Iobelle In the Spotlight

Hold the presses.  ProfessorRoush wishes to interrupt his irregularly scheduled blog with an important emergency bulletin!  'IoBelle' is blooming its head off here in the Land of Rose Neglect and General Garden Disarray.  I don't deserve these fragrant  and bountiful blossoms, but here they are, nonetheless.

I was mowing yesterday, hoping that it was the last such occasion of the year (likely not...) when I motored past the bed containing 'IoBelle'.  I instantly ceased any thoughts about the blog entries I had been planning and I just had to stop and take pictures of her.  'IoBelle' is Dr. Griffith Buck's pink and cream counterpart to the award-winning, but less hardy, 'Double Delight', and she's still joyfully chugging along in my garden despite years of neglect and willful inattention.

I've written of 'IoBelle' before, so I won't  repeat her pedigree or particulars here. But I will bear witness that this 16+ year old member of my garden has survived a number of really cold winters, droughts, storms, waterlogged soils, searing summers, and Japanese Beetles, avoided Rose Rosette disease, and still it manages to produce blooms like those above and alongside these paragraphs.  She needs trimmed, relieved of her dead and diseased stems, and she is showing leaf loss due to blackspot in this summer of abundant rain.  Yet still, her vigor and the former promise of Dr. Buck's breeding program shine through the neglect to brighten my days.  Long live 'IoBelle'!