Left - Rosa 'Westerland' - right Rosa 'Princess Alexandra of Kent' and bottom Rosa 'Charles de Mills' 26 May 2025

Even though I was raised by a liberal mother and grandmother and my father, while born in Buenos Aires, was an English gentleman, they did not completely remove that Argentine machismo which in this century is defined as that of a male chauvinist pig.

But in some ways I was not a total macho man. I never was interested in having a motorcycle, growing a beard or a moustache.Only once did I buy and drive a macho car. It was a terrible Maserati Biturbo. I learned my lesson then.

The person who was singly responsible in making me the more moderate man that I am, was my wife Rosemary. I did not know at the time that now we would have defined her as a proto-feminist.

I got an inkling when our second daughter was born. Rosemary told me, “Alex, our daughter is going to be called Hilary because I want her to have an epicene name (I had never heard this word before). It will be up to her to make her name gender specific.”

In the years that followed until she died on 9 December 2020, my Rosemary made all the financial decisions and pushed me to be the good gardener that I am now. She steered me away from "manly"pursuits.

Today as I was looking at my roses and came up with a theme to write about. My roses have gender but I will have to be careful how I unfold the concept.

It is easy to figure out that Rosa ‘Charles de Mills’ is a he and Rosa ‘Princess Alexandra of Kent’ is a she. But what of Rosa ‘Westerland’, could it be possibly and "it" or a more modern "them"?

When I look at my  male cat Niño I see in  him old fashioned male attributes. On her sister Niña I see (impose perhaps?) the idea that she is dainty and feminine like Rosemary. I have no idea if all this is correct in 2025.

But I do think and thank Rosemary for the fact that I can call some of my roses by their epicene names.