Rosa 'Crocus' 27 June 2021

From 1986 until Rosemary and I moved to Kitsilano from our Kerrisdale corner house and garden at one point we had bus tours from the US coming to see our garden. Rosemary and I grew closer because of this garden and we had a lovely relationship with our granddaughters who would visit us on Saturdays for the day. All that stopped when we moved.

The move made us financially secure but Rosemary longed for “that” garden and for a while was annoyed with me telling me I had forced her to move.

Rosemary and Ale in Lillooet 2020

But there is one positive situation I want to mention here. Our oldest daughter Alexandra (52) has a one acre garden in Lillooet. Gardens are classified by a USDA Zone system. In Vancouver we are & 7/8 which is pretty close to the same zone as English gardens. Ale (we call her that since Mexico and it is pronounced Ah-leh) lives in a Zone 4. When we moved to Kits all our Gallica Roses and other plants that could take extreme cold and heat we took Lillooet. They are doing just fine. Rosemary, particularly in most of 2020 loved going to Ale’s to garden. This was a respite from our smallish Kits place.

When I find a rose that is Zone 4 (most English Roses are Zone 5) I buy it as Ale has become a keen rosarian.

That she is interested in gardening is a sort of replacement for the fact that nobody in my family is interested in photograph as much as I am. It is nice to share this botanical love with her.

What you see here is an English Rose that is Zone 4. We had this rose in Kerrisdale but we gave it away not knowing about its winter hardiness.

While I scanned Crocus today 27 June 2021 I am placing the blog back to fill in the many holes I have as a terrible blog writing block affecte me for months after Rosemary's death in December 8 of last year.