Magic Mornings

There is no morning more pleasing for me than to wake up early and find the house silent and cloaked in fog, harsh rays of the rising sun diffused into gentle radiance.  Combine that with the clean air and glistening landscape from a previous evening's rain, and I'm in heaven, or at least as near as I can get with my feet still on soggy ground.

These are magic mornings for me. Magical moments that I steal to watch the world stir and wake, to wait without worry and simply to be.  On most other mornings, I'm fully awake as my feet touch the floor, leaping into my life with jobs to finish and errands to run, lists to complete and chores to get done.   On these mornings, however, I pause, knowing that rain has dampened the urgency of outside work, and wanting to preserve the quiet and peace of a still-resting household.   While Mrs. ProfessorRoush sleeps soundly in the silence, Bella and I slip outside to capture the scenes, small or vast, that wait just a wall away.

On such mystical mornings, if you wait and watch, seek and search, you can pierce the veil and glimpse, if only briefly, the canvas of life beneath the colors.  Hues of blooms and leaves and grass seem brighter, stems and stalks stand surer, and birds sing sweeter as the sun slowly dawns.  On this morning, I found the cheerful buds of 'Betty Boop' bound together by industry, support stays for a small spider's larder.  Raindrops glistened on perfect new leaves, each drop a jewel of a sequined cover, each leaf a dark green factory of life itself.  The tightly woven petals, scarlet and yellow patterned into perfection, pushed back the darkness and reflect the warming sun.  The whole drama, a merry microcosm greeting the greater world in grace and glory.

Soon, I know, the sun will burn back the damp and break the fog's embrace.  Sound and action will pour in with the sunlight and send the silence slinking back to the shadows.  I'll start coffee for Mrs. ProfessorRoush and butter her toast to better our marriage.  But I've had my rest and quiet, my moments of wonder and awe to revitalize my energies and soul.  Another day beckons with jobs and errands and lists and chores.

(P.S.  I was so pleased with the photo of Betty Boop that I'm entering it into the Gardening Gone Wild 'Picture This' photo contest.  See the contest at http://gardeninggonewild.com/?p=28687)

Ethereal Elegance

Extremely delicate or refined.   Almost as light as air.  Celestial or spiritual.  These definitions of "ethereal" all fit the last rose that shines defiant against the coming Winter in my garden.  Cheerful in spite of frost, embracing the sunlight from dawn to dusk, 'Betty Boop' carries alone the promise of delicate and refined beauty into the cold nights of November.  She may now be clothed in soiled foliage. and her days in warm sun may be numbered, but she blooms still, an angel of charm and elegance in the dying landscape.


 

I was struck yesterday, on a glorious, warm and bright Saturday afternoon, by the tableau of these bright yellow and red flowers against the now drab buffalograss nearby and the blanched prairie grasses of the distant background.  The individual blooms are stained here and there by the frozen dews, but the chilling nights of the past two weeks have made a porcelain study of the petals and deepened the contrast of yellow center and blushing edges.  While other roses in my garden have balled and browned, 'Betty Boop' still engages the gardener's soul with a passing glimpse, beckoning to close, to come hither and be smitten. 

There are lessons upon lessons here, in this rose, for one and for many.  The values of buoyancy and perkiness while the nearby world stands gloomy and grave.  The strength of fragility and softness in the defiance of certain destruction by the coming storms.  The lure of coy subtlety and refinement over blatant sexuality and wanton display.  The stolen embrace of sunshine and warmth during a fortuitous moment, returned back tenfold to the world in a smile.

Twas 'Betty Boop' who held my heart yesterday, calmed in her graceful hands.     

Perky Betty Boop

One of the delights of the gardening act is that occasional moment when, despite all the careful planning of the gardener, despite the research about and the search for special plants, despite the careful site selection, and the arduous care afforded many plants,  the gardener finds a miraculous unplanned beauty, a serendipitous excitement, that was still unplanned for.  Sometimes, I wonder if the very plants are conspiring against our plans, growing bountiful and beautiful not "despite" the gardener, but to spite the gardener who believes the beauty is all due to him.

Rosa 'Betty Boop' is one of those plants that I never expected to really love, nor that she would return my love.  I bought her on a whim as a bagged $3.00 specimen several years ago, merely because a gardening friend loves the rose.  I was never really attracted to the rose by the published pictures I've seen but somehow I still felt that I should give her a chance in my garden.  And I never expected much from her.  Many floribundas struggle in my Zone 5b garden, surviving, freezing back to the ground every year, but, once on their own roots, at least providing me with an occasional bloom that keeps me from spade-pruning them.  That's all I really expected for 'Betty Boop'.

But, for reasons I can't explain, I dumped this cheap, grafted rose in the front of my house, a place of pride next to the edge of the walk, stacking the odds against her by placing her at the edge of the bed where it would be coldest in the winter and driest in the summer.  And she has defied me by growing stronger and more beautiful every year.

What gardener cannot love the delicate mix of yellow, pink and white displayed by the newly opened flowers of 'Betty Boop'? The open, welcoming cheerful faces presented to the sun? The yellow pistil and stamens, private parts of the flower on full display for dashing bee drones with their minds on food and sex?  Yes, the yellow fades as the blossoms age, and the pink becomes slightly less vivacious, but she still welcomes all who would admire her.  I've been stunned by my growing appreciation for this rose and I'm grateful that she chose to surprise my expectations right there, at the beginning of my front walk. Even in Fall she shines, placed accidentally next to Sedum 'Purple Emperor', welcoming my visitors with a contrast of deep purple and bright pink and white.

'Betty Boop' was a 1998 introduction by Carruth, so she is a relatively new floribunda to the trade compared to some of the old classics. Her semi-double form matches the delicate nature of her shading to perfection. I'm told she has a strong scent and I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't even tried to inhale her blossoms although I've grown her now 5 years. She grows about two and a half feet tall in Kansas by the end of the season, and despite my lack of winter protection in Zone 5B, she usually doesn't freeze entirely to the ground but retains about a foot of thick canes to start her off strong every year.

For the record, I'm not old enough to have viewed this roses' namesake Betty Boop cartoons, but for the younger gardeners in the audience, Betty Boop is arguably the most famous sex symbol of animation, a symbol of the Depression, and a caricature of the carefree Jazz Age flappers.  I actually don't think I've ever seen one of the original cartoons, created in the 1930's, but I've always known Betty Boop was a sex symbol instinctively, right down to my XY chromosomes.  If nowhere else, you've seen her painted on the nose of many a pictured WWII fighter plane or bomber, a reminder of home and love to the young pilots of that era.  And the rose 'Betty Boop' captures that image perfectly, reminding a young-at-heart gardener that beauty and perkiness is a good thing for the garden as well.