Thank you Melissa, for as usual painting such a great word picture that I feel like I can see what you are talking about. Such a wonderful garden - you have the space to plant things, and then wait and see what Nature will do with them. You also seem to have unlimited patience to let that happen over time, instead of fussing with everything continuously.

We would, I am sure, all love to see more pics to illustrate your fascinating writing.

Jackie

Thanks, Jackie. In the garden there are the short-term things that one admires now, and the long-term things that are happening meanwhile. Roses are faster than trees, anyway.

I had serious doubts about posting this, as it seemed merely to be saying, lamely, "This is beautiful", while my usual writing is an attempt to describe, as clearly as possible, what I love, and let the reader discover its beauty for herself/himself. For me, to describe something as beautiful is a kind of absolute: a statement that can't be further broken down. But I'm feeling the loveliness of the roses and other plants strongly now, and wanted to express it.

After a night of downpour--the local principle river is at code red for flooding--today the sun came out and this evening is glorious. After being busy yesterday and this morning, I took to my bed and missed most of it. But tomorrow is forecast to be mostly fair, too! I hope to be back out in the garden! And while I was in bed and otherwise idle, I took a couple of hours to hold and pet our cat that has incurable skin cancer. So far, though half his face is being eaten up, he still finds life worth living: eats and drinks, goes in and out, lies in the sun, purrs like an engine when he's petted. When he loses his appetite, for food, for life, we'll have him euthanized. But meanwhile, holding him and rubbing his ears is an important activity.

My roses are being glorious this year, too, Melissa. At first I felt ironic about your comment " so much beauty for so little work.", considering how awfully hard I am working, but then it occured to me that the roses that are really dazzling me are ones that are well-established, and I do almost nothing for them! The juveniles over whom I am labouring so much are not, of course, very impressive-they are too young. The weather's been great, too-occaisional rains, moderate temperatures.

Lucky weather for you, bart: congratulations! It's still raining here; tonight we have a fire in the wood stove, not because of cold but because of dampness. The far end of the garden, where I was working today, was so wet: the heavy clay ground was saturated. The grass this year, of course, is magnificent.

I work all the time in the garden, but the only reason it hasn't all collapsed entirely--I'm not sure about partially--is because so much of it needs only intermittent care. All except the mowing, which can't be done with constant rain. Thank goodness, though, for the few tidied parts. They are glorious.

The weather has been wonderful this year-a real spring, mild temperatures...but with all the rain I've got serious weed issues, too. The neglected parts of the garden are impossible; I cleared out a large area which has alredy been completely over-grown , as if it hadn't been touched. I can't even wade through the stuff to see some of the roses up close! though from afar at least some of them are looking great. In another area I can't get through because Roville is slouching all over the path-yet another high priority job that I still haven't done-buiding the support for Roville and Laguna.

So much to do. Next fall I was thinking of moving some trees, but now I see that I've got so many roses to move that I doubt I'll be able to do it. I want to consolidate my garden- get the roses that are not exactly flourishing but are holding their own out of the lower garden, and move them into

the upper garden; replace them with trees and low/no care shrubs that will hopefully eventually shade out the weeds somewhat. Fact is , unless I put down cardboard, there's no way to keep up with the weeds. But this is something of which I should be proud! back when I started, the land was so poor the very weeds were stunted!

Bart, sometimes I feel we're twins, our gardens sound so similar, at least in their histories. The grass this spring is driving me almost frantic; I may actually have to give though as to how to control it, at least to some extent. Maybe. Like yours, my garden is in the phase of making fabulous grass (some great roses, too). It would be nice to see it advance beyond. I too am hoping for the suppressive effects of trees and large shrubs. DH has been mowing valiantly lately, which helps a bit.