Taking Time

David Austin rose 'Gertrude Jekyll'

I so admired and obsessed over the blooms of my tree peony this spring that I sometimes felt like I knew every bloom on the plant. Maybe I felt that way because I was photographing them practically every day during their short period of bloom and sticking my face in them regularly to breathe in their scent. I read this passage recently by former Washington Post columnist Henry Mitchell in his book "One Man's Garden," and I knew just what he meant. We are so busy in the spring getting everything neat and tidy that we sometimes forget to take the time to really admire the beauty in our gardens.

One year I took off two weeks during the peak of my irises, and for some odd reason the weather was flawless and the irises were having one of those exceptional years and I sat there and strolled there morning to night for two weeks. There were two thousand stalks of flowers, with about seven flowers on a stalk, and not one of them opened that I did not see in full head-on focus.


It is curious to me that so many gardeners occupy their leisure making things neat and tidy. It is one thing to trot past a fine bush of, say, 'Mrs. Anthony Waterer' laden with attar-scented blooms, and another thing to settle down and gaze at it for an hour. What is the point of growing a rose in the first place if you just admire it in passing?


Isn't that the best idea to take time off from work to admire your flowers, especially those with such an ephemeral bloom time?

My roses are in full bloom right now. I don't have a lot, but I have a few old-fashioned ones, a David Austin English rose, and several Knock-Outs as well. And I'm taking the time to smell the roses this year.

Rose 'Frau Karl Druschki'