June Has Arrived

Clematis x jackmanii among the Virginia  creeper offers a shy welcome to the back garden. A baby Japanese maple 'Garnet' peeks around the corner, and  two mature Quietness rose bushes unabashedly brighten the back fence.

The wind and dust have settled, and the garden breathes relief. June opens with its usual smiling dress of freshness and bright verdure. 

Yellow and white miniature roses seem to dance in their Osteospermum jucundum 'Purple Mountain' skirt. These cold-tolerant African daisies are cheery, carefree early-summer bloomers.

My innocent anticipation of roses, color and light under a dreamy blue sky stirs with little regard to an alternate reality involving rapacious grasshoppers and greedy weeds. I wander among the roses as a restless, awakening dreamer would stretch in the dawning comfort of luxurious silken sheets.

I photographed a few of the roses that join with me in welcoming this lovely June.

Jude the Obscure, lovely, fragrant and stingy as ever, deigns to wink at me from behind his ragged leaves.

Abraham Darby, still a bit shaken from late May's horrific dust storm, recovers with a brave and brilliant glow.

I am not the only one in the garden finding Fredric Mistral irresistible.

David Austin's Heritage is ivory pink in its warm, sunny spot on a south-facing wall.

You may click to enlarge the above photos.