Marechal Niel

Madam, I dare you to smile until you suffer this test: Let the Marechal Niel roses that Percy brought you on the night you gave him your heart be served as a salad with French dressing before your eyes at a Schulenberg table d'hote .

Maybe you can help me with another rose - Marechal Niel. My grandfather grew it in the greenhouse and it climbed everywhere.

As Pat Wiley leads this visitor through the forest of shrubs, ramblers, and climbers, each cloaked with sumptuous blossoms, she introduces her favorite roses as though they are old friends: 'Baronne Prevost' is "perfection itself," 'Petite de Hollande' has "buds that hold their shape beautifully when dried in potpourri," and 'Salet' is "my favorite old moss." In the garden's center, white-flowered Rosa moschata scrambles up a tall, rusted windmill "in memory of a cow named Rosey who used to live here." Just down the hill, 'Marechal Niel' drapes its long canes over an old apple tree and dangles its yellow blossoms above eye level ("the flowers seem to follow you, like they're watching you," Wiley says).