Show me the roses

Though it's a far cry from the neat white and red display of yore, this is the first time in five years I felt I could take a halfway-decent looking picture of the roses. It has taken a few years for the bushes I planted to replace the white ones to mature. So, though they're a bit of a mess, I sort of like them—and look forward to the time when I can cut the spent canes down do that the lilies and perennials can shine. Sure, this is messy, but I think it's important to show whole beds—not just close-ups.

This too was Christopher Lloyd's advice: mix roses with other perennials when possible. I'm not really doing that in the sense he means (very little is really blooming at the same time with them), but I do have perennials (verbena boniarensis, rudbeckia maxima, buddleia) and summer bulbs (lilies, dahlia, canna) to replace the roses when they're done. So if they get a second flush, fine; if the shoots are eaten by the midge, that's fine too.

In other news, Urban Roots board member Claire Schneider was nice enough to mention me in a viral video on Buffalo Rising Online about the heirloom flowers the garden center is offering—as an extension of the dedication they have to searching out old-fashioned varieties. (They are known here for their heirloom tomatoes.) I had advised them to get some species and other older tall nicotiana and they did. So I had to go down and buy some, though I already have plenty of n. bella, mutabilis, and sylvestris. Where I'll put it I haven't a clue.