ramble on rose.

I am strangely excited about this.

We’ve had some horticultural surprises ­– like the tulip that popped up in the middle of the backyard — around the new house since we moved here, and in the last couple weeks, we’ve done a lot to ensure we’ll have new stuff growing around here for years to come.

But the coolest surprise has appeared in just the past couple days.

Obviously, we already knew there were roses growing on the side of the house; in fact, we bought a little trellis over the winter to keep the longest stalk (is that what they’re called?) more or less upright and under control.

We didn’t know whether the plant was healthy, whether it would bloom and, if it did, what color the roses would be. What we’ve found in the past few days:

• The plant is healthy.
• It did bloom. A lot.
• And the color? Take a look:

I think part of my excitement is based on my (perhaps incorrect) understanding that roses can be temperamental and difficult. When we visited the home and garden show in the spring, we stopped at a table run by a local garden club, and they gave us a long list of things we needed to do and buy; naturally, we didn’t follow their advice.

In fact, we did nothing to these, apart from the trellis and a little extra water, and we have a dozen or more white roses growing along the side of our house.

The rest of our efforts are doing OK. We lost some plants when it got so cold a few weeks ago, but the Burgh Baby flowers — gerbera daisies and geraniums — are doing well. Mrs. Crappy’s tomato plants are healthy, and the herbs, catnip and peppers we planted all have sprouted. We put in a ton of work, too — Mrs. Crappy especially — and we’re both pleased with how our plants are doing.

But of all those things — and after all that work — I’m most happy about the flowers we had nothing to do with.