Monday, June 07, 2010



May and then June are just about the best months in the garden. Hostas are fresh and pristinely undamaged by slugs in May and in June the roses surprise me from one day to the next. They are in bud on one day and before I know it, in spite of the rainy weather, they manage to open and beckon when I visit the garden. Some roses are flagrant (besides being fragrant) like some of the women of the night in their tight short skirts and fishnets. One such rose is Westerland which will be all in bloom in a few days. The large orange coloured flowers that smell of synthetic apricot jam are impossible to miss. They are relegated to the lane garden where they will not clash with Rosemary’s elegant perennials, they of the blue or white flowers.

Some roses are a bit shy. One of them is the one here. It was absolutely beautiful about four days ago when it had just opened. It was in a low side cane of the bush and it was hidden by other nearby rose bushes. I almost missed this unromantically named rose (English Rose creator David Austin’s brother-in-law), L D Braithwaite. Today after a unexpected little downpour I noticed that the bloom was now all open and past its prime by rose show experts. But with the water droplets on the petals (the white dots you see in the scan here) it made a nice scan even though I had to be careful that the water droplets did not fall on the glass of my scanner.

There are other deep red or crimson roses in my garden that are much more fragrant than LD Braithwaite, but in spite of it all this rose (a remontant English Rose of old rose character) because it was the first red rose in my garden, I would not part with it ever. I have other roses that grow taller and are easier to grow. LD Braithwaite has never been a vigorous rose. I have to take special care of it. As one of my Mexican friends used to say, good mistresses are difficult and expensive to take care of, but that is why they are good mistresses. I have no experience in such matters but I suspect that my friend may have been right. He would be shocked to find out that my current mistress happens to be a man.