No one told the roses

Eric Tabarly roses, January 27 (I swear)

While I have been ignoring the garden, preferring the horses of Maisons-Laffitte, it has gone on about its business, only, not the usual business of the mid-winter months: the garden has been blooming, quietly, discretely.

This morning, the horses taking care of themselves, waiting their ride to Cagnes-sur-Mer, or working through their winter, healing, preparing, the sun came out, and I took my first tour of the terraces in a few weeks, stopping to see each plant, to estimate the pruning, the clean-up, the damage, the promise. I found things that were parfaitement normales, and things that were tout simplement tout à fait surprennantes, because no one told the roses that it is winter.

The Pierre Ronsard climbing against the tall, south-facing wall of the gazebo terrace boasted a single rose in its highest branches. The older of the two weeping roses of the second terrace, amidst the lavender that will soon be replaced, sported more than one tiny flower, and the Eric Tabarly rose bushes, in their seemingly permanent temporary pots, just won't give up, and I can't make them stop, because the winter refuses to make more than brief, hesitant appearances.

The winter did not come to tell the roses that it is time to rest, or the violets and the Santa Barbara and the Cape May daisies.

I expected to see the primula blooming, the crocus and the hyacinth sending up their first shoots, but with some of the later spring and summer flowers of the garden continuing to bloom, the crocus flowers might look strange, out of place this February. No one had to tell them the winter wasn't coming, but no one told the roses, who couldn't know.

The fallen and rain soaked brown leaves certainly do. Why was I so lazy? My grass is ruined.

More reason to get the new path and terrace done now, while all is a mess.
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