Hi Michaelg: Yes, I take health over flowers anytime. I can always cheat and tie silk flowers on healthy branches like my neighbor did to her NEVER-BLOOMING rugosa on our alkaline soil. I thought it was real, so did my kid.

I'm getting smarter about ordering bands. Instead of looking at gorgeous pics. in HMF and want a particular rose, I'll going to tell the nursery: just give me the tallest, most dark green and most healthy band. Health matters more than the name of the rose!

There really is something so wonderful about those fresh leaves and the promise to come.

Promise and renewal.

Yes, even without severe winters, there is something glorious about spring.

Rosefolly

I agree. I think I love new foliage and buds more than full on blooms. Something about the promise of things to come. Fantasy is sometimes better than reality. Even if reality is pretty good.

Oh yes, total agreement here. You can make a strong case that this is the most beautiful time of year.

Winter's old grey fades
Greening sap to bud and branch
Hold this moment. Breathe.

The long drawn out waiting for spring through the grey of winter here makes me so happy to see the greening branches. I can wait for the buds and the blooms, which will come - if there are no hurricanes or volcanic eruptions or earthquakes or plague of locusts - But right now, there really is life anew and I wake every morning before light, wondering if today there will be sun. But spring has come.

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
The earliest leaf's a flower,
But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day,
Nothing gold can stay.

--Robert Frost

Michael! if you hadn't quoted that poem here I would have. Thanks!
Here's to living in the moment.

I can't chime in wholeheartedly since for the first time I have rust, blackspot and mildew, but I also have blooming roses, buds and new leaves so I'm going to ignore the former and enjoy the latter. I hope nature will take care of the diseases with the advent of drier, warmer weather since I'm not about to intervene except to pick off the rust-laden leaves as much as I can. I'm looking forward to my very first bloom of Deuil de Dr. Reynaud.....

Ingrid

yeah, it is all quivering potential - anything is still possible. Dunno any poems but I still feel the green fuse, ready to spark to life.

You may recognize this, companula...Kew Gardens in London, England.

{{gwi:252867}}

This shows the dramatic effect of mass plantings...even when not in bloom.
For me the rose Piccolo had the most interesting spring foliage.

i certainly recognise the sky, rosecavalier.....that very particular shade of english grey.
True though, i think the foliage carries as much weight as flowers, especially in our short seasons. At the moment, I am loving the pale green foliage of Graham Thomas, still one of Austin's best roses. Cheers for the reminder (last went to Kew as an awed horticultural student but what blew me away more than the plants, even, was the gorgeous minke house (a japanese timber dwelling built without a single nail or screw).

Stay Gold everyone!

Michael, were you the one who said that Marie Pavie likes a bit more acid soil that other roses? Anyway if you were, THANK YOU! Last spring I threw some cotton seed meal around her and she spent the entire growing season with hardly a single black spot. She also bloomed up a storm. In fact, she kept her leaves all winter, but that's because we hardly had a winter.

I'll do the same this year and see if the effect sticks.

Barbara

Michaelg,

Loved your poem (and Robert Frost's).

Cath

I had a really bad cold a few weeks back and during the worst days, I rested on a beach towel on the back grass. I spent hours looking up into new rose foliage and half grown first buds of the season. That glossy new growth looked beautiful to me with the blue sky and clouds behind. The first big flowers are starting now and I'm so glad to have my ability to smell back again!

Nope. I mean, I like pretty leaves as much as the next guy, but I grow roses for the blooms!

I lump growth and buds with presents under the Christmas tree, the smell of a good supper on the stove, or feeling an unborn (grandbaby:) baby kick...beautiful anticipation. A life well lived is just brimming with it!

Michael,
Love the poem! This is my favorite time of year. I have fat buds and healthy leaves too. I love the fresh new leaves on the trees and shrubs. My dainty spring bulbs and wildflowers are still blooming profusely and the big show is probably 3 weeks early this year with the mild winter and spring we had. The early yellow species roses are blooming prettily now, rosa Primula is my very favorite.
Lori