In praise of... Dorothy Rose

Ah... May... This is the month of flowering, and opening up to full loveliness. It's the month when I walk past walls languidly adorned with wisteria, and drive past verges frothing with hawthorn. It's the season of all-too-brief, sharply scented lilies of the valley, bluebell carpets, and the first fragrant wafting of jasmine. And roses... this is the season when roses of every colour and variety erupt into flower. 

Despite a largely grey, wet April, nature has somehow managed to obey the seasons, with the past week's sunshine and warmth weaving their extra magic on any reluctant plants. The view from my window is full of laburnum, its golden flowers turning to a showering of largesse in the wind. In my little garden, osteospermums abound and tumble eagerly over each other and everything else, and there are surprise visitors - white bells and dandelions and forget-me-nots - and fresh leaves clothing my little buddleia and acer. The pansies I planted a few months ago are standing tall; though never as tall as the slim, elegant rose bushes, showcasing their buttery yellow and peach blooms. I smile and purr and give them all words of encouragement, but I think they all know - and I'm sure they don't mind - that right now I have a little favourite, whose single, unexpected, though long-awaited bloom gives me great delight.

My little favourite is a tiny rose, no more than six or seven inches high, called Dorothy. I first wrote about her four years ago, when she was a tiny cutting from a velvety, highly scented, traditional old rose, which had somewhat prematurely produced a tiny bud in time for Valentine's Day. Sadly, the effort proved to be too much for such a fragile little plant; the bud languished, drooped and eventually died, and Dorothy remained somewhat subdued for some time thereafter. Since then, she's been in no hurry to flower, preferring to spend the past four years doing nothing more strenuous than putting forth the occasional new leaf or shoot... until last month, when I suddenly, unexpectedly, noticed... another bud! 

Another bud, filled with the hope and promise of new life, its future loveliness tantalisingly revealed in slashes of colour! Another bud... though this one has burgeoned and unfurled and flowered at a more favourable time, finally producing a velvety, highly scented and rather lovely little bloom... though already, after an all-too brief week, beginning to look somewhat crumpled. Already, this morning, she has shed her first petal. But even in her rumpled crumpled-ness and her decrease there is still a beauty about her, and a heady perfume; and yes, she still brings me delight. 

And I find myself recalling some words from the Hebridean Altars, which speak of this moment, and how it can be lived and offered in fullness...

When the shadows fall upon hill and glen; and the bird music is mute; when silken darkness is a friend, ask thyself the question thou alone hast the power to answer, 'O God, what is Thy gift to me and do I use it to Thy pleasing?'