Good things only #3 / sevenling (roses)

Finally the teaching-year is done for me, with just graduation to go next week.   So I’m hoping to find more time for reading and writing now.

It’s been a challenging year, and the last few months in particular have been difficult. So here is a floral pick-me-up, for myself and anyone else who needs to stop and smell the roses.

1.  The lilies are just starting to bloom! First the Asiatics, but soon the Orientals and trumpets will be blooming too!

2. Hearts-ease – also known as Johnny-jump-ups or violas – are in bloom in all sorts of unexpected places. These first snuck into my garden ten years ago as stow-aways in a pot of something else, and they’ve spread to come up year after year in pots and bathtubs and garden beds.

3. Sweetpeas are clambering around above the hearts-ease. The mice must have missed a few seeds at least, from my successive plantings.

4. Roses, of course.  Heavy-headed Jude the obscure, richly crimson Mr Lincoln, paint-splashed Maurice Utrillo and all the others.  The recent heavy rains have knocked the petals off them now, but there are many buds. Nothing is as tough as a rosebush. The wild dog-roses along the road and in unploughed paddocks are in bloom, nibbled by ‘roos and possums, but surviving – flourishing even. One has quietly crept into my garden and I haven’t the heart to remove it.

Sevenling (rose garden)

Jude the Obscure nods politely to
Mister Lincoln standing straight and tall,
while Miserable Les sulks in the corner.

There Pierre de Ronsard blushes as
Maurice Uttrilo, in studied disarray,
leans suggestively over Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

None notice the dog, crept in at the back.