The first rose of summer

I’ve been anticipating it for days – yesterday morning when I left for work it had almost happened, and I was sorely tempted to walk home at lunchtime just to check. Pesky work got in the way.

And last night – not quite.

This morning’s early light did the trick. And so, I proudly present my garden’s very first rose of the season.



It’s a New Dawn climbing rose, and it seems to be doing very well in one of the sunny corners of my new flowerbed. It’s absolutely covered with more buds. My friend and garden advisor Judith tells me they’ll soon be exploding out like popcorn.

Not knowing much about roses, I was a little hesitant to put one into the garden, but Judith assured me that New Dawn is one of the easiest, most pest- and disease-resistant varieties in all of rose-dom, and that it will grow like gangbusters all through the summer. Guess I’d better start thinking about putting in a trellis so it can go about its business in a well-supported manner.

If I had been home today, I know I’d have been parked in the garden for hours, just staring at the lovely blush of New Dawn. Instead, I just saved the photo as the background screen on my computer at work. Not quite the same thing, but I sure did enjoy it.