‘Félicité Parmentier’

This morning I woke to the sound of birdsong and rain. This may seem like a insignificant thing but trust me, after the winter we’ve had it felt like a huge victory. Rain and not snow? Birdsong and not howling wind? I’ll take it.

The winter has been so oppressively cold and bitter. I think I’ve read too many Dresden Files novels because as the sky shifts overhead, alternately dumping snow, sleet, ice, rain and back to snow, I tend to imagine the Winter Queen and Summer Queen waging epic battles above the clouds for seasonal domination.

It occurred to me that it was almost exactly 1 year ago today that I finally felt like spring may actually arrive. Yesterday, as I took my usual stroll through the garden, I noticed that the buds on the roses were showing the slightest sign of swelling. A few more days of these almost-spring-like-temperatures and they will be breaking dormancy. Then things will really start to get wild.

What does this all have to do with ‘Félicité Parmentier’? Well, it also occurred to me that this rose, along with her neighbor, that other Alba hybrid, ‘Madame Plantier’ will be blooming in just a few short months, so what better time than to share the two of them here? You might recall I spoke of ‘Félicité Parmentier’ over HERE first, remarking on her lovely leaves which look as though snipped carefully with pinking shears. However, to me, the best part about this rose (and that of ‘Mme Plantier’) isn’t the shape of her leaves or even her pretty blossoms. It’s the fact that she is so reliable.

Planted in one of our less-than-ideal beds, she simply chugs along, growing and blooming like clockwork without any fuss or muss. Granted, her blooms do ball up a bit if it’s been rainy. But other than that, no problems to speak of and she never complains about the fact she is in a slightly shaded area, too. Besides a top dressing of compost every year, I never do anything else but simply enjoy the blooms in June and the texture of the foliage the rest of the year. (This is with zero winter protection, too.) How many roses can you say that about?

Here she is rubbing shoulders with some Campanula. I included these photos you can see how small she is still–about 3′! Perhaps in a sunnier location she would get larger, faster, but this is a rose that doesn’t get much larger than 4′ anyways from what I’ve read. Please forgive those god-awful plant supports in the frame. Jesse and I have different points of view when it comes to support structures. A practical man, he’d be very happy to have our garden filled with PVC piping. “It’s so cheap!” he says and I cringe. I told him a few weeks ago, that I am putting my foot down and we are going to severely limit man-made materials in our garden. Surely I misconstrued the eye roll and he’s actually on board, right?

But I digress.

Next up, ‘Madame Plantier’!