Sunday, April 5, 2009

Ducher Rose


This is the cute little China rose, Ducher (pronounced dew-SHAY.) It is the only rose in the China class that is white. For those of you who don't know, the China roses are a perfect fit for the South. They love hot, humid weather. They are also evergreen down here and have "twiggy" branches. Most of the time, the new leaves have a bronze coloration. Ducher is a rather small plant. It has a reputation for being resistant to blackspot. This particular plant was another of my October 2008 plantings. It sure does look healthy and I'm expecting great things from it. This photo was taken 04-04-09 by my wife, Jo.

See how healthy it looks despite being covered in aphids for the last few weeks? I decided to just let them go and not put insecticide on the plant. Just shows me that the aphids don't really harm the plant much. I have seen plenty of wasps and ladybugs around the plant presumably eating the aphids. I'm attempting to limit the insecticides since I'm wanting to attract more butterflies and hummingbirds to my yard. Not to mention that the poison can't be healthy for my kids!

Does anyone else find it hard to get the lighting right when photographing white flowers? Seems like the exposure is always set too bright. My cheap digital cam doesn't allow me to customize the exposure very much.

1 comment:

Phillip Oliver said...

I just planted 'Ducher' (thanks for telling me how to pronounce it!) last fall and I noticed that it is covered in buds. Can't wait to see what it does.