are a 'good' thing to knit while traveling. I can make them without having to appeal to a pattern or really pay attention much. In fact i finished one in the line to check baggage at CDG, and another while sitting on the runway waiting to take off. And believe me i am not a fast knitter.
These are for a memory box project we are currently putting together.
It really sucks to knit hats for dead babies.
Well, yes i am supposed to be working but my excuse is that it is CD1 and my cramps are atrocious and i am waiting for my advil to kick in properly so i can actually *move*. In the meantime, why not blog about my trip?
In fact there is not terribly much to say. I was in Paris for one night, to do some required shopping. It was not easy for me to be in Paris -- for the first time i really felt very little connection to the place. Last year, when i came back, it was still home in a sense -- a place which had been my home. Now, it was not any longer -- i was just a tourist in a tourist town. It helped somewhat to meet J. & his wife for dinner, but still it was so very odd. I am cut off, even more than before, from the part of my life that included Nicolas. Okay, i mean included Nicolas as an independent entity, as himself. Now he is included of course, but it is an inclusion that is fostered only by what i do and what i say.
So this was very depressing, and i was glad to leave town. The next day i took the train down to Poitiers, which is where my conference was taking place (at the Universite de Poitiers). Poitiers is (i learned) the capital of the region of Poiteau-Charentes which sort of your usual French countriside area full of some castles & monastaries & stuff that might be interesting to go see if you had a car but you do not. Plus J. had taken a hotel near the conference, which was rather outside of town, near the university. First of all this hotel was not very good, (the beds were atrocious) and the environs left something to be desired -- to go to the conference we had to walk this lovely way across several strip malls. Not very european to be sure, more like the suburbs in the States.
There were some nice things in the town of Poitiers -- they
have a beautiful Romanesque cathedral with fabulous stonework and great history
and the centre ville has alot of the old half-timbered houses still (most of these are long gone in Paris)
From a professional point of view the conference was mostly useless, and irritating (it was not organized very well). My talk went well enough though it was sparesly attended (probably a good thing, considering). I didn't even get to talk to my advisor for more than 10 minutes. Basically long enough for her to tell me that in her opinion i have a very slim chance of getting an NSF grant again -- yeah she said it nicely, but that was the message. So, what with my chairman's little lecture about my publishing record a month ago, i can tell you i am feeling ever so positive about my career trajectory these days. Ugh. Usually these conferences will really galvanize me -- i return with new ideas, excited about my work and ready to roll. Not this year -- this year i return ready to crawl under a rock and take up a permanent residence there.
Well, that is neither here nor there. The conf ended on Wendesday but our session ended on Tuesday. Most everyone left Poitiers as soon as they possibly could, which tells you a little about the whole situation. I was going to stay in Poitiers until Wed. night, because Paris was so depressing to me. However on tuesday evening i had dinner with a girl i met there, I., who is a current student of my advisor's. She had never been out of the country before, and made her own travel arrangements without the benefit of any advice. Which meant that she had arranged to spend the whole week in Poitiers, in some ridiculously located hotel (it was so ridiculously located that she didn't meet anyone until like the last 2 days, and ate in McDonald's half the time) and would never have even *seen* Paris.
So of course this would not do at all, so i changed our tickets and had her accompany me to Paris on Wed. morning and we spent all Wednesday as tourists, seeing the sites and shopping. We made a good pair because I. is very much like me in her interest in the seeing of tourist sites -- go there, take a picture or two, then hit the stores. So in fact i had alot of fun, and after our tourist day we had a very nice dinner with J. and his wife, and the next morning we went to the airport and flew out of there.
So i was lucky, somehow, to meet up with this girl -- because she made being in Paris bearable to me -- and she was lucky to meet up with me, because i made being in Paris possible for her. And she and i will probably do a little paper for the conference proceedings too, so it was all good all around.
Anyway, that is the quick synopis of the thing. I suppose all's well that ends well. On the airplane back i was lucky too -- firstly because i didn't get AF on the plane (something i was rather worried about) and secondly in the matter of seating. I had been assigned seat D which is in the middle of the plane, the worst one. And then, as the plane filled it appeared that there were two unaccompanied children seated to my right, and another child (a boy around 12) on my left. The boy on the left obviously had some issue (hyperactivity, mild autism, i don't know, but some issue) and was travelling with his mother but they were not seated together. You can just imagine spending 9 hours sitting between the hyperactive and the unaccompanied....OY!! But i offered to exchange with the hyperactive boy's mother, so she could sit with him, and she agreed. I thought it was odd that she did not come out immediately and ask me, but who knows? Maybe she thought i was with the kids to the left. Hers was a nice aisle seat next to some perfectly quiet adults....i was most pleased.
And of course C got some frocks from Paris...mostly stuff for next year but this one she can wear now.
[photo removed]
And i brought her a whole host of stuff for Abee (the doll formerly known as Satan baby), that is his new bottle that is in her mouth. She now also has a diaper, bib, diaper bag, diaper pad etc. for him. You can see him in the back of the picture, surrounded by all of it. Oh, and i also got him a new outfit and a tea set, but i am saving those for her birthday...that Abee is one spoiled doll...
I seriously need more Advil...
Back from France -- the weeds have taken over my garden and the dirty laundry has taken over my house. I was going to go to work today and try to galvanize myself to make progress on something that has been lingering for years...but now that i see the state of things here i might just have to stay around and clean up. I guess that is why my paper has been lingering for years...
Anyway i will post more about my trip soon (with pictures), after i clean up here and catch up with the blogs. (probably not in that order) For what it's worth, the trip was mediocre at best though there were some nice times. I can say nothing really terrible happened, anyway.
seems to be what the garden is currently full of...sigh. I am actually rather anxious -- i am leaving for France on thursday night (business trip, will be away a week) and i am NOT ready, nothing is done. The garden, somehow, is the least of my worries, but i will have to do at least a little weeding before i leave or it will be ugly ugly when i get back.
I am going by myself, not bringing C. In fact it is the first time i will be away from her overnight. So that in itself is somehow very disconcerting. Then again, i am also going back to Paris. I was there last summer, but i was with C, and even then it was hard -- one inevitably visits all the old places and remembers all the old memories of the full two years we had there. That of course includes being pregnant with Nicolas, his death and dealing with it afterwards. So it can be difficult.
I am going for a conference, i am supposed to be giving a talk about my new results of my research. Problem is, there ARE no new results. Not even projected, sort-of-half-done new results. So i have to change the title of my talk at the last minute, and talk about the same thing i talked about last year. I hate having to do this -- more than anything it drives home to me (and to all my colleagues) what a total failure i am in the professional arena. But heck, at least i can do wash...
And do wash is what i have to do, tomorrow. And find my slides from last year and pack bags and clean up and fax stuff and finish paying the bills, and oh yeah weed the garden. Good stuff.
So, i will leave you for a week or so (don't know what the internet access situation will be there), with some pretty pictures.
This beautiful lily just opened in Nicolas' garden, i believe the name of the cultivar is 'white butterflies'. I have six of them, they are supposed to be taller but i am hoping their paltry display is due to it being the first year.
The first daylily opens! This is called 'eenie meenie' i believe, i think i spelled it wrong. It is indeed a very small plant, and due to some error of planning or labelling is planted in the back of the border. I had to climb over stuff just to see it! Well, next year, we will fix that.
Rose 'Chrysler Imperial'. Actually most of the roses on this plant are all red, i don't know why this particular one has a whitish border...but whatever. It is pretty.
Rose 'Heritage'. Another virtue of macro shots is that they don't show the weeds, or the powdery mildew. There is currently powdery mildew on nearly ALL my roses, even though i sprayed them quite liberally with that copper stuff. It was nearly a whole $10 bottle of that copper stuff. Didn't do jack.
Rose 'Penelope', again. I am sure you are all sick to death of Penelope at this point...but i am still quite enamored....
Something different -- i let my hellebore (lenten rose) go to seed. It is very wierd -- it makes the seed pod but the old flower petals don't really fall off. I wish the pictures were in focus!
This is a dried up flower/seed pod that i picked and stuck in the middle of a leaf...just having fun, i guess. I think it looks really interesting...
At the pregnancy center we get a lot of donated used baby clothes, and much of it needs a little washing. So, last time i was there, i volunteered to do some of the laundry (because apparently i don't have enough of my own or something). Anyway, it is not too hard to soak some baby clothes to get the stains out, and then run them through the washer. So, today i dropped off my load of washed clothes and signed up for my volunteer hours in July. Two of the ladies working there sorted them into the appropriate bins and then came out and raved about the beautiful quality of my laundry! 'Oh your wash is so beautiful!' one lady actually said. I think i must have had a dumbfounded look on my face because the other said, 'not everybody can do nice wash, you know, my daughter-in-law for instance'... (mental note: thank heaven this woman is not
Anyway, i am sure this was meant to compliment me on my housekeeping, and i will take it that way. But sheesh, what a compliment...i mean, scary. I can do wash. Yay me. My vaguely- feminist mother (whose laundry and ironing skills are far far superior to mine) would...well, i don't know exactly what she would do -- laugh so hard she would fall out of her chair, or be completely offended on my behalf!?
Well, the little visitor is gone (and the big one too, but that is another post!). I don't know what happened to him -- his parents are gone too. I did not find any telltale signs that he was eaten, like feathers or feather fluff or anything. So i guess i can posit a happy ending -- he figured out how to fly and flew off with his mom and dad? Ok, in absence of evidence to the contrary, let's assume the happy ending, shall we?
I just looked again at the picture of the daylily border below and really it does look like there are two orbs there -- a wide diffuse one and a sharper one in front of it. Michelle blogged about this phenomenon here.
Note that the fencepost pictured there is the one that has Ocean's clematis planted on it. Her clematis is in the picture but you can't really see it very well because it is not that big yet.
So, okay, i am a skeptic by nature -- i am not saying that i believe this stuff. But it sure would be nice if it were true!
I was reading This garden is Illegal and noticed a post about another blog devoted to Scented Geraniums.
Now, i recently did buy a scented geranium, lime scented, pictured below.
You can believe i like it very much -- scented geraniums are very Victorian, for one thing, and it smells just lovely. So i put it in a special pot (A painted it when he was little -- so it might not be too beautiful to the rest of the world, but to me it is a very special pot!) and it sits in pride of place on the little tiny table outside.
But i cannot say i love scented geraniums, or more properly pelargoniums. They are not a plant that i can see collecting or blogging about -- unlike Dawn, who writes the geranium blog. It made me start thinking about plants and passions, or rather, people and their passions for certain plants.
My current passions are (in no particular order): roses (that is Penelope again)
daylilies (not blooming yet but here is my daylily border, you can see i have alot of them)
agaves
tomatoes
and orchids, phaleonopsis mostly
Before we moved to France i had nearly 40 orchids, but i gave most of them away. So i am slowly accumulating again but i try to resist the temptation...this one is Nicolas' orchid. Some day in the middle of winter when there is nothing else to picture i will do a mini photo essay of my agaves, stay tuned.
There are some things i have alot of, but it has not risen to the level of a passion yet. Peonies (ok, i only have 3, that is not alot), peony-flowered tulips, oriental lilies, and mini-hostas come to mind. (I have a cute collection of mini-hostas but they are rather invaded by weeds so i am too embarassed to post those pictures.) Herbs, can't forget the herbs.
There are some things which could very well become passions if circumstances and/or finances were to allow. Heirloom tulips, for example, or amaryllis if i become pleased with my reblooming capabilities (i am not pleased so far but i am working on this). Citrus flowers/trees if we ever have a place to overwinter. Calla lillies -- so elegant!
There are some things that other people are very passionate about that i like but will never really love. Iris, for example -- very very elegant but the short blooming season irritates me. Don't ask me why the same short blooming season of peonies doesn't irritate!? It seems to be a purely emotional response. Fuschia -- cute, but i don't get it. Ferns, i find it hard to be excited by ferns. Begonias, and of course (to come full circle) scented geraniums.
To each his own, and vive la difference...
I got home and opened the mailbox, and in it was a very large thick envelope from the IRS.
Well, now, that can't be good.
Thank goodness for diversions, let's talk about my plants.
No, not my MIL, she is a big visitor. I don't mean 'fat', exactly -- 'loud' is the appropriate term for her. Actual conversation: 'It's hot in here!' (as she is putting on a long-sleeved shirt) 'Don't you have a fan? Get me a glass of wine!' (short pause) 'uh...please'.
The little visitor i speak of is this one:
A young blue jay who has fallen out of the nest -- or tried to fly out of the nest and failed. He has been in the garden for two days -- this is the third day. I did not see him this morning, but i did not see him yesterday morning either and he showed up in the afternoon. So i suspect he hides himself pretty well at night.
His parents are around, so i assume they are feeding him since he looks perfectly healthy and hydrated even though it has been hot. I am reluctant to intervene in this case -- everything i read on the internet said not to intervene if the parents were around. I know the parents lost another baby earlier in the year -- there was a very little one on our porch a month ago but an hour later it was gone -- a cat victim no doubt. I was watching that day, but not well enough -- i was out with C.
There are a LOT of cats about. In fact yesterday morning i was sure the little guy in the backyard had been eaten, as there was cat poop in my lawn so it was clear someone was back there. But he was fine, he must have found a good safe hiding place. I figure somewhere in the woodpile/ladderpile where the cats can't reach him.
I am hoping he will make it for a few days until he is big enough to fly. He does try to fly -- he preens his wings and hops and flaps about, but he can't seem to get off the ground. He is pretty big though considering, so i can't imagine it will take him that long to learn. I really hope he does not become somebody's midnight snack, though.
It was a tough morning. Chloe did not sleep well last night, and i am getting sick or something -- i was supposed to be working yesterday but i crawled into bed and took a 3-hour nap instead. Oh i can assure you i am making stellar progress on my research, what with all these afternoons of gardening and sleeping.
Anyway, the girl was on a total tear this morning. I just (last night) found out that my MIL is coming for the weekend, and is showing up later today. The house is a complete wreck as usual and i have a mile-long list of things to do. A is home, so you would think he could help -- either with cleaning or with C, but he would rather read a book apparently. (To give the boy credit, he did clean his room as asked.) Plus we are supposed to go to the pool this afternoon, so whatever is not done this morning will not be done.
So you can imagine the hassle here...vacuuming and tidying up while C screams and screams for this thing or that thing and the phone rings off the hook...oy. Eventually i totally lost my temper with both of them...i hate it when i do that. Because i know what could happen and i know it is so much worse to not have them here, so i should be able to keep calm and not fly off the handle like that. But sometimes it just seems like your head is positively going to explode....
The visit of the Perfectionists went well -- in fact they were very impressed by the progress on the house and the kids had a blast at the festival. I had forgotten that the last time they were here, we didn't even have walls (in the downstairs rooms)....so, uh, i guess it is all relative. I didn't have to weed the garden for them -- they didn't even end up going into the back yard. But it is good anyway that i weeded, it really needed to be done.
Today we went to the zoo so C could see the elephants. And there were no elephants there! I don't know what happened to them -- dh later said that they had to sell or transfer them or something....bad news for C. She had fun seeing the giraffes and the hippo though, and there was a statue of an elephant to play with. In fact she had a wonderful time, i don't know if she even noticed the lack of real elephants...
[photo removed]
I made a blog specifically for the vegetable garden. I figured it would be easier to see the progress in it that way. If anyone wants to look you can find it at Un potager a Detroit. I still haven't edited the template or anything...
is how long my current self-improvement project lasted. Oh well.
Maybe i will try again, in a few days.
Ok, so my house and garden are not the messiest ever. Nor are they the neatest ever -- i would say that in terms of neatness the environs here fall squarely in the middle of those of my friends & aquaintances. Cleaner than some, dirtier than some. Except, of course, the part of the house which is under construction -- there, it is a construction zone. Ditto with the unfinished parts of the yard.
This weekend there is a special event in our neighborhood and i invited down our old suburban neighbors, hereafter known as the Perfectionists. Their house is, in fact, neat as a pin and they have upgraded everything about it. It is a small (1000 sq ft) house, very cute little bungalow. These are the people who used to call and complain to our landlord when our lawn wasn't mowed....I don't particularly like them myself and dh actively hates them. So much so that he even refuses to throw burgers on the grill for them -- 'you can eat at the festival', he says.
Ok, so why did i invite them? I have been wondering this myself. They have two small children and the boy is a little older that C -- she loves to play with them, to go to their house. That is one reason that i keep this connection with the P's. Also the mom, R., can be nice -- she made us a casserole once after C was born, whereas i never did anything for her. I used to go over there and talk with her occasionally, after C arrived and i was feeling lonely/down. It gave me some much-needed adult interaction, even though we did not talk about anything important. R. is fascinated by our house and our project, and yet is kind of scared of the city somehow. Inviting her down is a way of letting them see that the city is not some dangerous hellhole. Well, not all of it, anyway.
But somehow also i think i crave to show off? And to prove myself, to show that i am not completely crazy to buy a house in the CITY. To show that there is something worthwhile here, something worth having. When we bought the house i quickly tired of the 'you are buying a house WHERE? are you SURE you want to do that?' Yes, i don't want to live in your soulless suburban sprawl where i have to drive to get anything and everything; and my dumb neighbors call the environmental police to write me a ticket if my grass is too high. Ahem. (i was pregnant, okay, no way in hell i am gonna mow the lawn. And dh hates doing it) I want to walk to work, to the museum, to the playground and the coffee shop and the bakery, to the festival. And i can. Heh.
Today, when C went to take her nap, i figured i could get some weeds pulled in the garden. And, since it was a beautiful sunny day, i figured i should put on my swimsuit to do it. I have had t-shirt tan lines for the last two summers and i am starting to get tired of it. My mother gardened in a bikini for years, in fact she probably still does it. I don't wear a bikini due to my fabulously fashionable stretch marks, but i do have a nice swimsuit from France that i bought in 2002 and have not really been able to wear since (due to either being pregnant or lugging around baby weight). This year, though, i have lost most of the baby weight, from C and also from Nicolas.
So, i dug out the swimsuit and put it on. A glance downward showed that clearly i had been neglecting some very basic feminine grooming...ugh, i forgot about that. The legs i don't care about, but you can't very well go around (even in your own backyard) subjecting the neighbors to the sight of pubic hair...
Well, i can't really shave down there, and there wasn't enough time to do the whole wax-and-pluck thing. (at least not if i wanted to get weeds pulled *too*). I could have just thrown on some shorts, but then again there is that whole tan line thing. So, hmmm...it occured to me that i could just grab some scissors and trim down the bush a bit. That would be fine -- after all, noone would be looking closely -- it is just for neighborhood goodwill.
I started looking for the scissors. Well, we must have at least eight pairs of scissors in this house, but scissors (like glue sticks and nail clippers) are one of those things that i simply can NOT find when i need them. In fact, 15 minutes of serious searching only turned up two scissor-related implements. One was the kitchen scissors (clearly out of the question) and the other was this pair of japanese gardening shears.
These were actually my husband's when we got married, and i quickly took them over..... leading to many conversations such as "why are you using those to do *****, you will RUIN them, they are ONLY for pruning bonsai trees!!!" "yes dear i'm sorry" (after which i continue doing whatever it is i was doing and kindly do not mention the fact that he killed all his damned bonsai trees anyway) Eventually he gave up nagging me about the appropriate use of the japanese gardening shears....however i don't think though he would let pass without comment the unusual use they were put to today...
Oh, the kicker is this. After the appropriate (very careful) pruning, i put on my swimsuit and went outside. Then, i leaned down to pull up a weed. Then, i realized that apparently i still am not thin enough to actually *bend* in this swimsuit. At least not without showing my whole buttcheek to whoever might be watching. So, i trooped back into the house to put on a pair of shorts. Sigh....
My heart is a little heavy today, don't exactly know what triggered it. Not much in the mood for conversation. However, here are some recent photos...
Ocean's Clematis started blooming. It is simpler and smaller than i expected but nevertheless it is very pretty -- blue and ethereal. I will post several pictures of it...
Well, okay, i will post several pictures of the flowers. The vine itself is kin
d of sadly draped
around the fencepost because i have not yet managed to pound some staples into the fence to give the poor plant something to hold on to. That is something i will have to do in the next few days...
These campanula bells are from S. and th
ey are just beautiful!
I was wrong about the white irises! At least about this one, which was given to my by my mom. It does have some flowers after all! And very pretty ones too. The bargain ones are still a bust, though...
Here is Nicolas' white foxglove, blooming up a storm. This i
s also from mom. I am amazed it is so big -- it is as tall as me! Here i will add another pic so you can see that. The iris is to the left of the foxglove, you can hardly see it in the picture.
See, the foxglove is almost as tall as the fence...
The other day, i was having alot of fun trying to eradicate the slime molds from the garden. I was not going to photograph them but i did notice this one
which at least gives concrete evidence that one of my midnight visitors is a cat. Whether this cat is in fact the tulip bandit or not, i don't know...but we can clearly see there is some cat involved...
Check this out. I have never seen such a thing...it is growing on my back porch balustrade.
I was so fascinated when i saw this growth that i yelled for Alexander, 'Come see! Come see this thing!'. It is less than a centimeter in diameter, and seems to be some kind of mushrooms? But growing out of the wood! How cool! Alexander's total display of boredom at observing this completely bizarre item really smote my heart. I mean, really!! What does it take to interest a 13-year old boy, i wonder? Maybe i do not want to know.
Michael and i went down to the basement to try to unravel the mystery of the gas bill. While he was attempting to read the meter, i noticed these things growing out of the floor.
But, i am sorry to say, it was not a suprise, i have seen them before. The first time i saw such a growth, it bore a startling resemblance to macaroni and was growing next to my washing machine -- and i did let out a little yelp when i realized that it was a mushroom growing out of my basement floor. This one, growing in a different place, looks more like gigli, don't you think? If i could only think of a way to grow morels or truffles down there, my financial problems would be solved...
Anyway the sudden appearance of all these growths made me (of course) decide to not only photograph them, but go looking for more. Must be the weather we are having.
Aren't these pretty? They are in my daylily border. They look like they should house gnomes or something.
I was hoping for a fairy ring but this was the closest i found, in my neighbor's yard. An abstract fairy shape...doesn't count i guess.
I admit i think mushrooms are cool. As long as they are not growing in my basement.
Yesterday i spent almost all day puttering in the garden. I meant to just spend a few hours in the morning, but you know how it is -- once you get started.... So i blew off work for my puttering. They call it puttering for a reason, i mean i was constantly moving but a non-gardener would be hard-pressed to tell what i had done. I mowed and weeded and planted and watered and moved the houseplants outside and organized them and potted some stuff up and tried to rid the place of those slime molds (which are all over everything) and took pictures of the roses. Then i took a much-needed shower and was so pleased with the result that i put on a cute skirt and top and shoes, and even did my hair. A big deal, considering AF is here and that makes it much more likely i will be wearing cruddy jeans... So i had a nice day, overall, and was congratulating myself on my work and my mood. Then we popped into the car to take Alexander to kung fu class, and turned on NPR.
Well, first there was a story about the economy in Zimbabwe, where they interviewed a woman and her 16-month old daughter -- who she expects to die because they have no money for food, the rate of inflation being 1000 percent. Then there was a story about soldiers in Iraq who shot and killed a pregnant woman and her sister at a checkpoint -- they drove through the checkpoint on the way to the hospital, because she was in labor. That was followed by an interview with a retired Marine & judge about the killings at Haditha. I had been aware that this happened of course, but i did not know the details (which were not explicit on the story on the radio either, but i looked them up later.) I did not realize that they killed babies. And that they offered the families compensation ($1500 perhaps?) afterward. Can you imagine? The mind boggles.
Anyway, after listening to all of that i had to go to the grocery store -- load up a cart full of tasty foodstuffs for my healthy American family. It made me quite ill, it makes me quite ill, to think about the dichotomy there. How can we exist, co-exist, in a world with such horrors? Horrors for which we bear some measure of collective shame, as well. But yet, we manage to run our errands, say 'fine' when asked, and chat with the cashier about the weather. I know -- i did it, and will do it again. I did not sit in my car and cry for those babies, or my baby, or our babies. They are lost to us, and there is nothing to be done for them. It is not like me to succumb to despair for very long -- but sometimes, it just sits there on the sidelines, staring at you in the face while you fill your shopping cart.
Peony whose name i have forgotten with Siberian Iris 'Flight of Butterflies'. Don't they make a beautiful combination? I planned that, sure i did.
I have no idea why my mother makes such a big deal out of this stupid iris, as a simple google search turned up several places to order one for $8. I suppose it dates from pre-internet days...
Don't you love the way ants crawl all over the peony buds eating the nectar? They are just so much fun to watch.
A closeup of the flower.
More roses....'The Pilgrim', a David Austin rose. One of my favorites.
'Heritage' about to bloom. Unfortunately the bush didn't do well at mom's so it is touch and go with this one. A David Austin rose, one of my favorites. OK so i like the David Austin roses...gee i should put a link to them on the side here huh?
'Comte de Chambord' is an antique Portland rose. He has a wonderful fragrance but occasionally some difficulty opening fully. At least mine does.
'Intrigue' complains that i erred in calling him a hybrid tea in the previous post, he is in fact a floribunda. Okay then, sorry about that, i will be more careful in the future...
'Penelope' in her glory.
'Nicolas' is starting to bloom more.
'Sevilliana'. It's orange-red clashes with every other color in there. I am thinking of pulling it out and putting it in a container, but then it will probably die over winter. What to do?
Here is 'rugosa Alba'again, in focus this time.
