My Tour de Malakoff is Blooming!

Looky! Looky! It's my Tour de Malakoff! Isn't it beautiful? And, what a fragrance!

Some people don't like the color, but I think it's lovely!

Many years ago, I purchased several antique rose bushes. I was very much fascinated by fragrant flowers (and edible flowers, but that's another post), reading every book I could find on the subject. I decided I wanted to plant my own roses so that I could make fragrant potpourri. That year I planted lots of herbs, too ... patchouli, lemon balm, sweet woodruff, etc.

Anyhow, the roses were not own-root roses. They were grafted onto "sturdier" rootstock. The first year, most of them did quite well ... but my Tour de Malakoff ... the most fragrant of the bunch, only had one rose and then the bush bloomed with another rose! It was very hardy and bloomed and bloomed, but it wasn't the Tour de Malakoff.

For the past several years, my roses have been sadly neglected. I simply don't have time to garden as I once did. It's quite an untamed mess right now ... and new little rose bushes are everywhere, blooming from the roots that have spread out all over the area. They are covered with flowers, so I'm not sure how to proceed with them! BUT, in the midst of all of this, guess what?

The Tour de Malakoff is blooming!!! Many flowers, too!!! Ah, the fragrance is wonderful! What a strange thing! After all these years!