Roses On The Brink Of November

Early this morning I watched the recording of last night’s third place rugby World Cup match between England and Argentina.

Afterwards I responded to blog comments on my posts and read and commented on those of others. I don’t normally mention this because I kind of take it as read. This was a not untypical three and a half hours session.

This was a day of unrelenting showers, but after lunch I managed to spend some time in shirt-sleeves-warmth with just a sprinkling of rain to focus on roses in the garden. There are still many more plants in and out of season, but I refrained from including these, even the crops of the sticky willy weed with which we normally do battle throughout the first couple of months of spring.

Later I read more of “The Voyage Home” by Richard Church.

Elizabeth visited this afternoon to pick Jackie’s brains about selection, placement, and planting of bulbs in readiness for next Spring. I added a few thoughts.

This evening we dined on oven fish and French fries with garden peas, pickled onions and sandwich gherkins with which Jackie drank Zesty and I drank more of the Garnacha.

85 comments

  1. Sounds like a full productive day. Your roses are still gorgeous. Because of an unseasonable warm spell, the roses that decorate the row ends of many vineyards still look especially nice for so late in October.

    1. Thanks very much, Bridget. I doubt if you made them – they can sprout up again when the conditions are like ours at the moment.

  2. Your roses are so beautiful, Derrick–and your garden.
    I saw a beautiful, perfect rose yesterday in Philadelphia in a church garden as we were walking by.

    It does take a lot of time to read and respond to comments and posts.

  3. Yellow roses are usually my favorites, but the red rose with touches of yellow underneath and raindrops on top is gorgeous. Thank you for sharing so much beauty with us!

  4. Late season beauties, all of them! The temperature went down to 25 degrees Fahrenheit by sunrise this morning, and may well do the same tonight. Any flowers and tender garden plants flowers are finished.

  5. Don’t you just hate it when the clocks go back? Here I am commenting at 05:30 am when it should 06:30 am!

    I’m not surprised it takes over three hours to complete comments on yours and the blogs of others – you are a popular man, Derrick.
    Following my early morning stints, I’m almost ready for a nap!
    Your garden looks beautiful still in bloom.
    I’m amazed that my pots are still looking good, though some suffered during heavy wind and rain. 🙂

  6. Your roses are gorgeous as the welcome in November. They appear to be a hearty bunch. 🙂

    One of the reasons I rarely write and post on my own blog is because it is so time-consuming to comment back to comments, visit, read, and comment other blogs, etc. I just don’t have the time to do so as properly as I would like. So my own blog goes silent for long stretches. I wish I had more time to put up my own writing on my blog.
    But then if I just left shorter, a few-words comments…maybe it wouldn’t take me so long. 😉 I should begin this in the new year perhaps. I’ll comment with “Good!”, “Nice!”, “Beautiful!” or “Wonderful!”
    Ha! My verbose self could never do that!
    (((HUGS))) ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
    PS…your title made me think of a fave quote…
    “God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.” – James M. Barrie

    1. Thanks very much, Carolyn. You put in so much welcome work on the posts of others. Maybe this year we will not need memory for roses in December. X

      1. You’re welcome! 🙂

        Yes, that would be so nice! Normally here, sadly, our roses are gone by the 1st week of November. I miss them. But come spring…YAY! Here they are! 🙂

  7. Many more roses than my one tea rose bush, that’s for sure! Makes a terrific post.
    I was rooting for NZ in yesterday’s rugby game, but South Africa won by one.

    1. Yes, GP, me too. It didn’t help to have been with 14 men for most of the game, and to have the captain red carded. Thanks very much

  8. I suspected that was the time you invest in responding to comments – as you have such a following! It is one of the reasons I often put a like in lieu of a comment – to spare you 🙂
    We’ve seen some gorgeous roses on our trip. There will be a few photos eventually.

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