Rosa foetida 21 May 2022

Like many wild roses, Rosa foetida, or commonly known as Austrian Briar, dates back well into Medieval times. This delicate rose was first described in 1590 when it was introduced to Europe from Persia. People were quite amazed by it because it was yellow, a color that wasn’t yet known in roses. From then, Rosa foetida became a valuable addition to the cultivation of roses. Austrian Briar became a valued flower when its cultivator Carolus Clusius introduced it to the imperial garden of Rudolf II in Vienna.

Gardenbeast.com

In spite of the cold and rain I have already had three roses in bloom.

Rosa ' Louis Odier'  

Spring & my flying dinosaur

Rosa ' Fantin Latour'  18 May 2022

 

But it was today that I looked at the extraordinarily healthy leaves of my new species rose, Rosa foetida. It has this name as some people in the past (in the 1500s) when it arrived in Europe from Persia did not seem to like the licorice scent. When the yellow blooms open this season I will verify this.

Rosemary taught me to look at the details of plants and many of her perennials had little flowers. I had to get close to see what they were like. I remember as a boy in seeing stuff through the high school microscopes. They opened a whole new world for me. My Epson PerfectionV700 Photo exceeds the magnification of those former high school microscopes I used.

When I scan some of my granddaughter’s negatives or slides or enlarge their digital camera takes and view them on my monitor, I see details that they might not know even if they look at themselves in the mirror.  Photoshop in a monitor has brought a whole new meaning to the word intimacy.

Today I noticed the foliage of Rosa foetida and I knew I would have to scan one of the stems knowing that I would not be getting the roses on it. I believe that my decision was a worthwhile one. Not only did I scan the foliage once but I moved it around and did two more. And I could have gone on!    

From top - Gerbera Daisy, Stylophorum diphyllum, Hosta 'Coast to Coast' & below Solenia  x hiemalis - 20 may 2022

Nature rarer uses yellow – Emily Dickinson

Nature rarer uses yellow

Than another hue;

Saves she all of that for sunsets,—

Prodigal of blue,

Spending scarlet like a woman,

Yellow she affords

Only scantly and selectly,

Like a lover's words.

When Rosemary and I started gardening in our large corner property on Athlone Street in Kerrisdale yellow as anathema. Flowers had to be blue or white. The same applied to red and orange. But little by little rosemary began to accept those warm colours. Three roses changed the tide. They were Rosa ‘Mrs. Oakely Fisher', Rosa ‘Westerland’ and Rosa ‘All that Jazz’. Now, when yellow flowers appear in my garden, as they did today, I remember my Rosemary. I smile first and then I succumb to my almost constant depression at her loss. 

Rosa 'Mrs. Oakley Fisher' 

Rosa 'All that Jazz' 

Rosa 'Westerland' 

Yellow she affords - Emily Dickinson

When the well-known California/ Mexican restaurant, The Topanga Café on 4th Avenue,not far from Macdonald, burned to the ground, many were shocked at the loss. I am happy to report that on that empty lot and the adjoining one, Urban Gardens has opened a nice nursery. I have gone twice to buy some of those annuals that my snobbish perennial-crazy Rosemary liked to have to bring colour to the garden. In the scan here there is a yellow flower that I had never seen and I wonder if Rosemary knew about it. It is called Solenia x hiemalis ‘Yellow Improved’. 

Podophyllum 'Spotty Dotty' & Equisetum - 20 May 2022

Podophyllum: Genus name comes from the Greek words pous or podos meaning a foot and phyllon meaning a leaf with reference to the shape of the leaf in the American species P. peltatum.

Equisetum (/ˌɛkwɪˈsiːtəm/; horsetail, snake grass, puzzlegrass) is the only living genus in Equisetaceae, a family of ferns, which reproduce by spores rather than seeds.

Equisetum is a "living fossil", the only living genus of the entire subclass Equisetidae, which for over 100 million years was much more diverse and dominated the understorey of late Paleozoic forests. Some equisetids were large trees reaching to 30 m (98 ft) tall. The genus Calamites of the family Calamitaceae, for example, is abundant in coal deposits from the Carboniferous period. The pattern of spacing of nodes in horsetails, wherein those toward the apex of the shoot are increasingly close together, is said to have inspired John Napier to invent logarithms. Modern horsetails first appeared during the Jurassic period. 

Wikipedia

My Rosemary did not abide having any Equisetum (horsetail) in the garden as it is a terrible weed that spreads quickly. Rosemary used to love the tidy back lanes of our Kerrisdale home and was unhappy in our Kits home because the back lane is far from tidy. She would have me weed-eat the weeds in our adjoining neighbours’ garages.

Today I spotted a horsetail in our garden and I pulled it out. Then I was struck that its colours resembled one of Rosemary’s fave Podophyllum which now (because it is mature) has leaves that are the size of dinner plates. I cut the smallest leaf for the scan here.

I wrote here how Vancouver noted clarinetist Gene Ramsbottom explained to me the significance of horsetail to clarinets and oboes. 

Gene Ramsbottom and Equisetum

Scanning the plants in my garden is a pleasant pasatiempo which translates badly to hobby. It literally means something that makes time pass. It is one of the distractions of my day in the growing season. I am comfortable sitting at my computer and next to the scanner and arranging my plants. I now know that few of the people I know have any interest in my scanographs or that I am now a part-time scanographer.

What is important is that I have fun doing this.

“I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” Joan Didion

Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed. Garry Winogrand

I have come to understand very well what  Joan Didion and Garry Winogrand meant in what they wrote.

I have modified the two statements for my own purposes in these:

I take photographs to find out how I see.

I write to find out how I feel.

Since my Rosemary died on December 9, 2020, after our marriage of 52 years, I have found a bit of comfort (solace?) in my anguish to write about her and how her death has affected and is affecting me.

Because I write my blog (to repeat Didion) just for me, the fact that I post it into social media, Facebook and Twitter, it might make a few folk think, “Why does he not move on?”

In social media it is only a matter of time before someone will confess about having haemorrhoids. The level of medical information, both physical and mental, given by these folks is something that I cannot understand. In my case my blog is a personal “dear diary” and I don’t trumpet my political or religious views in it.

What I write in my blog in many ways I project to my family and intimate friends. As for social media friends, they might learn something from my Rosemary postings. There is nothing that can ever prepare anybody for the loss of a lifelong partner. When I write about how I feel and how I live from day to day I experience a bit of relief. Perhaps others with a similar loss might profit from this.

Despair - not Rosemary's petticoat daffidil