Friday, June 18, 2010

Flower Friday - Duchesse de Montebello

Duchesse de Montebello


This week's featured flower is a lovely light pink rose - Duchesse de Montebello!  This beautiful old-fashioned Gallica hybrid rose is a once-bloomer that flowers abundantly each May and June.  It grows quickly and blooms generously year after year.  The flowers start out a very pretty blush pink and fade toward white as they open.  The leaves are light green and non-glossy, and we have never had trouble with black spot or rust on this rose.  We started ours from a tiny plant about four years ago, and it has grown into a sprawling bush that is around five feet tall and eight feet wide.  Paul Barden used the Duchesse de Montebello (and Abraham Darby) to breed my very favorite rose, Marianne.   You can find my Flower Friday post about Marianne here and can learn more about Duchesse de Montebello roses on Paul Barden's Old Garden Roses and Beyond website or Rosegathering's Duchesse de Montebello page






A few book and blogosphere updates:


1.  Sorry for the unexplained absence of posts here on The Eager Readers this week.  We've had family visits, the start of summer classes for the kids, and a couple of days spent out of town this week.   My best friend is also staying with us right now.  She is getting married next week, and since she lives 3000 miles away but is getting married here, a lot of her wedding planning has been done from across the country.  So this week has been about pulling together the final wedding preparations now that she is here in town.  Fun! :)  Anyway, we should be back on track with more consistent book reviews and blog posts next week.  I'm excited to share my thoughts about several of the books I've read recently including The Demon's Covenant, White Cat, and Shadow Hills.


2.  Tonight I'm driving up to meet Candace of Candace's Book Blog at a Jacqueline Carey book signing event!  I can't wait!  :)  Jacqueline Carey is the author of the Kushiel series and is visiting Powell's to discuss her latest book Naamah's Curse.






3.  Novel Novice is giving away three copies of Sarah Rees Brennan's The Demon's Lexicon.  That contest ends June 22nd and you can read more about it here.












4.  Candace's "My Favorite Things" event ends June 29th so if you haven't checked that out yet, be sure to hop over to her blog.  You can learn more about her birthday giveaways here.










Happy Reading!  :-)

3 comments:

Laurie London said...

Such a beautiful rose! You're inspiring me to spruce up my rose garden. I had to take out several rose bushes last weekend because they just hadn't been doing well the past several years. Made me sad.

Candace said...

That rose is BEAUTIFUL! I think I'll have to work on getting my hands on one of those plants for my yard.

It was awesome to see you at the Jacqueline Carey signing!
I hope you guys have a great time with the final wedding preparations and I'll look forward to your reviews on all the books you read!

Violet said...

Laurie - Thanks! :) So sad to have to pull out rose bushes. Two of ours (Queen Elizabeth & Don Juan) have been disease-prone for the past two years, so we are beginning to debate pulling them out.

Candace - Thank you! It was such fun to see you at the Jacqueline Carey signing! I can't wait to join you at another great book signing event sometime soon! :)