Dorothy Perkins – 2016

Just when I begin lamenting the end of the lilacs and rhododendrons in our garden, here come the roses!  They always take me by surprise — mostly because they come in June which isn’t a very rosy month here in Oysterville — nor weather-wise, anyway.  It’s usually misty-moisty or downright rainy, and could spoil my Oh-Boy-It’s-Almost-Summer attitude.  But, then… tah dah!  Here come the roses!

Hybrid Tea Rose, Maybe

We have four different kinds of roses in our garden.  Three of them are back behind the kitchen where they are seldom seen except by us.  Somehow, that pleases me.  One bush (or is it a tree?) grows against the house outside my office.  It can only be seen from the kitchen window and I think it knows that it blooms just for us.  I have no idea what kind it is — maybe a “hybrid tea rose” whatever that is.  It looks like it would make a perfect bud vase sort of rose — but it really doesn’t.  I’ve learned to leave it uncut if I want to enjoy it for a longer period of time.  Of the four roses in our garden, it’s the only one with a fragrance that my old nose can detect.

Old Fashioned Climber

Just beyond that lovely deep red rose are the delicate little pinky-white climbing roses that came out of nowhere and established themselves along the back wall of our garage.  For lack of a proper name, I just refer to them as “old-fashioned climbers.”   Cutting them for bouquets is always tempting but they told me long ago that they don’t like it.  They are happiest in situ.

And then there are the York Roses, or at least that’s what my dad called them.  They are a variegated rose, red and white, and are said to commemorate the Wars of the Roses (1455-85), a series of English civil wars fought between the houses of Lancaster and York.   The wars were named many years afterward from the badges of the contending parties: the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster.  Although my dad always called it the “York Rose” it is more properly known (of course) as the “York and Lancaster.”

York Roses

Our only roses that are up front for all the world to see are the sweet little Dorothy Perkins that climb along our west fence.  First planted here in the 1920s by my grandmother, they bloom all summer and fall but have yet to make their appearance this year.  Over the years, many people — visitors as well as locals — have asked for cuttings which we have willingly supplied.  It pleases me to think that Dorothy Perkins on other fences in town — at the church and near the schoolhouse — came originally from Helen Richardson Espy, my beloved “Granny.”