Rosa 'Louise Odier' & Hosta 'Whirlwind' 20 July 2024

 

It seems that since I cannot lay to rest my memories of Rosemary that I am then compelled to write about them.

I believe that one of the reasons our marriage went well had all to do with Rosemary’s concept that husband and wife had to have a common interest that went beyond jobs and children. In 1986 I was informed that we were going to buy a large house in a corner garden in Kerrisdale. She said she wanted a house with a garden. My interest in gardening was negligible.

When we moved, we were faced with a shady garden that had many trees. I did some research and I kept reading about hostas.

Houses were being torn down in our neighbourhood to make way for big houses with four-car garages. Rosemary was keen in salvaging(she liked to use the word liberate) plants from the gardens when the houses were going to be torn down. One day we went to a nearby house with our wheelbarrow and spades. She pointed at a large dark green plant and said, “Alex, that’s a hosta”.

She knew that in those years hostas were entry level for male engineers and doctors. Perhaps she thought for male photographers? She was right. She turned me into an avid gardener and years later I even had a monthly garden column for Western Living.

It was our garden that gave us that extra interest in life. Around 1991 she told me that we were going to a meeting of the Vancouver Rose Society. Until the day she died while she understood my liking of hostas and tolerated them, she became happy when I, too went crazy over roses.

Today, Saturday,  July 20 I keep thinking of two words as I drive around Vancouver (today I had ice-cream and lunch with Hilary, my youngest daughter in a place I frequented with Rosemary when we went to buy plants at a nursery called Mandeville). Those words are with/without. I think I did this with Rosemary. I am now doing this with Hilary but without Rosemary.

I wanted to somehow, in one scan, to bring the idea of our love for roses (and her tolerance for my hostas). I found this photograph in my files, a self-portrait of us in Arboledas, Mexico taken around 1973. I must note that Rosemary seems to have some severely plucked eyebrows and I have long hair.

When I took that photograph I had no idea of thinking ahead (who does?) that someday I would be writing this without Rosemary.