Rhododendron racemosum

May is a month where it is impossible not to go to one’s garden to inspect what plants are doing. It is in late spring when you finally find out which roses did not make it. This year our big loss was not a rose but the lovely Rhodendron racemosum (always the first to flower in the garden) which could not handle the dense clay soil of our garden. I had replaced a lot of it (Rosemary told me to deposit it on the many potholes of our back lane). One rose is struggling on one old cane. This is Rosa ‘English Elegance’.

But all in all our garden is looking very nice as we prepare it for a Vancouver Rose Society open garden in the first few days of June.

As per usual since some of our Gallica Roses (they only bloom once) are bursting in glory Rosemary is worried about there not being any roses come June. Some say roses are early because of whatever weather changes they have observed. I try to calm her by telling her that our garden is not a rose garden but a perennial one so she should not worry.

Rosa 'La Belle Sultane' May 24 2018

But as my Gallicas and other once-blooming roses show their splendour now I am busy cutting this one and that one to scan for my records.

I have been scanning my roses and other plants for at least 15 years. I have records (lovely scans) of roses that came and went without saying goodbye as the Spaniards say of the French. In some way my accurate scans of these roses at least preserve my memory of them.

I could not resist today to scan that Gallica Rosa ‘La BelleSultane’. Her claim to fame besides her purple/red colour are her intensively gold stamens. Perhaps in years to come anybody who might be interested in my plant scan archive will be able to discern differences in any particular rose that I keep scanning every year and not only now but some (the ones that re-bloom) at later in the season.

While my scans may be lovely they do not do justice to the roses temselves with their intense fragrance and their image in 3D when I look at them in the garden.