smiley face!

Lincoln will be 7' tall. some people say he will get up to 8' tall, but I think that's because they have old Lincolns. I don't think Lincoln will get to be 8' tall until maybe my 5th or 6th year-- at most he will be 7'6" from what I'm observing-he's just too busy blooming like crazy and the more a rose blooms the slower the height change. I forgot to clarify that pruning when Lincoln goes dormant or just-after-winter pruning is fine, you always want to get rid of weak wood. But once the bush has been cleaned up, don't ever severely prune during the active growing season. If you just do standard 5 leaf-cuts he will be able to maintain the "long-stemmed roses" type-of look. Cheers!

Love your rose Pictures---Don't you just love Compassion----she gets really big--We have to do some major pruning after blooming--

My garden is a jungle this year---I also have to put fences around my rose babies---

Florence

Florence, I love YOUR COMPASSION! and YOUR Breathtaking Viking Queen! Both are totally inspiring and hence you headed my LIST as the very first Inspirational Rose!

Each time I see your bouquets, I start dreaming and hoping my Compassion and VQ will bring your garden's beauty to mine as a saving Grace from my usual Lopsided Garden (smiley face)! I always love seeing your bouquets and the roses framing your kitchen view is so wonderful!

iris_gal, I have Papa Meilland and the beauty of the blooms and the fragrance take my breath away. I loved Mr Lincoln but was tired of the blooms ten feet up so I could only see the bottoms. I finally lost him a couple years ago. Papa is stingy with his blooms but when he blooms!!! There is one on him right now - WOW!!! I do have to say he is a two cane wonder, dies back to the ground every winter, but keeps coming back like a trooper to give me joy each summer. I got him at a Lowe's sale several years ago for $1 and he has been worth every cent. LOL!

Eluane is such a picture hound. lol.

Yikes, everyone! I had a huge freelancing deadline so I missed out on taking photos of lots more blooms. Lincoln to this day is still blooming like crazy, but the colors are now maraschino red instead of the deep dark florist red and with our rising heat and humidity, the blooms have gone to a soft ruffly edging once more. My next set of spirals won't return until fall when it cools down.

This will probably be the last set even though Lincoln still is producing several more blooms-but they're all identical in their shape, lol! The only thing I might add is Fragrant Cloud which is about ready to bloom. If FC doesn't bloom within 5 days, I'll just put it in a Lumpy Garden Part 2. It is a very, very lumpy plant, lol! Jim has seen it and it is truly a ridiculous tree rose sending up sprays on 2" canes after I severely hacked it after it kept getting rain-induced canker...

Here is Lincoln:

Climber Penny Lane

A charming softer look of Aromatherapy

The cuteness of Ghislaine de Feligonde like a tiny button flower.

Lady Emma Hamilton's typical blooms

Alas just a weak fragrance still! Maybe my wailing that she doesn't compare one-whit with Gemini's strong sweet fragrance made her try to look a little closer to Gemini, lol!

Hey Serena..this is off topic..but since this is your thread I thought I would mention I saw a bouquet of Fragrant Cloud and I can see why it goes with Gemini!

Cheers, Zyperiris! Yes, they used to go so beautifully together! I miss my Gemini tree rose. It's killing me! LEH and Gemini have identical scents but I've got wussy, barely detectable LEH fragrance compared to my strong beautifully scented Gemini. And J&P had a massive crop failure on their Gemini tree roses this year for 2010 (sob!!!!) I should have taken a cutting of Gemini while it was still alive and healthy! but I was too new to roses and didn't know how to take a cutting.

Gemini, sob!!!

and when it bloomed indoors and IT HAD SCENT TOO, even indoors!

I see Mr Lincoln looks mighty fluffy. lol. Can't wait to get a bloom on our small container grown Lincoln band rose.
I see what you mean about that one Lady Emma Hamilton bloom.
But, the regular blooms do really nice too! lol