November Roses (and Rosettes)

In botany, a rosette is a circular arrangement of leaves or of structures resembling leaves 

When Agave 'Blue Flame' is good, it's fabulous.  Part shade (in this endlessly sunny climate) preserves the blue cast to its green and the streaky, dry brush quality it will flaunt at its best. 

Another 'Blue Flame' exposed to more sun is greener.  With the sun shining through the leaves, a different kind of beauty:  

Agave parryi truncata is one of the most perfectly symmetrical Agave rosettes.  Its variegated form is very slow growing and the variegation is interesting:  the contrast is greatest in the oldest leaves.  

Mangave 'Kaleidescope''s pink polka dots go well with the lavender-pink-aqua cool season colors of Graptoveria 'Fred Ives', also a rosette form: 

Roses of the rosette form:

 Rose 'Geranium Red' has grown in this garden over 20 years.  Its flower form is as perfect and consistent as that of 'Souvenir de la Malmaison', in a brash coral red rather than SDLM's delicate shell pink.  The fragrance is powerful old rose, a contrast to its modern color.

'Munstead Wood':

In this garden, 'Munstead Wood' has proven to be the most reliable repeater of the red Austin roses.  'William Shakespeare 2000' had much larger flowers of about the same color, with long stretches of bloomlessness in between flushes.  'Munstead Wood' is a smaller grower with a stronger fragrance to this nose, and always seems to manage a few flowers on a very regular basis.  

Update:  MW looks a little ragged in November, but the flowers are just as good.  Seriously prickly stems.

'Snowbird' photos get posted much too often, but I can't help it.  Each flower is beautiful and there are plenty of them, frequently.  Not quite as prolific as 'Iceberg', the gold standard for rose repeat here in Southern California, but close, very close. 

'Queen of Elegance' is still new to the garden, purchased in 2020.  Time will tell how good it really is.  

One thing making the garden better this fall was fertilizing the roses in early October.  Cooler nights and the 0.92" of rain we accumulated over the month of October also helped.  

Not bad for November: 

 Like Agaves, Aloes form rosettes.  Aloe rubroviolacea shows off the rubro-viola shades that named it, and a stout bold candelabra of fall flowers:

Aloe noblis is a late spring or summer bloomer.  This one shows off its variegation.

 Aloe ellenbeckii is a smaller clustering Aloe--an individual rosette may be 10 or 12 inches wide.  The leaves are narrow and spotted with white, and the flowers have a glossy sheen.  

With a curtain of Russellia equisetiformis:

Its most distinctive quality is that it is extremely hard to kill--I've never succeeded.  Leave it un-watered for a couple of years, or give it enough to drown a hydrangea, it somehow endures. 

This week in surprises--seeds on the Rhus integrifolia (ovata?).  These California native shrubs are dioecious--they either produce pollen or seeds, but not both on the same plant.  I thought mine was a pollen producer until discovering it wasn't.  Now, to try growing some from seed--but where did I put the seeds?  They're around here somewhere...

Garden activity the past few days was chopping the dying Pittosporum 'Marjorie Channon's down in the back gully.  Sad job--such a beautiful, beautiful shrub.  They did great at first, until the drought hit.  They can't take dry heat.  

Three years ago I planted a tiny Heteromeles arbutifolia (Toyon) seedling between each 'Marjorie'.  The Toyons are about 18" tall now.  I hope they are able to take over from the failed 'Marjorie Channon's and be a dense, no-irrigation background hedge.  They are native right to this very area, and do well with little care and no irrigation.  

The Toyon berries are a valuable winter food source for native songbirds:

While Hemerocallis 'Bella Serra' blooms on and on.  It got some fertilizer when the roses did, and put forth a whole new round of flowers.