Happy Vernal equinox!   Equinox comes from Latin meaning “equal night.” Today the amount of daylight hours will equal the nighttime hours. The Sun rose due east and will set due west. It is a time for new growth and new beginnings in our garden. I planted Red Corn Poppy seeds around my big boulder and Climbing Nasturtiums seeds next to the fence this week in celebration of the coming of spring. It will also be a practice in hope and patience as I await their flowers. Joan Borysenko’s writes on the 1st day of spring in her book of daily meditations Pocketful of Miracles – “Today is a point of balance in the mandala of the year when the hours of light are equal to the hours of darkness. We are called to remember the every shifting balance with in ourselves, the impermanence of our inner seasons, which, like the outer seasons, are always and forever changing.  We are called to accept both our light and our shadow.”

Madame Plantier Rose Alba, 1835

I planted these beautiful white old roses on the wrought iron arch that flanks our front gate as a complement to our 1905 Victorian home. I’ve read that they are often found growing on old homesteads and in abandon cemeteries. I wanted to plant roses that would have been here when the house was new. Madame Plantier’s history makes it a very hardy climbing rose that can bloom even in the worst of conditions. Ours has bloomed faithfully for the first of spring each year since I planted them about 12 years ago. That is except 4 years ago!

I remember because my husband and I decided to have our wedding blessing on the 1st day of spring! I imagined how lovely the roses would look and how fun it would be to have people sitting outside enjoying the garden while we held our ceremony. That winter was quite cold and the roses where still asleep. The day of our celebration it was so cold we had freezing rain and sleet. We did squish everyone inside and had a wonderful time!

“Madam Plantiers is listed as an Alba, but she shows definite signs of hybridization with either a Noisette or a Mush Rose. Named by the hybridizer for a family member, this is another of those roses our pioneer mothers carried with them when they settled the Wild West.” Pg. 192 from 100 Old Roses for the American Garden, Smith & Hawken

The meaning of white roses:  innocence, purity, honor and reverence. They are traditionally associated with marriages and new beginnings.

Happy Anniversary dear husband!