Rosa Penelope

This is Penelope.  She is a gorgeous thing and not just a pretty face.  She smells  delicious, and she grows in exactly the appropriate way for the spot she is growing in.  Penelope is a Hybrid Musk rose and is dated 1924 and therefore officially ‘Old’ which is great, seeing as these are the ones I love the most, the old ones, though casting a eye around the garden this morning, it seems I like pretty much anything as long as it smells good and is a rose!

She is pale porcelain pink, a sprawly creature.  I’m trying to teach her to grow up the fence so that her slightly droopy flowers can be gazed up into (Barbara Lea Taylor would be proud).  The flowers just keep coming and coming and although these last autumn ones aren’t her best, and tend to go a bit pink around the edges, she still looks lovely and I am pleased that I put her near the front door.  When I’m coming and going I can see her still blooming on, even though the weather is becoming colder and there isn’t much else in the garden that isn’t all overblown and had it.  Garden clean-up imminent!

I took delivery of a trailer full of leaves from school.  The caretaker there  had them collected in a trailer, and they have been sitting for about two weeks just getting all manky and perfect for mulch, the ones at the bottom were even really hot, which means they were on their way to compost.  They were distributed yesterday by the beloveds, who don’t understand my fixation with these leaves that everyone else ‘in their right minds’ is raking up and dumping.  Hey people, dump them here, they turn horrible clay into great soil eventually.