We really did not walk around yesterday to our lane garden so we did not notice that Rosa sericea ssp. omeiensis f. pteracantha was in bloom. But today we did. So this rose is the first one to bloom in our garden and it seems to have done it with a consistent schedule as she (for me she is a she) was the first as I wrote here.

Not a happy Good Friday 
A winged dinosaur

May is one of the finest months in a garden. Our plants and particularly my many hostas are unfurling without a bug or slug bite. They are pristine very much like a post pimple period teenager.

This rose has vicious thorns later in the season (but vicious enough now). The many thorns remind me of this lovely quote:

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”

― Abraham Lincoln

Our columnar Magnolia grandiflora has lovely shiny green leaves but she will not bloom until late summer. The scent of her flowers is at par with that of the best roses. The scent is similarly complex and can be compared to the myrrh scented David Austin English Roses. Why am I diverging from writing more about this strange species rose, the only one to have only four petals?

Remembering the Lincoln quote reminds me of the huge Magnolia grandiflora that is on one side of the Capitol in Washington DC. It is very old and I like to think that Lincoln on his way in might have stopped not to smell the roses but those huge white magnolia flowers.

Abraham Lincoln 

Our original magnolia from our Kerrisdale garden did not survive the transfer. Here it is. The new one is thriving and will bloom,