Rosa 'Emily Carr' & Hosta 'Joseph' - 27 May 2026

Emily Carr  Red Cedar

This Saturday and Sunday I am opening my garden to the Vancouver Rose Society. Rosemary and I started opening our Kerrisdale garden by the early 90s. Before we moved to our Kits home Americans would come in buses to see our garden which made it into Better Homes and Gardens.

Such was Rosemary’s precision in getting the garden ready she would cut the grass at the edge of our beds with scissors. I had to remove all the black spot leaves from the roses and the hosta leaves that that had slug holes. I mowed the lawn with a special lawnmower that made our lawn perfect.

Back Lane Garden - 27 May 2026

Now today 27 May 2026 I have almost finalized getting my (formerly our) garden into shape and Rosemary is there behind my imagination’s shoulder. I have been at it for weeks.

Tomorrow I will order the special thin cut white bread as I will make my signature English style cucumber sandwiches. My secret is that I prepare home-made mayonnaise for them.

I am illustrating this blog with a photograph I took today with my Fuji X-E3 of the lane garden. The fabulous rose on the left  of the back lane photograph is the English Rose Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’. 

Rosa 'Complicata' - 27 May 2026

Rosemary never got to see one of my favourite roses, Rosa ‘Emily Carr’. I bought it at the shop in the garden a few months after Rosemary died. It was hybridized in Morden, Manitoba and it will survive Zone 3 cold.

I see in my memory that Emily Carr’s paintings have a lot of red and green. The red is in the warm tone of her tree trunks. This is why I decided to scan the rose with the nice green Hosta ‘Joseph’.

My youngest daughter Hilary will be the hostess and she will bring sweet goodies. I will make Mexican agua de Jamaica with fresh orange juice. Agua de Jamaica is made by steeping the dried leaves of a  Mexican hibiscus.

Rosemary would be working in the garden at least two hours before our Saturday opening. And yes the back lane garden has some grass so scissors would be in her hands.

My male cat Niño died on May 12th. In one of my rose pots have the ashes in a nice urn of Rosemary’s beloved cat Casi-Casi. I opted to do the same with Niño. I was charged $550. My Argentine family would tell me, “Es sólo un gato” or it’s only a cat. They would further point out that for that sum money one could have an average human funeral.

The urn came with a card with the condolences of all the women in the vet hospital who knew Niño and understood how special he was.

My neighbours after Niño died asked me, “Why aren’t you calling Niño in the evening to come home?

My Rosemary also had an urn with her ashes and my daughter spread (some of them?) in her Lillooet garden.

It was years ago that when Rosemary and I went to London at Westminster Abbey I made sure I stepped over H.G.Wells  tile and said , “Hi.”

Somehow I grieve that my Rosemary is only in my memory and in her absent presence in our house and garden.

And that is why I spent all that money to have Niño’s ashes. Nobody will care when I meet my oblivion. I will be ashes, too.

Hosta 'Designer Genes' 25 May 2026

Today I took my Chevrolet Cruz to the dealer thinking they would only change the oil. It was not to be as they are doing the brakes. I was brought home and the car will be ready mid-afternoon.

It is a rainy and melancholic day. I felt cold. What could I possibly do? In this spring season an uplifting and fun experience is to scan my plants, principally my roses. Yesterday I notice the not yet opened flower of the lovely named  Hosta ‘Designer Genes’. It is a large hosta with light green leaves that become yellow in late summer. I have written many times how some of these hosta flowers resemble the original Star Trek Klingon Bird of Prey space crafts.

I have placed these two scans of the hosta here but I thought I might also one of my cheery Fuji X-E1 Lensbaby snaps of one of my roses that I took yesterday that was a sunny day. 

Rosa 'Princess Alexandra of Kent' 22 May 2026

 

My Two Alexandras

 Alexandra Helen Elizabeth Olga Christabel
 

This very large rose which is more than five inches wide was one of Rosemary’s favourite as the name reminded her of the name of our oldest daughter, Alexandra.

I am not sure if I suggested the name or it was Rosemary who wanted to prolong my name.

My would-be godmother, Inez Ariosa, adored my mother but the strict Roman Catholic clergy said she could not be my grandmother as she was divorced. Her very young daughter (17) Inecita became my godmother. Inez’s husband Alejandro Ariosa was not divorced so he was my godfather and that is why I was given the name Jorge Alejadro. In 1942 foreign first names were not allowed. My father was called George.

Sometime when I was a little boy I became the Alex that I am now.

Rosa 'Doctor Huey' 22 May 2026

The Cycles of My Life
 

I recently wrote this blog (link above) about cycles and how we all humans go through them and that they rarely coincide with those of our family and friends.

Today I saw these three blooms of Rosa ‘Doctor Huey”. I have written before how this rose is disparaged by keen rosarians as the good doctor was used as sturdy root stock for grafting on them “better” roses. Rosemary, before she died, brought the rose from our Kerrisdale lane garden (before the house and garden were demolished. I told her that we had never planted a red rose on the lane and explained that a rose had died and Dr. Huey had then prospered.

In this scan you can see the rose just about to be past, the second one, really past and the third on its dying cycle with the petals falling off. If I were to print the scan the members of the Vancouver Rose Society would not quite understand my purpose nor would they see the beauty that I see here. It is as if seeing a compact view of a mature human on their journey to non-existence and oblivion.