April Roses

Some years ago, Plotnik found a unique looking rose in a garden catalog and bought one. It is called "Scentimental" and is a floribunda, which means it is hardier and produces more flowers than your standard hybrid tea rose, which gives the classic long-stemmed beauties that guilty husbands line up for the day before Mother's Day. (Now that Joseph Schmidt's Truffles is closed, we're gonna be needing more roses.)

The downside of the Scentimental is that the roses have small stems and don't last very long after you cut them. Yesterday Plottie cut off the already opened roses and pruned the stems down to a five-leaf cluster, then he put the flowers in a vase on the dining table. Tomorrow they'll probably be just about gone, but today they're really beautiful.



In a way, the petals are even more beautiful than the flower itself. If Domin-Nik were here she'd take a closeup of the dirt in front of the rosebush and it would come out more beautiful yet.

It's crazy to try to grow roses or tomatoes in Saint Plotniko, we just don't get enough heat or sun. But in the spring, when we have our first summer (the second one comes for three weeks in October) we get Double Delights. They are just beginning now. And they smell sooooo good.