Among other things today, I went to the annual Fullerton Arboretum pepper and tomato plant sale. The weird weather spurts of hot/cold/hot/cold we've been having sadly affected the plants they had on offer. Some were very leggy, some were simply pale and not healthy looking. I only ended up getting three: two tomatoes (Hillybilly, and Isis Candy) and one pepper (Jimmy Nardello's), all of which are varieties that have intrigued me.

Unrelatedly, there is a black cat which I think belongs to the neighbors two doors down, which, whenever Paris sees it in our backyard, results in a session of her growling through the back door. So I was amused to find this cat and Sushi laying in my front rose bed, sunning themselves quite companionably.

And, of roses, there is a rosebush in the backyard that's been here longer than we have, and never bloomed. I've kept giving it just one more chance each year. It seems all it was lacking was sunlight, because now that the trees near it have been trimmed drastically back, it has buds! I'll be interested to see what the blossoms look like.

I spent yesterday feeling absolutely crappy, sick, and under the weather. My parents came over and Dad and Wonderful Husband fixed the master bath toilet, and Wonderful Husband made dinner for us all. Today, though, I recovered, and spent a good part of the day weeding the side yard. Which is nowhere near weeded enough! But it's better than it was, which will have to do, since it's now dark out.

After several hours of that, I moved on to roses.

I love roses. I admire something that's so pretty, smells so good, and yet has such vicious built-in defense mechanisms. I love the Gamble Fragrance Award winners list; it has always given me a starting point for a garden. Roses that don't have fragrance are like chocolate cake that doesn't contain real chocolate.

Last year I'd ordered roses from David Austin Roses. (Which are not cheap. But their English roses are lovely and by and large have stronger scent than most modern versions.) But of the roses I'd ordered, three died on me. One I bought later in the year, as a replacement for one of the ones that'd died, and was not under their warranty. But the other two I submitted claims for, and a couple weeks ago I got a invoice back from them with a zero balance and red circles on the photos I'd submitted, telling me what I'd done wrong. I assumed this meant they'd rejected my claim, and was torqued.

But this week, a box arrived on my doorstep. I opened it yesterday, and it contained bare-root replacements for the two roses that had died! So I followed directions, soaked their roots overnight, and decided where I was going to plant them. The bed in question, of course, was completely overrun with devil grass. Cue Wonderful Husband and myself sweating and grunting for an hour or so to clear about twelve square feet. After re-fluffing up the dirt, I planted and fed the roses, watered them in, then came in and cleaned up, and we went off to the theater.

To see Beauty and the Beast (2D)! Which, hmm, shows its age slightly; I think animated films have gotten a little more subtle over the years. But it definitely still holds up and is nothing that Disney should ever be ashamed of. I'm looking forward to Disney's re-release of The Little Mermaid next year, to see how that holds up on the big screen. I'm also looking forward to Brave, and contemplating seeing if I can find a good fabric to use for cosplaying Merida's mother. The short Tangled film before BatB, about Rapunzel and Eugene's wedding, was amusing. I wish Disney would do a whole series of short films about Rapunzel and Eugene dealing with her newly refound family, her learning to be a princess, him learning to be respectable....

So, before I did my order from David Austin Roses earlier this year, I had purchased two roses from my local Lowes since they were varieties I wanted. One, Scentimental, struggled for a bit but ultimately died. I am not surprised; I looked at the roots when I transferred it from pot to ground, and they were butchered. The other, Double Delight (my favorite rose, hands down), was in much better shape and like the David Austin roses has thrived.

Except that the Double Delight bush tossed out its first bloom yesterday.

And it's pink.

Not red and cream, pink.

Which means it was mislabelled from the start. I suspect it's a Queen Elizabeth rose (even though it's a stronger pink than the one pictured in that link) because Lowes had scads of those at the time. It's very pretty, don't get me wrong, but completely wrong for that bed, which is red-white-yellow colors.

So I'll be putting in a second order to David Austin (whose bare root roses had lovely long roots) for the two bushes I wanted, and digging up the pink one and putting it in a large pot until I figure out where it's to live.