The Name Escapes Me

I gave a talk at Patuxent Nursery in Bowie, MD last night and at the end recommended some of my favorite roses for Mid-Atlantic gardens. They are the Knock Out rose (no-brainer there), the Mutabilis (aka China aka Butterfly) rose, and Zepherine Drouhin (blooms in shade and has no thorns). Of course, I could not for the life of me remember the name of Zepherine Drouhin during the talk, much to the frustration of myself and the audience after I teased them by describing its wonderful fragrance and easy care. Of course, I remembered it five minutes after I'd left.

I'm not going to blame old age for this brain-burp, I think it is more just total overall mental fatigue after spending the afternoon making plant labels for all those I'd potted up for tomorrow's Silver Spring Garden Club GardenMart.

BTW the photo of Zepherine Drouhin is from the garden of Karen Burroughs in Ashton, MD taken by Dan Weil. We used this picture in our rose-themed issue of Washington Gardener magazine in May/June 2007 for the article on heirloom roses. As you can see (click on it to enlarge it), it is indeed "shade tolerant" and gorgeous.