Autumn Roses

 The colours are quite different.
Rhapsody in Blue Rose and Buds

Sometimes I only look for the obvious in autumn. I'm attracted by the drama of the dogwoods as their colours deepen, or the languid leaf drop of the golden driveway trees, and so on. I forget that for some shrubs it's business as usual.

Business is Blooming!

And for some of my roses, that business is really booming - or should that be 'blooming'? Their autumn colours are richer, and in the mellow, angled sunlight their flowers look even more precious and surprising. We won't look too closely at those battered, worn rose leaves, however...

An April Joy

Vibrant flowers from a rose late in April are a joy. After all, winter is nearly here, when the garden will lose much of its obvious colour. Mind you, the winter foliage greens will do their shining best, and there'll be red in the berries and pink on the face of the hard-working Head Gardener...

 The oddest name for this rather non-commercial looking rose!
Climbing Lemon Rose Casino

There's still nothing like a rose petal to delight the eye with so many different pinks, and yellows, and purple-reds... So instead of watching the fluttery leaf fall and admiring the golden carpet underneath the cherry trees I've been communing with my autumn roses. You beauties! Thank you so much for not shutting up the floral shop with winter approaching - well, not just yet.

 A real beauty.
PInk Shrub Rose Saint Exupery

So do I especially buy roses that I know will have their second blooming late in the season? No. They've all arrived by accident, except one. Reading that 'Nancy Steen' was sometimes called the autumn rose, I bought one of her. That was a few years ago, when the autumn of my own life was just beginning...

Thanks to the Following Roses:

St Exupery, Rhapsody in Blue, Casino, Crepuscule, Sharifa Asma, Blackberry Nip, Nancy Steen, and all you others who are brilliant flowering at the very moment. I'm sorry I can't name you all, or show all your photographs. This doesn't mean that I appreciate you any the less...