The First Roses of the Gardening "Season"

Thanks to a fairly mild winter, and now some nice warm and sunny days, it seems like the 2021 gardening season is now off and running!

A few days ago, we started seeing some of the roses setting buds.

A couple more sunny days, and yesterday this came out to greet the world:

What a beauty!

Normally we don't see roses in bloom until sometime in late May or early June, so it was wonderful to see.

Unfortunately, our neighborhood herd of deer also think roses are a delicacy. Sadly, our beautiful first rose was eaten by deer, a couple of days later. They just pushed their noses right through the protective fencing and chewed it all up.

So now the bud (at left) is the next one in line to bloom, hopefully within a week or so.

Looks like we are going to need to buy some stronger deer fencing, or find some other way to keep them out of there.

The sad thing is that there's plenty of food this year because everything is so lush. And still they had to go after a difficult-to-get-to rosebush!

Very annoying!

(All photos are my own)