‘Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone, . . .
– Thomas Moore
Well, not exactly the absolutely last rose of summer, but a few of the last roses of summer, though only one of them is mine. The first photo is of a miniature rose called ‘The Fairy’ which despite its delicate looks made it through last winter (’13-’14) almost completely unscathed and spent the whole summer covered in masses of blooms, so it’s more of a ‘last rose bush’ rather than a ‘last rose’. This was taken September 24th – so it’s technically Autumn.
Unlike this miniature rose the next two roses got badly dinged last winter, and did little or no blooming in the summer, they were putting all their energy into regaining lost ground. The first is a yellow climbing rose, name unknown, that used to be rather overgrown and which I had been gradually cutting back over the years to keep it from trying to grow through the eaves trough on the shed behind it. It will be a while before I have to worry about that again, but it did put out this last spray of rosebuds in early September, so perhaps it most truly qualifies as the ‘last rose of summer’.
The last is a tea rose called ‘World Peace’ which I’m guessing is related to the ‘Peace’ rose. It has never been a very vigorous rose, but it had really picked up once I moved it to a sunnier spot in my garden, and was starting to produce multiple blooms for the first time in its existence, when last winter nearly did it in. So although I missed having much in the way of bloom this summer, I was thrilled to see this last flush in October. It was so cold and over cast by then, that I was afraid the buds would never open, but eventually we had a few warmer, sunnier days and they all opened up, but I prefer this photo from midway along when the last rose is still just a bud.
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