Beautiful! I love your Viking Queen! I'm happy you finally got some intact blooms off of her! I have a few roses that I can't get a single bloom that doesn't have holes in it this year! I recently caught a little caterpiller chowing down on an Ink Spot bud..horrible!

And of course...the little furry one at the bottom us beatiful as well! ~Tammy

Loved each and every rose photo.
Congrats to Eluane, well done.

Spectacular blooms and pics, Serena. I can see why you're so fond of Viking Queen, it's lovely. It's very interesting to see the different bloom shapes of Viking Queen.

Your red roses are fabulous, as well, wonderful colors and the pics look so vibrant.

Eluane looks very sweet, cute pic. Congratulations on her awards.

Great roses Serena! I can see why you love Viking Queen so much, I love her, too. What a beauty! Looks like we also still share our love for Mr. Lincoln :-). My Mr. Lincoln is still in a pot but has matured and given me some really gorgeous blooms this year. The flower shape has improved a lot and I get more consistently the elegant exhibition HT bloom shape. The flowers are also have become much bigger. How old is yours?

Your dog is super cute and always looks very alert and up to something!

Thanks for posting!

Christina

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Garden Dreams

Thanks so much Tammy, Krista, Christina, and Ingrida for your very kind words! What's so sad about VQ is that it is one prolific, would-have-been continual bloomer, lol! So out of 400+ blooms out of the thrips epidemic, only a total of 5 blooms survived and still had some edged singing, the rest rotting tea bags, lol! Last year no thrips attack and it was one of my favorite roses...

"The Furry One" gives everyone a kiss! Eluane is such a sweetheart too and is so gentle with babies and toddlers! One of the very cute boy volunteers at the ring just fell in love with the little E and wanted us to come to his house to bring the E to show his sisters! E was surrounded by like 5 little girls, packed into this little house, lol! Eluane got lots of cuddles....Little kids love little E. We also have some pretty cute names for our obstacle courses so the kids always remember us too. We call the tunnnels dragon, the chute caterpillar, the Dogwalk Mountain, the tire donut and we use French words as well. The boy was such a great kid too, so helpful at the ring, and he got lots of thank yous from the judges and ring captains as well.

So KG, I'm looking at the pic of the ribbons and I see first and third but I don't know how many outs there are nor whose on second VBEG. Way to go, the Divine Miss E must be real proud of you ;-)

Hey, them roses are mighty fine, there must be something to that vitamin K. The Crescendo colors remind me of White Eden and you know how fond I am of Oklahoma and that Presidential One !!!! I like them all actually but VQ and Aroma are especially stunning, IMNSVHBORO !!!!!!

Beautiful blooms Serena! I especially like the last set of VQ. Very nice! Congrats on Eluane's wins!

From your pictures, Viking Queen can be quite photogenic. Is it at all fragrant?

Thank you so much Boxo, Beth and Mantis!

Boxo, if my Oklahoma looked as wonderful as yours and so glamorous and beauteous as your gorgeous Oklahoma bouquets, I wouldn't be such an annoying whine-fest party poop, lol! Cornelia also gets the tail end of my whine-fest too in terms of very raaaaaaarely blooming. I also call my Cornelia a green monster of a Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons because of its arching moppy canes. Takes tons of real estate without producing any show of blooms save in one massive early spring flush and only 3 branches'-full in late summer, then a big fat zero any other part of the season.

Hehe, Boxo, Eluane has never gotten any 2nd place. All of her rosettes thanks to the Good Lord are 1st place rosettes- only two total are 3rd. But those are true miracle wins. We can compete only 4-5x a year and last year we only competed in 3 trials because I missed out on a very critical one. I was so upset. One more win, Boxo, and we move into the professional level in our Jumpers division, where all the MACH handlers are at (Master agility champion handlers) so once that happens no more 1st place wins, lol, no more 3rd place- more like 20th place????! These are folks who've been doing it for years and allllll border collies, all at Eluane's height at the 20" so instead of our usual one-in-a-million miracle win from the Good Lord, we got our one-in-a-billion chance, haha! Actually at Eluane's current level, I get to watch Kansas-Missouri's best Ann Zarr with her young dog up close. I usually end up running 1-2 dogs behind her. She is a multi-MACH title holder and gets to compete in Europe with her older dog. It's so amazing to watch her, Boxo! And no, it's me who has to be very proud of the E and TOTALLY GRATEFUL for the Good Lord's help! I have a learning disability, so trying to memorize the courses are very difficult for me, and when one has a very fast Border Collie you have to be in control all the time to lead out your BC. At her winning trial, I was late! I had no time to get a course map to study, no critical walkthrough - where all the competitors walk the field to position and strategize their run. And by the time I arrived the 16" dogs were already running (20" follows right after!!!) so all I could do was watch the other competitors ahead of me and start memorizing the course- and it was a very difficult course full of twists and traps.

Also bless Jim1961-- he is my cheering section, and I always text him prior to our runs too, lol! Whenever E and I run, boy do we try to run with all our heart-on-the-line, lol!

Mantis, in my garden every rose has a different unique fragrance with their own nuances. VQ is definitely a very fragrant rose. The fragrance is like one of those fancy bath soaps that you'd find in an English bed-and-breakfast hotel. You get that soft perfumed talcum powder nuance to it.

Congrats Eluane! DD blooms looking very good! Matter of fact all your pics look great Serena! Even the Marigold look....LOL

Wow!!! Gorgeous roses!!! I just looooove Viking Queen!!!! Talk about beautiful. I want it!!!!

Too bad about all of your thrips. I don't seem to have any here. Although one time I saw a ladybug at the tip of a rose bud - I imagine it was eating thrips. I had them at my old place and they can be SOOOO frustrating.

Way to go Eluane. I know how hard (and fun) agility is - but to do it with a learning disability AND a super fast border collie - wow - you're AWESOME!!

Carol

Thanks so much Jim and Carol! Jim, many thanks for being Eluane's rah-rah! and for crossing your fingers for us! Hehe, my personal favorite in this thread is little Napoleon DD, Jim, hands down. He really aces in terms of always looking good, whereas my other roses fluctuate...

Carol, all thanks to the Good Lord doing His miracles. I just excel at screwing up, haha, and He has to salvage the chaotic mess I leave in the wake!

Hey, Carol, hugs and best wishes. We miss you here, and hope all is going well with your health too! Be sure to keep us updated!

All beautiful! If my Lincoln had looked that good I'd still have it. Silly things never opened for me. Red balls that soon turned brown and dropped. He finally succumbed to winter and I never replaced him. I love my Folklore though!

Thanks so much Seil, and yes, your Folkore is UNFORGETTABLY GORGEOUS!!!! no one can ever forget yours and Markiz' Folklore photos! sooooo much more spectacular than mine. I affectionately call mine the Lumpy Spotted Leopard to match Eluane's toy which I call the Spotted Leopard. The other plush Leopard is at my Dad's house, and yes, Eluane's toys are now 50 that she regularly plays with and she knows the names of each toy....Back to Folklore---an extremely vigorous rose in spite of the spots(must have something to do with its disease magnet parent Fragrant Cloud) but it always makes spurts of huge healthy leaves too and has glowy colors and prolific, pouffy blooms...Folklore would look beautiful and spiraling, but the cucumber beetles can alter the spirals of both Folklore and Lincoln from time to time.I've had so many spiraling buds lump out eventually, lol!

Seil, I will have to tell Jim about Lincoln so he can feel better. It's been a terrible year in his locale with all the non-stop rains and flooding which I got last year...The own-root Lincoln you had is typical. I hear Lincolns need to be grafts to do well. Jim's Lincoln is own-root, but it is very healthy and looks great. He says the re-bloom is too slow for his liking but I explained that all HTs require 4-6 weeks in general of wait-time...But if I let him know that he did good with such a difficult to grow own-root, he'd not feel so down-in-the-dumps, Seil....My hope is that once his own-root reaches the age of my Lincolns, they will be non-stop continual bloomers that I've experienced. I actually have tons more Lincoln photos, but they will go in the Lumpy Part IV thread before people get tired and bored with my lopsided, funny roses....

P.S. be sure to post photos of your adorable, sweet pup! Eluane wants to say Hi!!!