The roses are blooming, the queen of any garden. The goats had eaten all but one of my roses i started many years ago from cuttings, and just this spring i bought new bare root plants to replace them, and it is wonderful to see them bloom for the first time, all different beautiful pinks.

Roses, of course, are a special flower to me. When i was pregnant with my beautiful daughter Rose, now 11 years old, Ethan was so sure she would be a boy, he didn’t even pick out a girl’s name.

One evening we were gardening at our little garden plot (because of course this was before we had our farm, goodness, i was only 22!) I was walking along the paths to look at the other little gardens.  One of the plots was completely taken over by an enormous rose bush that grew over my head, covered all over with the brightest pink blossoms.

I picked one, and looked up at the sky, which was all over the same color of bright rose, and felt my baby, who didn’t kick very much, give a little wriggle, and i knew that Rose was her name.

The roses here are (in order) the Tea Clipper, England’s Rose, I’m not sure, and The Fairy.  The three named ones are from David Austin roses, a dangerous online shop in my opinion, and the unknown rose was my last surviving rose from a cutting. Here is a little rooting tutorial i made. 

The boughten roses are very pretty, and i hope they hold up well to this climate that roses usually hate. It’s cheaper and best, i think, to get cuttings off of neglected but flourishing roses, but it’s nice to try different things too.