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| Top left Rosa 'Emily Carr' and Rosa 'Darcey Bussell' 29 July 2023 |
A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns
O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry:
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it ware ten thousand mile.
It is impossible for me to escape not thinking about my Rosemary when I am in the house, on the bed, and particularly in the garden. My memory is beginning to fail me and I have forgotten the names of many plants. She would have known.
In today’s scan she had a good memory for the English Rose Rosa ‘Darcey Bussell’ but she never got to see the Canadian Rose, Rosa ‘Emily Carr’ which I bought at the shop in the garden last year. The shop, at the entrance to the UBC Botanical Garden is one where she worked for many years. She lovingly watered and took care of the plants in the small nursery. She would have loved this rose.
It has only been since she died on December 9 2020 that it hit me (very hard) that I never connected her name Rosemary (and much more obvious in Spanish, Rosamaría) to her beloved roses. I had little interest them until she gently (not quite!) took me to a meeting of the Vancouver Rose Society around 1987. I was only interested in hostas then. Rosemary broadened my interest in other plants.
And of course I will especially remember her this August 31st when I will be 81 years old. Why? My birthdays in Buenos Aires which my mother like to have in our Coghlan garden complete with a piñata and putting a tail on the donkey was always dependent on the weather. On August 30th there was a usual terrible storm called “la tormenta de Santa Rosa de Lima”. Santa Rosa is but another Rose in my memory besides the stellar Rosemary Elizabeth Healey Waterhouse-Hayward.
