If you've been reading my blog, you know that I've been looking for an old garden rose to add to my yard this year. I've decided on the one in the photo above. It's a Great Maiden's Blush, and it's an old Alba rose. I'll let y'all know how it does here in my Tennessee yard.

The author of the lovely blog, "very CALM" shared a link with me in the comments section of my earlier post about my search for the perfect rose. The link is a fun site called Love of Roses, and it has a special page about the meanings that have been attached to certain roses. With Valentine's Day coming up, now is a wonderful time to think about roses.

According to the site, my favorite color of rose -- pink -- signifies

• Elegance, style, and poetic romance.
• Sweet thoughts and thank yous.
• joy and grace

Those are lovely things to think about whenever I see pink roses. :)

Re growing roses: My husband heard a new report that reiterates some old information. It seems that for the past couple of centuries, our climate has undergone alternating cycles of warming and cooling that last about thirty years each. We have just finished about a thirty year warming cycle, according to the researchers, and we are headed into a cooling cycle. This is influenced at least in part by currents in the Pacific, which affect the fronts that spread from the northwestern U.S. down to the southeastern U.S. I wonder if that could be true, since we are certainly having an unusually cold winter here in the States. If this is true, I wonder how that might affect garden plants, including roses. Has anyone else heard about this?

Enjoy!
Elizabeth