If you said yes, raise your hand so I can see it. I sure didn't.  Of course, I know about the Texas Rose Rustlers.  By now, who hasn't heard of those intrepid souls sneaking into cemeteries and clambering over abandoned homesteads, taking clippings here and there, thus saving antique and heirloom roses from disaster? I'm always a sucker for a good story. In an unexpected Christmas package containing a Crinum bulbispermum, Orange River lily, from Curtiss Ann, there was information from Lushlife Nurseries about "Cemetery Lilies."  Crinums were quite the fashion in the 1950s, and with their bright pink, purple and red blooms, of course they were.  According to Lushlife, horticulturists worked throughout the decade to create bigger and better flowering varieties.  Many of these were planted along Highway 301 in South Carolina in the rusting courtyards of abandoned motor courts or motels. In her new Alabama home, Curtiss Ann...

Welcome to Frigid Friday hosted by Mr. McGregor's Daughter.  It's a balmy 25F in Oklahoma today, and we are supposed to reach a new high of 46F by this afternoon (the warmest temperature all week).  This is a far cry from yesterday's low of 9F at my house.  In Edmond, Oklahoma, it hovered around 14F which shows what a different micro-climate I have. We did go above freezing yesterday, but tell that to the plants.  Remember my head cold from hell last week?  Due to fog brain, I forgot to move the Agave americana, and it may not survive.  The others were close to the house, but they don't look too good either. Neither the agaves, nor I like weather this unseasonable.  However, the "pip pip" of the Cardinals and their bright red plumage is abundant and brings good cheer. The weather is worse for HH, who owns a paving...

Some roses are simply easy to love.  Rosa chinensis 'Old Blush', supposedly hardy to USDA Zone 6 (and definitely to Zone 7a), goes by many different monikers, including 'Parson's Pink China' (as it is still known in England), "Old Pink Daily," "Daisy Rose," and "Common Monthly."  As a shrub and in its climbing sport, it is one of my best garden performers. As Thomas Christopher, author of In Search of Lost Roses, writes in Roses: A Celebration, "The clustered blossoms, casual three-inch cups of clear pink petals, though lovely, lack the elegance of a modern hybrid tea, but they also have the virtue of persistence." Living out in the country, where the wind whips over the plains, there is nothing I like better in a rose than persistence. A story I once read stated this rose was called 'Common Monthly' by settlers because, as they brought it west, it bloomed...

Common Cold By Odgen Nash Go hang yourself, you old M.D.! You shall not sneer at me. Pick up your hat and stethoscope, Go wash your mouth with laundry soap; I contemplate a joy exquisite I'm not paying you for your visit. I did not call you to be told My malady is a common cold. By pounding brow and swollen lip; By fever's hot and scaly grip; By those two red redundant eyes That weep like woeful April skies; By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff; By handkerchief after handkerchief; This cold you wave away as naught Is the damnedest cold man ever caught! Give ear, you scientific fossil! Here is the genuine Cold Colossal; The Cold of which researchers dream, The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme. This honored system humbly holds The Super-cold to end all colds; The Cold Crusading for Democracy; The Führer of the Streptococcracy. Bacilli swarm...