Roses

When we moved into our house, there were a number of rose bushes in tough shape. Frankly, we thought that they were all spent - a master gardener looked at our yard last year to give us advice on what to keep and what to chop out. She thought that the rose bushes were likely just the root part of the graft (rose bushes are often grafted) and that no flowers would come. Well, our first year, we got a single yellow rose, 8 feet off the ground. When we cut all the trees and bushes down in anticipation of the fence, the rose bushes took off - but no flowers. Oh well. Then, the rose bush least likely to bear flowers (it was small, shriveled), burst out two bright red roses in early September, right before we got married. I suppose that it was nature saying -- good luck in San Francisco! I had hoped to catch a photo, but by the time I had a chance, a windstorm had blown all the petals away - so I captured a photo of the petals. That's all that remains until next year. Oh well! Still lovely to have had a couple of roses this year!