Old Men and Roses

Spouse, now A.K.A. "The Gardener," walked into a lunchroom filled with women a few days ago and declared, "A room full of roses!" They squealed in delight. Women generally love my genuinely nice, soft-spoken giant of a husband. The comment may have come because he has roses on his mind. He has finally "come into his own" with roses this year. 

When we moved to this house now nine years ago, he inherited a pretty lame rosebush. He learned how to prune, feed, and then even transplanted the bush. Possibly inspired by newer, younger bushes in our garden, this old guy decided to come to life in a big way this year. Its roses right now are spectacular. Here are four photos of the same three roses taken this evening, transformed in photo shop to four different shades. I like the pale rose the best.

Good friends of ours moved this past summer into a house surrounded by glorious rose bushes. (You can see some of theirs in the sidebar of this blog.) They bought the house from retired folks who had lots of time to tend their garden. Frederico took a crash course on rose management, and now he too is working wonders with his roses. What is funny is to hear Frederico and The Gardener (what Spouse thinks he might like to be called on this blog--but maybe just for the summer months) discuss their roses. They suddenly catch themselves at what they are doing and say, "We sound like two old men!" Well, all I can say is they are closer to that stage of life than they were 24 years ago when their friendship began!