D.O.P.-T.

[weofodthignen]

The briar rose in the front garden produces profuse handfuls of small blush-pink blooms - including in the middle of the bush where they are hard to deadhead - that fade to almost white as they age. It has small leaves and a bad habit of spiny branchlets, both of which the ants happily use as a climbing frame, but is very good about nonetheless flowering all over. It flops happily over the brick edge of its bed onto the lawn and the adjacent geranium sends long stalks up and through it so that the odd dark pink bloom suddenly appears on it. As the summer goes on it yellows, but recovers its healthy green in the rainy season. It has a cousin in the neighbor's yard that huddles against the next-door garage to get away from the power pruners and the weedkiller.