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Sitting Around

Winter

Rings & Things

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Winter

We don't seem to do as much sitting around as we used to. Murf says she wouldn't be caught dead out here until at least May 1st, and even Mom hardly ever sits here now. I still come out here a lot, but except for the occasional squirrel it's pretty lonesome.

A rose has got to be tough to make it through the winter in this garden. Other places get much, much colder; we're only a couple of miles from Lake Erie, so Mom says that makes it a little warmer here. But we don't always get a good snow cover, which is like a blanket for the roses, and we can usually count on getting a couple of good ice storms every winter, and that's kind of hard on roses that need to be pampered. So we don't have any.

This is Louise Odier, a bourbon rose that mom says really is old enough to have known better than to have put out all these leaves by March 11. For someone who likes roses so much, she sure is mean to them. I'm glad mom takes better care of me than she does of her roses. She says "I start them off right and feed them well; if they can't fend for themselves over the winter, there are plenty more that will." And she means it. Kathryn Morley was a really nice rose that just couldn't cut it here. Mom was sorry to see her go, but she didn't make it through the first winter. Now Hansa lives where Kathryn used to be.

This is what Hansa looked like on the morning of March 12, 2000. But it's okay - in June, there were be bunches of flowers just like always. Mom says that's because Hansa's made of hardier stuff than poor frail Kathryn. I don't know about that, but my ball rolled under him once and he's sure got a lot more thorns than Kathryn did, I'll say that for him.

So over the years our roses have gotten tougher, and now we don't have to worry about which ones made it through the winter. Every year they get glazed with ice and whipped around in the wind and they don't even seem to care. Down at the bottom right, just above the tulips, is a picture of Fru Dagmar Hastrup, Schneezwerg, John Davis, and I think maybe also Morden Blush. They all have leaves under this, but they'll be fine in the spring. Mom says that's her kind of rose.

Rings & Things...