Last bloomers

 

 

I was in the garden yesterday scrounging a few vase flowers and finding slim pickins, but this old L.D. Braithwaite rose decided to bloom late. 

The plant was developed in 1988 by the British rosarian David Austin. He named it after his father-in-law, which was either a sweet or suck up gesture (if you're cynical.)

The poor thing is struggling along now in a dry and shady spot, because trees and shrubs grew up around it over the last 20 years. 

But such a beautiful flower. I've noticed sometimes, when under stress, plants suddenly give their all to the reproduction effort. I should transplant it, but where? And it has especially wicked thorns. 

That's something you don't think much about when just starting out. Then the decades hand out good and bad gardening lessons for free. 

The mornings are suddenly so dark! At 6 am, there was a perfect view in the east of Jupiter hanging off the tip of the crescent moon, just as it was starting to get light. 

Another sure sign of fall-- Charlotte the Spider has set up her web again outside the kitchen window. More on that later.