The Photographic Gardening Diary : Climbing Etoile d'Hollande

This rose comes into flower a few days after Mme Gregoire Staechelin: the climber "Etoile d'Hollande". 

It is very different in character, very elegant, dark crimson red. Unfortunately, its long and rather stiff stems are prone to break off and it is a good idea to tie them  horizontally against wind break. Its flowers have the perfect, a bit bubbly scent. When I put my nose into the first blossom in May, memories of an endless warm summer come flashing back. So stick your nose into the flower if you can find one and it will drive a smile on your face.
Here, it is combined with Taxus baccata and the climbing Hortensia, Hydrangea anomala petiolaris. 

I planted the small Clematis "Gravetye Beauty" next to it, hoping for a playful softening effect on the rather strict elegance of the rose, but Gravetye Beauty comes at her own time a little after the first rose flowering is over,  and unfortunately never together with the rose. 

And here is an update on Mme Gregoire Staechelin! She has a very good year and is full of flowers these weeks. A fine digitalis has seeded itself in front of the rose and grows in perfect harmony.

The Photographic Gardening Diary - Mme Grégoire Staechelin

The first rose to come to flower in our garden this year is Mme Grégoire Staechelin. 

She opened the first huge pink blossom yesterday close to a wall and a window for protection and warmth. I planted her in 2003, on the north-eastern side of our house with morning sun. She seems to like it very much and has been thriving ever since. She is quite tolerant of shade - for the first few years she grew in the shade of a neighbour's Thuja, until their tree was felled. Her flowers have a soft nice scent and in autumn will produce an abundance of huge orange hips. It is best to remove most hips; otherwise she will be very exhausted the next year, produce few leaves only and will be susceptible to blackspot. With generous feeding and watering she will return in splendour every year.


Her common name is "Spanish Beauty" - she was bred in 1927 in Spain by Pedro Dot. And she is extraordinarily beautiful and clads herself in voluptuous flamenco-like pink-whitish large wavy petals.   Her name may have been chosen for someone from the art collecting Swiss Staechelin family, but I could not find out the exact story. I came upon that name by chance when I read about the record sale of Gauguin's "Nafea" this February, on view now for the moment at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel. I have used pictures of this rose for lots of conversion experiments with filters like these here: 

More Here (compositions).