If it's Spring, can the Roses be far behind?

It's that time of year when the annual "hope springs eternal" hits the gardener. All thoughts of past failures, deer, fat jackrabbits, gophers, coyotes eating the tomatoes, April snowstorms, drought, diseases and bugs have faded overwinter while we were dreaming over the garden catalogs. And in my case, if the last daffodils are blooming, species jonquils and poet's narcissus and Thalia daffs, and the absolutely exquisite Cantatrice white trumpet daffodil, and the apple trees are starting — well then I start thinking of roses. Fragrant roses, old-fashioned roses, climbing roses to climb above the deer, and mini roses. My order of mini roses just arrived on Friday, and the tiniest of them in a 2 inch pot, Saint Mary, had this beautiful flower half open. Isn't she just about the cutest thing you ever saw?

I took this picture on Sunday, and the flower was still perfect. She went into this pot only for her photograph; even a rose this tiny wouldn't last in there. Next weekend they'll all get potted up. Saint Mary is new to me, one of the wonderful minis from Ralph Moore. She's a new favorite. A lovely light scent too.

The picture is as close to the visible color as I could get it. The photographs came out much lighter and brighter than the real deep rich red-violet. Not a bright magenta. Not as deep as Intrigue, but deeper than most other mauves I've seen. So I got to do a lot of playing in Photoshop to get the picture to look like what I see.

Naturally tonight it's hailing on the daffodils. Good thing I took some pictures this morning; too bad I didn't have a chance to cut a few.