After the rain, the setting sun gave the sky a warm (or maybe just weird) buttery glow. Great for photography?  You decide.


The Rose Pergola is canopied by (duh) a rose—Eddie's Jewel. Dunno who Eddie is, but I hope he/she is proud regardless, because Eddie's Jewel itself is proud. Obstreperously, poke-you-in-the-ribs, ef-you-if-you-can't-take-it proud. Pink beyond delicate or babylike, clear to vibrating boing-your-eyes intensity.
Proud indeed.


Cleaving to pink doesn't come naturally for me, and yet here it is, on the crossroads of the entire property no less. It was an accident. Eddie starts out red, cherry red but still red, and that's how the nursery (Heronswood) describes it, "brilliant single red flowers" they rightfully rave.
And they have the picture to prove it.I've been to Heronswood when it was out near Seattle, seen Eddie in bloom, and brilliant single (cherry) red is the truth.
But with East Coast heat, cherry red was so Yesterday. Today? Easter Peeps Pink. The only choice is to celebrate the fabulousness, be it bad taste or good. Pink & Proud.



Here's the pergola from the other direction, looking back to the house.
Proud.


From farther West:
Still proud.


From still farther West:

Prouder still.


And so Eddie's Jewel is, by accident, and even better choice to say "Here's the important spot!" because she uses both intensity and a questionable color—and a whole lot of it—for the announcement. If Eddie were merely cherry red and profuse and proud, he/she wouldn't be nearly as effective, as exciting. And, I say, enough with this he/she stuff; I'm declaring that Eddie's a girl, a big-bosomed but genial Amazon mama. Or perhaps even more likely, a very tall drag. In either case, Eddie's a "she", a "her", from now on.
If you need to cover a structure with a rose, Eddie's got much to recommend her. Very quick growing—I've had canes get to twelve feet in a season—and yet still with some sense of boundary and restraint. If Eddie gets to sixteen or eighteen feet, that will be all I could ever want or need from her. Other cover-your-garage roses don't know when to call it a day, and can get to twenty, thirty feet and more. That's your garage and your neighbor's.


Here was Eddie's canopy coverage the Summer before last: Only a few of the canes were well placed enough to be tied to the frame.
Another year and I expect that Eddie will have covered completely The Rose Pergola will be, for a few weeks at least, the biggest pinkest picture hat in New England.