Garden season

I have spent the past few days falling in love with one of our rose bushes.

This bush did not bloom so fully last year. I don't know if it was my extremely inexpert trimming that did the trick, or just the particular quality of the season, but this year it has bloomed to extravagance.

Of all our roses (white, red, fuscia, pink), these are my favorites...with their color like a sunset over the ocean. They also have a perfume so pure it's almost painful - a smell you hardly dare inhale for its briefness and its perfection.

I can see the other bushes preparing for a banner blooming season, dozens and dozens of tight buds ready to unfurl. But this one is my true love, and I felt the need to appreciate and photograph every individual bloom as it opened.


Just look at that perfection. This is a rose utterly languid with the knowledge of its own beauty.


Our largest bush, ready to bloom. This one will be fuscia, and will light up the front of the yard like a christmas tree in another couple of days.

Flowerpots on the stoop.


And strawberries. We planted these last year, and this year they have really showed promise...big, tight green fruit, rife with seeds...

...and then one morning, the first splash of red showing among the flowerbeds.

Here's a closeup. This berrry (and, in fact, all of the berries on this front plant) was eaten by robins today. Only the plants closest the front door are still heavy with fruit. But you know what? I almost don't mind. Just to have grown these fruit is satisfaction enough.

My beloved rose in full sunlight.



Iris, bearded with gold.



I even love the way the allium look after they have gone to seed...like something from the modern art museum!

A typical Colorado summer sky...full of thunderheads!

Actually, our whole neighborhood looks like a garden these days. This house has the flowerbeds that I covet. They must order a gross of bulbs every year. Next year, I aspire to their gardening prowess!