Until I saw so many of them in person last month, it didn’t even occur to me that I was visiting Santa Fe at the height of rose season.

I’d visited Our Lady of Guadalupe church and shrine on past visits (both in September) and was delighted to see the grounds decked out in roses this time. What a vivd array of color:

A few days later, I came across more roses in this sun-kissed residential garden a few blocks from the Plaza.

When I retire one day, I wouldn’t mind tending to my own bountiful front yard garden.

On the same block, bushes and bushes of red roses (along with strings of the ubiquitous-in-NM red chiles) flanked the Santa Fe School of Cooking.

To quote the great Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles, “A Wed Wose… How Wovewy.”