Perfect White Roses

'Madame Hardy'

Finally, finally, finally.  At last, in this garden year of dry winters and late freezes and cool dampness, when so many spring flowers have failed to appear or, worse, were prematurely ended in full flower, something beautiful appears.  I thought it would be the peonies, full of buds and promise, to lift me at last but three days of rain have lowered their foliage, lowered my expectations, and left sodden mopheads of their blooms.

'Blanc Double de Coubert'

No, it's my roses, timidly opening one by one, who are exceeding expectations this spring.  Ravaged by rose rosette disease, unpruned and sawfly-stricken, they are nonetheless defiant to the elements and demanding of my worship. 

'Madame Plantier'

We are going to play a game my friends, you and I, a little voting game where you pick the most beautiful of the white roses blooming this evening in my garden.  I took all these photos as dusk fell, beneath brooding skies on the third day of intermittent rain that has totaled now over 5 inches.  White roses, white Old Garden and shrub roses, normally don't respond well to long periods of moisture, browning on the edges of their petals and balling up into mildew.  This year, however, their raiment is unblemished, their virginal purity perfect and perduring.

'Sir Thomas Lipton'

So which is it, your favorite of these unsoiled white maidens?  'Madame Hardy', divinely arrayed around her center pip and lemon-scented, just the slightest blush to her cheeks?  'Blanc Double de Coubert', proclaimed by Gertrude Jekyll, according to Michael Pollan, "the whitest rose known," but also a thorny and untidy jewel?  'Madame Plantier', button-eyed mimic of 'Mme. Hardy', a slightly less fragrant rose on a better-foliaged bush?  Does rugose 'Marie Bugnet' capture your soul, her ample double blooms drawing you across the garden with virtuous allure?  Or might one prefer the gentleman of the group, scandalous Sir Thomas Lipton, lanky and tall, adorned in alabaster?

'Marie Bugnet'

For me, today, the wiles of  'Marie Bugnet', a tough and suffering dame in my garden, have most captured my attentions.  What does the legendary Gertrude Jekyll know of my Marie anyway?  Jekyll was nearly blind in her gardening prime and herself planted 30 years before 'Marie Bugnet' was introduced.  'Blanc Double de Coubert' normally crumples into brown paper with extended moisture and has fewer and flatter petals.  'Madame Hardy', normally my favorite, is a close second tonight as the slight pink tone she carries when damp is unbecoming of a true lady.  'Madame Plantier', however gussied up, is still but a cheaper pretender to the throne of purity.  And 'Sir Thomas Lipton' may be a fitting companion to the likes of 'Madame Plantier', but he remains a rough scalawag, unrefined and rowdy in the garden.

It's 'Marie Bugnet', on this gloomy evening, that brightens the darkness, fans my fires and summons my smile.  I'm captured by her beauty, and enthralled by her immaculate peignoir.  Don't you agree?  Pray with me now, please, for her safety, for her glory, to shine forever in my garden.