Imagine an adventurous and hot day in the glorious Sacramento Old City Cemetery Rose Garden shooting hundreds of pictures (this was in April 2015), and then a seventy mile drive home with two best flower friends. It must have been about 5:00 pm when Susan and I dropped Mary at her doorstep. Mary cheerily invited us to hop out of the car and take a tour of  her garden. 

Weary me was less than enthusiastic, though I did pause long enough to shoot Mary's pretty side yard on our way to the rosebeds in the back garden.

But then I perked right up when I saw this powder pink rambler by the back gate.

And when the perfect blooms of Sparrieshoop, in the same color palette, presented herself I was at full attention with my camera. The opportunity to frame these blooms on a patch of lime feverfew was good too.

Then the joy of zooming in on the button center of Christopher Marlowe . . .

only to find Color Magic was waiting for me, a few yards away.

Mary has a number of (hard to grow where we live) peonies. Don't you love the blush on this one?

And how about this graceful farewell? I relish catching shots like this.

Thanks so much for the tour Mary and the fabulous photo op!

BACK AT HOME 

The pretty pinks followed me . . .

even into the house.

I just loved all these pictures when I first saw them and looked forward to making a post here. It was amazing to get so many good shots in such a short time (especially after a day of intensive shooting in Sacramento). It's almost been a year and hopefully its never too late. Let me know what you think. That is my daughter Anna's knitting with yarn she purchased at the amazing Webster's in Ashland, Oregon.

It was the fresh new rose leaves that lured me outside last Sunday. I'd been away for six days and the miracle of spring growth had worked overtime!

Rose leaf admiration is a favorite pastime– do any of you feel the same way? Just look at the elegant slant of the newest leaves on Hybrid Perpetual, Grandmother's Hat. Heritage roses often have distinctive even unique leaves.

The varied color of new leaves is also swoon worthy, and is why I grabbed my camera. I thought it would be fun to focus on one leaf color and use the opposite color as a blurred background.

Then I thought 'dare I shoot the garden?' I tried without success until I remembered the panorama feature on my iPhone.

These shots border the lawn at the front of our house. The pruned shape of the bushes is still evident, but before long continued growth will hide the ground and the fencing.

Crepuscule and her companion abutilon look so tidy and contained – a study of trimmed texture. Later these two will look like this in a magazine layout.

I turned away from Crepuscule and the bright yellow leaves of Spirea said, "Come on, enough about rose leaves."

  The lorapetalum chimed in, "I mean really."

Camellias, hellebores, clematis armandii, brunnera and many more garden 

treats are daily celebrating their return.

How does your garden grow? I'd love to hear from you.

The Perle d'Or roses were looking so gorgeous – I thought they might look nice in new container, courtesy of Castlevetrano olives.

I liked the graceful, oversized jar the olives came in.

I tried them this way and that . . . and added a sprig of Jeanne La Joie roses.

Little did I know that this would be my last rose bouquet of 2015! A few days later we had an early freeze and the roses made their farewell.

Perle d'Or is a Polyantha rose that blooms and blooms in carefree beauty. The shrub will grow up to 6 feet or more and is without disease in my California garden.