La Belle Sultane Discovered & We Laughed
Saturday, May 31, 2014
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| Rosa 'La Belle Sultane' May 31, 2014 |
In the late 40s and early 50s my mother and
I would get on Tram 35 on Avenida Nahuel-Huapí in our Buenos Aires Coghlan neighbourhood and ride it to my abuelita’s
apartment on Rodriguez Peña in downtown Buenos Aires. Sometimes my Uncle Tony
and Aunt Dolly would also show up and the four would play music. Aunt Dolly
wasn’t all that good on her violin, Uncle Tony was a fine tenor, my mother
accompanied on the piano and my abuelita was a very good coloratura soprano. I remember
that many of the songs where from American musicals of the 40s.
My youngest daughter Hilary
resembles my mother lots. She leads a busy working life and has a husband who
also has a busy working life. They have two daughters; one of them is a
terrible load.
I attempt to make
Saturdays a sort of tram-35-kind-of-day. I prepare a good menu and pick a film
that the four of us (Hilary, Lauren, Rosemary and me) can watch. Rebecca works
on Saturdays so we have not seen her at our dinner table since Christmas Eve
dinner.
I attempt to make
Saturdays a sort of tram-35-kind-of-day by making sure the afternoon goes
smoothly, pleasantly and best of all with a film that will make us all laugh. Today’s
film was The Son of the Pink Panther with Herbert Lom, Roberto Benigni and
Claudia Cardinale. We laughed lots and lots. Best of all was the opening score
in which the cartoon Pink Panther directs an orchestra of black musicians
(headed by Bobby McFerrin) who sort of make like they are playing instruments
(but they are not) but are actually scatting. When I mentioned the word Lauren inquired and I explained. “They are singing without words and are imitating
jazz musical instruments.”
The evening ended with
laughs but it was not so all day. After our dinner of Mexican pinto beans,
barbecued flank steak (Lauren loves it and calls it chewy meat), grilled
corn-on-the-cob, and cucumber salad, I suggested we take a stroll in the garden
which looks its best in late afternoon light. It was then that Rosemary said, “Moving
or getting rid of all these plants will be very sad and terrible.”
Now my Rosemary has
been known in making a string of statements in which I count, “One, two, three
and so on…” to my initial statement of, “Rosemary you are extremely negative.” Before
we went inside to see our film I said, “Well tonight you can worry about all
those plants and you can have a pleasant insomnia.”
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| Rosa 'Mary Magdalene' May 31, 2014 |
The fact is that
Rosemary usually says out loud what I think and dare not say. We think alike in
many ways. We both worry about our eldest granddaughter and have sleepless nights.
I sometimes (well not
sometimes but often) wonder how people can live alone. I could not live without
Rosemary on my side and by my side.
The day went well in
other aspects in which the final resolution came about because Rosemary (am I
negative, too?) has the habit of being thorough in her fall and spring cleaning
of the garden. She uses a bamboo rake and this is why so many of my plant
labels disappear and then forget the name of the plant.
In the beginning of a
gardener’s career, know which plant is where in the garden and what it is, is
important. In the 90s we visited American hosta gardens in Maryland,
North Carolina, Washington
and Georgia
that felt like museums. The hostas were placed so that none encroached on each
other. They were all beautifully labelled and some extra retentive gardeners
had their gardens displayed by plants ordered in the classification of either
species or cultivars. The latter were sometimes grouped by hybridizers. The Alex
Summers hostas were here and the Mildred Seaver’s there.
Now in 2014 most of my
plants are labelled or at least I remember. Rosemary remembers her plants. But
there are some hostas whose labels are long gone and there is no way I will
ever know who (my plants are people in case you wondered) they are. And it’s
not important.
But it is important if
the members of the Vancouver Rose Society who will be coming to our open garden
in mid June to know the name of every rose.
Four years ago I
purchased a Robin Denning/ Brentwood Bay Nursery rose at UBC’s Shop in the
Garden adjacent to the UBC
Botanical Garden. My
Rosemary works as a FOG (Friend of the Garden) there on Wednesdays. At the time
my interest in once-blooming but hardy and cast iron Gallica roses was in
full-swing (still is). I bought the rose knowing it was going to be deep red
and the name was a famous one.
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| Rosa 'Munstead Wood', May 31, 2014 |
At first, Denning
suggested Rosa ‘Rose Marie Viaud’, Rosa ‘Bleu Magenta’ and Rosa ‘Violette’.
I had tentatively picked a famous Gallica Rosa 'La Belle Sultane' as the one. It was only until both of us looked up La Belle Sultane and Rosa ‘Gallica Violacea’ (aka violette), that we realized that Rosa ‘Gallica Violacea’ was another name for the same rose.
I had tentatively picked a famous Gallica Rosa 'La Belle Sultane' as the one. It was only until both of us looked up La Belle Sultane and Rosa ‘Gallica Violacea’ (aka violette), that we realized that Rosa ‘Gallica Violacea’ was another name for the same rose.
Come mid June La Belle
Sultane will be correctly identified as well as another that Select Roses man
Brad Jalbert (who sold it to me, Rosemary swept the label) identified as Rosa ‘Souvenir du Dr. Jamain’ which is a dark red and very fragrant Hybrid
perpetual from mid 19th century.
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| Rosa ‘Souvenir du Dr. Jamain' |
Of late I have become enthusiastic again in
scanning my roses. Today I scanned Rosa ‘Mary Magdalene’ and a newish English
Rose (dark red) Rosa ‘Munstead Wood’. As you might guess most of the roses in our garden are picked for scent and these have lots of that. The former is of myrrh and he second a fruity old-rose smell. Both are David Austin English Roses.
I hope that when that decision has to be
made on the fate of our plant friends that Rosemary and I will be able to make
it together. And when that happens I hope we will have had lots more tram-35-kind-of-days
in which not only will we laugh with Hilary and Lauren but with Rebecca, too.
