From Left, top,  Dr. Huey, William Lobb, Charles de Mills & bottom Chapeau de Napoleon, 12 May 2021

This 12th of May, 2021, like any May in a rose garden, will bring, invariably, in an early morning visit some sort of surprise. Today’s was special as besides Rosa ‘Leander’ having two more open blooms there were those purplish/red roses. I felt guilty in cutting them but I did.

My original intention when I started scanning the roses and most of the plants from our garden in 2002 was one of accuracy. I wanted to reproduce plants at 100% size and with my calibrated monitor I was able to reproduce the true colour of my plants and roses. Some might suspect or note that in a shady garden, film cameras, digital cameras and video cameras are extra sensitive to UV lighting. Blue flowers will reproduce as bluer and some white roses might have a slight green cast because of being near to a lawn.

By naming my plant in that day’s date the resulting scan could be compared by someone else in a different country.

In the end I just enjoyed the scan. I would tell some of my friends that my roses would talk to me and say, “Cut me now, I am at my best.” Most laughed at me.

But I must admit that sometimes I feel artsy and today’s blog has an artsy image, too. I placed under my roses, an opaque Mylar sheet between them and the scanner bed.

Looking at my roses on a sunny day with my two cats in tow makes me smile but I invariably think of my Rosemary and I become sad. It was two years ago that Rosemary went to the old house (I never had the heart to return but she was brave) and brought and unnamed rose that was on the laneway garden. When it bloomed last year it was a red rose we had never purchased. That’s when we agreed that the original rose must have died and what we had was a very much alive root stock of Rosa ‘Dr. Huey’. I am impressed by the persistence of this doctor and I only wish that Rosemary were around to count all of its 35 buds.