A garden is a lovely thing, God wot...

Rosa HT 'Piccadilly'

It's true that roses are a bit of a pain, given the susceptibility of so many of them to pests and diseases.  But when they do what it says on the label, they are probably the most rewarding of subjects.  Piccadilly here looked like a deep depression over Iceland for its first year, producing few flowers, and feeble ones at that.  A good talking-to, severe pruning and the odd handful of hen has brought it to the point you see here. 

Of the new plantings, some are getting their roots down well, while others (the more expensive ones) are looking rather droopy.  Our second Justice of the Peace is looking promising after a dismal start (in admittedly dreadful, impoverished soil where it was heeled in for the winter).  The first of that variety is coming into a spendid second flush of bloom.  Good old Peace is looking awful, having lost all its foliage to black spot.  Its cousin, Chicago Peace, one of the most recent planting orgy, is coming along quite well.  Birthday girl produced a profusion of exquisite crimson-edged cream buds, which were a little less spectacular when they opened. 

Fuchsia (?) Magellanica Alba

One of the less endearing tools of us enthusiastic gardeners is the sharpened thumbnail.  When the art group spent a morning in colleague Tony's fabulous garden in the spring, I thumbnailed a couple of cuttings from his fuchsia (I think) magellanica alba, brought them home in some wet tissue paper, and slapped them in a pot of compost in the cold frame.  We hooked them up to the irrigation system in the herb bed before we went away in July, and potted them up on our return.  They have put on a good little root system apiece, so one is now planted out in the new bed.  I've hooked the other back up to the drip for attention later in the week, when we hope some of the weeds in its eventual destination ought to have succumbed to treatment.