In My Garden Today - 'Mardi Gras' Floribunda

We're heading into what's likely to be our first heat wave of Summer here at The Portable Homestead. At 8am this morning, it was 75* with 89% humidity, which is nothing new in our neck of the Jersey coast, but we're headed to the 90s today and y'all know I'm not much of a fan of the heat. (I am the equivalent of those who hate/complain about Winter!) So I headed out into the soupy air for a quick garden walk and found 'Mardi Gras' floribunda starting its' first round of blooms!

I'm even more excited than usual to see Mardi blooming right now. Not only did I lose more than half of this rose due to Hurricane Sandy, but I accidentally pruned a large section of what was left back in May! (What I now refer to as the 'pruning oops or incident'). Add that I've been dealing with black spot to varying degrees in all of my roses this year before they had buds or blooms (a gardening first here at The Portable Homestead), I cried when I saw what I had done to Mardi.

Mardi was my first non Knock Out rose, bought at the end of the season on clearance several years ago, with one brilliant pink-orange-yellow bloom calling to me from where it sat among other clearance roses that weren't blooming.  "Love at first sight!"  So it has a special place in my gardeners heart.

But, Mardi almost immediately reassured me all was well by growing back to half of its' pre Hurricane Sandy height and followed that with five buds, which are now beginning to bloom as you can see here.

I often say our gardens, much like ourselves, are stronger, thankfully, than we give them credit for.
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