Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Today I walked around the garden with a heavy heart. My roses are talking to me and very much like Mouche in a cage with many other dogs at the dog-pound they all seem to be asking me, 'What is going to become of us. Will you find us a home? " I am not sure that anybody in this day and age of gardening decline would want Rosa 'Grüss an Aachen' or would they?

When we brought the 18 pound male tabby Casi-Casi from the SPCA on February 13th, 2010 it took him a long while to adapt to us. In fact it took him almost two months before he began to feel comfortable in coming down the kitchen stairs to walk in our garden. Now like Little Bo Peep's lamb he follows Rosemary wherever she may be in the garden. I often wonder about his former home. Where did he come from? Why did he end up in the SPCA? Why does he scurry away whenever I point a camera at him?

I feel the same way about my roses. I want them not to end up at the SPCA. Will destroying them (after me the deluge) be a better choice?

Grüss an Aachen does not have a pretty name, particularly if you pronounce her name in correct German. I found her hidden in a corner of Garden Works on Lougheed Highway many years ago. I am not sure that anybody there could have known of the pedigree of this rose when she was ordered. My guess is that after all these years she may be the only lady in town. What will become of her?

Very much like our Casi-Casi's provenance I wonder how a rose hybridized by Philippe Geduldig in Germany in 1909 would find a path through cuttings and other forms of plant propagation to Garden Works in Vancouver, B.C.