Last year I discovered a rose I never knew before, but as soon as I learned it existed, I knew that I needed it in my life. My Park will never be complete without it. I saw it early in the spring last year, and by the time I got back to try to buy it, it was sold out. I called around to a couple of other local nurseries, and they either never carried it or were also sold out. The tragedy of this loss hurt my heart last year, but I let it go by, swearing I would make it up this year. I had almost forgotten about it until today, until we made a trip to the Naughty Place.
The new fish pond is quite murky. We knew we needed to put a pump in it to aerate the water both to clarify it and to oxygenate it for the fishies. We were all set to go shopping this afternoon, to buy a corded pond pump to use until we were ready to drop the money on a solar-powered one. While I was putting on my shoes to go to Lowe's, the Man kind of cocked his head to one side and said, "You know, I think we still have the pump from the water feature in Vandenberg. It's probably in a box in the garage labeled 'water pumps.'" Sure enough, he dug around a little and he found it. There were three or four small pumps, just big enough for indoor fish tanks, and one great big one with a length of rubber garden hose attached to it. This was the one that was finally strong enough to lift enough water over our rock feature, after several failures. We only used it a month or two before we gave up on the concept, and it has sat in a box since 2001. We ran an extension cord over to the garden, sank the pump, and plugged it in. Eighteen years later, that baby still worked like a charm. So it saved us quite a bit of money keeping that thing around, moving it from base to base.
We still went on our errands, even though we needed much less at Lowe's. We went to my favorite plant nursery (the aforementioned naughty place) first, looking for water lilies to go in the pond. I'd rather have plants casting little bits of shade, not the giant flagstone slab there now. All of the fish hid in the depths of the pond all day, underneath the rock. We could barely see them, and only when we lifted up the heavy flagstone. At first I worried that word had gotten out on the Raccoon Alley Network that some unsuspecting suburbanite had carelessly left fish where no one was protecting them, but no, they hadn't swooped in yet. When we asked an employee of the nursery about lilypads, they said they wouldn't have any in stock until May. We will have to wait several weeks, leaving the flagstone in place I guess. There's so much to do to build the new patio, move the garden, etc, that it won't be so bad to let it go for a while.
There were signs on the rose building at the nursery, saying the roses were NOT yet for sale. They are very particular about keeping them in the greenhouse until proper planting time. No one is allowed to take them until they are ready. Customers are still allowed in the greenhouse to browse; they just aren't allowed to purchase. There was a sign on the window of the main door that said they would go on sale promptly at 8 am on 4/20. The "rush for the roses" they called it.
My very favorite color for roses is orange. I've loved them best since I was a teenager. I walked down the center aisle in the rose room, looking at each orange one, hoping to find the one I missed out on last year. I saw a couple of new ones that were quite tempting, like a Rosie the Riveter that had a little variegation in the petals, and a Pumpkin Patch that looked to match its name exactly. And then, there it was, right in front of me--the Lady of Shallott shrub rose. They had several. I'm so excited. You can bet your britches I will be lined up, ready to go, by a quarter to 8 on that Saturday morning two weeks from now. I might bring home one of the others too, if I can find a spot by then. Waiting is not my strong suit. This will be tough.
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