The Oldest Rose.

Simon Estes, Age 4.

The oldest roses in our yard are Simon Estes, Chapeau de Napoleon, James Mason, and not-Aptos. I'm not counting Moondance because it is a POS blackspot and thrips riddled floribunda that never amounted to anything. Simon here is 4 1/2 feet tall in his 4th year, and is producing dozens of flowers that look just like this one. Fantastic!

We finally have enough roses blooming in the garden that we can bring cut flowers into the house every day. It took four years for us to get there. Constant vigilance! I have to give a lot of credit to our environment with its rich, sandy loam soil and plentiful rainfall. We also get lots of blackspot, aphids, rose chafers, ticks, bunnies and the occasional deer coming in to ruin everything. The Garden of Eden it ain't, but sometimes things turn out all right. Like Simon here.



You'll notice we have no lawn...