Hello Flower Friends, I’m excited to share this lovely post from a dear flower friend – In The Garden with Fleurie. Fleurie is owned by Laurie Garza and located in Central California. Laurie has shared much gardening knowledge with me over the years and I feel she’ll offer Flirty Fleurs readers great information about cutting gardens.
Hello Flirty Fleurs readers! I’d like to introduce myself, I am Laurie Garza, chief flower slinger and flower grower at Fleurie | Flower Studio in Reedley, California, right near the hot center of the state. I am not only a floral designer, but have taught floral design and propagation at the junior college level, and a California Certified Nurserywoman. I have always loved gardening and the natural world, it just came naturally at a very young age.
One of my favorite type of flowers to enjoy, grow and design with is the rose.
Last year I added some David Austin roses and a few commercial cut flower type roses to my already overflowing collection of 70 + various cultivars of roses in the garden. This year, those new roses are really producing a lot of flowers! I like all sizes and shapes of flowers, from miniatures to antique to hybrid teas and floribundas.
I’d like to share a few of my current personal favorites. My favorites change all the time! How can a flower lover choose? These are not necessarily the perfect cut flower, but their beauty is worth it, even if fleeting.
Tranquility
A creamy white David Austin rose with the prettiest medium size very symmetrically shaped flower-
Port Sunlight
This was an elusive one for me to figure out! I first saw it at the Morcom Rose Garden in Oakland, and was in love! The color was perfect and the scent was divine. But thanks to a couple of helpful flower people, after nearly a year had passed, and a second visit, it was determined that this mystery rose was indeed Port Sunlight.
Koko Loko
This is one gorgeous, unusually colored roses. Taupey, lavender, beige, mauve are all descriptions I’d use for the color of this rose. It’s second year in my garden and it has tripled in size!
Sally Holmes
A pillar rose, starting out as a buff colored bud, opening to a beautiful ivory with pretty yellow stamens.
Princess Alexandra of Kent
A big blousy rose of a rich pink tone. It has a little dustiness to it similar to a Romantic Antike rose, but more pink toned.
St. Swithun – David Austin Roses
It’s a gorgeous clear pale pink and has a nice strong myrrh- rose scent, seems to be a vigorous grower so far.
Charlotte, a David Austin Rose
I love the soft buttery color of this one, the color is a good blender for a lot of different shades of flowers. It seems to bloom well even in the heat of summer.
Falstaff and Koko Loko
Falstaff is a huge, heavy, many petaled rose, which has a blue cast to it, lending it toward the burgundy tones.
All of the white roses I cut from 3 David Austin Tranquility rose bushes that I planted in May 2015. So far it has outlasted all the other roses in an arrangement I made recently.
So. Much. Pretty! Laurie blows me away with her gardening skills and her eye for blooms. Love this x 100000!
Thank you Jessica!
Congratulations, Laurie! And thank you, Alicia! So happy to see our flower friend here sharing her wealth of knowledge. Loved seeing all these beautiful roses! Can you share some growing tips, particularly fertilizers and bug control that are compatible with an organic garden?
Thanks!
Thank you Sylvia. I use any brand of rose fertilizer that is organic-based, and contains myccorhizae. Usually apply in the early spring just when they leaf out. The biggest insect problem I have is with aphids in spring on the new growth- I use a hose end nozzle with a fine but sharp spray setting and hose those buggers off several times a week. When the weather gets hot the aphids go away, at least in my garden they do.
Now I need to plant some roses!! Gorgeous!
Amazing roses! I’m always amazed at Laurie’s knowledge of growing and also designing flowers. Thank you for featuring this CA flower friend of mine.
Wonderful list! I’m with Sylvia and would love to hear your growing advice and challenges too lIke the heat you mentioned. I had 8 gorgeous 3 yr bushes when gophers destroyed all but 1 I had planted in a gopher cage. I was too broken hearted to try again but your pictures are inspiring me to try again.
Heartbreaking is right! In high heat, I try to keep the old blooms deadheaded and well watered, applying a light application of fertilizer at that time might push them to bloom again too. Look for roses that are described as re-bloomers also.
What a great column. I love hearing the latest and greatest from my flower friend’s garden! Congrats Laurie!
A beautiful roses with nice texture and lovely article are looks gorgeous.