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| Top Rosa 'Princess Alexandra of Kent' - below left Rosa 'Duchess of Montebello'' - right Rosa 'Duchess of Portland' and below Rosa 'Queen of Sweden' - 14 May 2024 |
The closest I ever got to royalty happened when Queen Elizabeth came to Vancouver to perform a pre-launch of Expo 86. I was attached as a stills photographer with the CBC crew. I may have been around 10 ft from her.
In 1975, before we left Mexico for Vancouver, I took my eldest daughter Alexandra who was 7 at the time, to a polo match between the Mexican National Team and Windsor Park which at the time was Prince Charles’s team. I took her so that she could one day boast that she saw a future king play polo. Windsor Park lost as their horses could not keep up with the lack of oxygen in the high Mexico City altitude.
On June 2, 1953, it was lunchtime in Buenos Aires. My mother said, “Alex wash your hands and knees (I wore short pants) and come to lunch.” I answered, “Mother I cannot as I am listening on the radio to the coronation of my queen.”
I have four roses blooming right now. Rosa 'Queen of Sweden', Rosa ‘Duchess of Montebello”, Rosa ‘Duchess of Portland’ and Rosa “Princess Alexandra of Kent”. That is why I came up with a justification to cut three blooms today, scan them and write this blog.
There is a little tradition of royalty named roses and yours truly. I was bored one summer afternoon in 2001 so I came up with the idea of scanning a rose. I cut a lovely Bourbon rose, Rosa ‘Reine Victoria' and I lucked out as the scan was perfect. The rose succumbed the next year but it provided me with the impetus to keep scanning. I have over 3000.
This blog shows that first scan and it explains how I believe that even when a rose in my garden dies I have its Platonic identity in my scan.