Back in the Autumn, I picked up a Cinco de Mayo Rose on whim. At our old house, where we had originally opened the bed and breakfast, I put in a rose hedge, a rose bed, and some landscape roses. In total, I had around 60 rose bushes, give or take. For various reasons I had decided not to attempt to reproduce that garden when we moved the B & B to this house 12 years ago and instead came up with a completely different garden design. But at times, I found that the three ground cover roses that I planted here just weren’t filling my rosy desires; and here and there, now and then, I’ve had to add more specimens from the genus rosa. Cinco de Mayo was one such planting. I am now seeing it in bloom after its first winter and so far think that it is a very nice addition to my growing collection. The blooms range from a deep purplish-red to coral-pink. Depending on the light, they can look completely different at different times of the day and the color is more intense in cooler weather and when the blooms are new, becoming less saturated in color but no less attractive on warmer days and as the blooms age. One review that I read described the blooms of this All American Rose Selection as “mysterious”.  Roses and Other Gardening Joys has a fun post on Cinco de Mayo as well. Ah, so nice to have roses!