Rosa 'Double Delight' 1 September 2025

 

In that distant century that was the 20th my heroes were Leslie Howard, Gregory Peck, Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly and many more. Before the appearance of social media:

Remember her …… from 1990? She is now 92. You will gag when you see what she looks like now.

We could, then, rely that our heroes were unchanging and stable. We ignored their infidelities and we did not know if any of them had hemorrhoids.

Now with my roses I have a different philosophy generally not one shared with the members of the Vancouver Rose Society. I love my perfect rose blooms but I have come to appreciate what they look like past their prime.

Rosa ‘Double Delight’ is not an easy rose to grow. I was lucky as I had some spectacular blooms this year. Today I noticed these four and I decided that I could write something about them with the heading “Double Delight Twice”.

All the above is but an excuse to get me up from my bed rotting with my cats and into my oficina.

Some roses like cats and babies do not perform on demand. Such has been the case of my three year old Rosa ‘Frau Dagmar Hastrup’. This is the first year it has bloomed and while it did so this past July today I spotted a lovely bloom. This rose is an extremely hardy rugosa rose. The name comes from the lovely (to me) texture of its leaves.

We had this rose years ago in our Kerrisdale garden when we moved to our Kitsilano pad we opened our garden there for people to take the roses they wanted. Of course this was after we chose the ones we were keeping.

There is something satisfying of having an old friend greet me this morning. I know that my Rosemary would have smiled had she seen this lovely apparition.

 The story behind the rose 'Fru Dagmar Hastrup' (also known as 'Rosa Frau Dagmar Hastrup') is that it was discovered around 1914 by Knud Julianus Hastrup, owner of the Hastrup nursery in Denmark, as a chance seedling from his Rosa rugosa plants. He is believed to have named the silvery-pink, fragrant rose after his wife, Dagmar Henriette Vilhelmine.

31 August 2025

 

Hosta 'Paul's Glory' 31 August 2025

This old man who has had too much to think is constantly thinking in two languages and comparing and contrasting expressions.

Today in my scanning plant obsession and compulsion, I have been using hostas that have fall colouring on their leaves.

Since I started scanning my plants around the summer of  2001 I may now have over 4000 of them. While I started with the idea of plant accuracy I am not getting artsy. In Spanish the translation of “a one trick pony” is “el mismo perro pero con diferente collar” which translates to ‘the same dog with a different collar”.

Thinking about these fall hosta leaves I now believe that as lovely as they look I am accurately depicting their transformation which just happens to be beautiful.

I will have to wait for the winter to see what else I can find of that same dog.

Evelyn Hart
 

Rosa 'Sweet Juliet' 31 August 2025

This English Rose, Rosa ‘Sweet Juliet’ is a hardy survivor from our Kerrisdale garden where it grew nice and tall on the fence by the boulevard that was shady. It has a really sweet scent. I cannot gaze at the flowers without thinking of ballet dancer Evelyn Hart. Taking her photograph in 1991 ushered my interest in dance.

While I have written on that subject before, I am going to do so again. This rose and Evelyn Hart are connected to a performance of hers in Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet. There is that moment when Juliet (Hart) sees the special sleeping potion she plans to take to mimic death. She dances slowly towards the little bottle. Then (exquisitely) she tiptoes backwards ever so slowly to perhaps change her mind. We know she doesn’t in the end.

Again there is that power of a rose to take you from here to there in extraordinary ways.

Tarren

August 23, 2025

 A Compulsion

Since today is my day I believe I may have carte blanche to do as I please. I am doing just that. 

On Saturday 23 August, 2025 I was invited (I was one of two men to be so privileged) to a 80s ecdysiast reunion at the Admiral Hotel in Burnaby. I was photographed with Tarren who was my absolute favourite dancer. She shared with my mother and my Rosemary stellar legs. I was thrilled!

In this 21^st century, where little is left to the imagination, I am tired of red-carpet nudity, tight yoga pants, cleavage and, worse of all, the showing of the gluteus maximus to the max. But I can state here that the best GM I ever saw and I can still feast my eyes on is Tarren’s.

I believe I am one lucky man to have met this woman in the late 70s and still have her as a friend.

Thank you Tarren.