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| Enchanted Peace is the new Peace offspring - more color, more blooms, more fragrance. The original Peace has no fragrance except in the imagination. |
Not even Thanksgiving, and Jackson/Perkins is "accepting orders for 2021 roses." That sounds like condescension to some, but it is the call to battle for others. Picture the baying hounds straining at their leashes, the horses' nostrils flared for the chase, the hunters arrayed in scarlet listening for the bugle call.
The Peace Rose was first sold at the end of World War II, and it remains wildly popular in its original state and its offspring. Double Delight is a Peace descendant I bought and planted in New Ulm, in a flower bed perfect for them. Six of them flowered in their own bed, protected and strengthened by garlic around them, plus a few hardy bulbs.
Buying early is a good idea, with free shipping offered until the normal rose season begins. Once that starts, shortages loom and procrastinators mourn the day they were born.
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| Double Delight is fragrant, unlike Peace, and even more colorful. |
2020
Once again I was startled at the power of good soil. Joe Pye grew as ferociously as Buckwheat did, but to 9 foot heights and leaf fronds spreading far out to shade any competition. Once they were done blooming, I cut them and the Bee Balms back to the soil and piled the greens at the base of the maple tree.
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| Veterans Honor stuns the people who walk by, and some take walks just to see the progress of the garden. Long-lasting, perfect in form, and fragrant. |
Liberated, the Veterans Honor roses began blooming here and there, the blooms a bit too heavy for the branches. No one objected. I have three Veterans Honor roses ready to show off on Sunday, plus one little Take It Easy in a bud vase.
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| Take It Easy must be what the rose thought when I watched the bee dive in for food, disappearing while rummaging around the bud. |
The altar guild and I thought the rose season was done during the drought. But then we had four days of slow and drenching rain. Sassy became very concerned about her ability to go outside without being soaked. We used her emergency drill of going across the sheltered front porch, slipping into the garden, and creeping back with a dry towel waiting for her.
That stretch of rain brought the Joe Pye roaring out of the ground. OK, soundless, but really vigorous and ready to take over again. Their deep roots took the rainwater down, and the soaked soil turned the usable nitrogen into stalk and leaf power.
Man has played with the DNA of plants, but nothing can equal the power of God's Creation through the Word.
Missionary Palangyos sends me messages, "More power."
I respond, "More Word."
Nothing happens apart from the Word, so we emphasize the source of power, which has been and will always be the Holy Spirit at work in the Word.
The overpaid and underworked church experts of today remind of people who write books without knowing the Creation. "If you have clay soil, add sand." That was exactly wrong. The way to lighten clay is to leave organic material on top and let the soil creatures - earthworms, slugs, bugs in general - pull the matter into the soil.
We dumped leaves in the middle part of the rose garden, shaded so lacking in roses. In the spring, walking across that area was like walking on a waterbed. The soil can get like pudding with enough rain and humus (leaves, manure, dead plants) in it.
So what will be more productive, following the logical idea of the expert, who probably read it somewhere - or following Creation.
