Rosa 'Ketchup & Mustard' 23 August 2025

 

Because I was raised in a house with a garden in Buenos Aires, gardens and plants connect me with my memories.

It was around 1950 in Buenos Aires, when I was 8 that I distinctly remember my mother telling Mercedes, our live-in housekeeper, telling her to go to the corner store to buy something called “catsup”. I do not remember why it was my mother needed that condiment. I have loved ketchup since. Especially so as when I was going to a Roman Catholic boarding school in Austin, Texas, St. Edward’s High School, in 1958 we were served Korean war surplus powdered eggs for breakfast. They were runny and terrible so we all slathered them with ketchup. To this day I am unable to enjoy good scrambled eggs without lots of ketchup.

Of mustard have this indelible memory when was 8 or 9 of being in my uncle’s home in Acasuso in Buenos Aires. Uncle Harry Hayward, was making Colman’s Mustard. I watched how he was putting some sugar into the mustard powder. I love Colman’s and I when I prepare it I always use Uncle Harry’s method.

All the above happened in my mind when I cut three blooms of my best new rose, Rosa ‘Ketchup & Mustard’ today.