A fall of rose petals is awarded to last week's correct entry by Crane S. Our close-up of the last post is a 'Peace' rose, or more properly, a Rosa 'Madame A. Meilland', about which more later.
Check out the latest close-up. What do you think it might be? Hint: Is that a mouth I see? Double hint: they're all over the flower beds at the corner of 3rd and Dayton.
You may check your guess by clicking on the second picture above, and as you do so, ponder the out-of-focus silhouette at the right that looks a little like a cartoonish cross between Dick Van Dyke and Elvis Presley.
As you ponder, here is a fascinating bit of information to put in your brain about the 'Peace' rose: the horticulturalist Francis Meilland bred it in the years leading up to the Second World War and named it after his mother. To protect it from destruction by the Nazis, M. Meilland sent cuttings of the beautiful new cultivar to colleagues overseas. It survived, and its trade name, 'Peace', was introduced on the very day Berlin fell, in 1945, and WW2 thus came to an end.
We just returned from an invigorating trip down to Oregon where we had our eyes opened by a rollicking stay at McMeniman's hotel at the Kennedy School in Portland. The gardens--check out the third picture above--art, and overall ambiance at these extraordinary accommodations will be vastly enjoyed by anyone with even a little bit of hippie inside them.