Rosemary & Casi-Casi

Today was the one year anniversary of the WHO announcement of the Covid Pandemic.This date will now be one of perhaps two others where someone might ask you, “Where were you when you found out?” The other two incidents might be the assassination of Kennedy and the other the landing on the moon.

I happen to have a precise knowledge of where I was on March 11^th. It was 3PM and I was driving with Rosemary to Mandeville Garden Works. We turned on the radio. We were at Marine Drive and Boundary. We were listening to CBC Radio news and it was then that we knew about the pandemic as the WHO had declared it to be so.

During that whole remaining year until Rosemary was too sick to go anywhere we managed to go to a nursery, mid-day, which delighted the both of us and it divided the day so that the isolation was not too terrible. We bought many plants including roses and clematis. It was always fun to be accompanied by Rosemary who enjoyed thoroughly looking at plants and deciding which of them would be “good garden plants” as our friend Alleyne Cook used to say.

Now in 2021 I have told myself that I do not have the heart to visit any nursery on my own. The memories would be too tender. 

I may have to change my mind. Our favourite clematis was The Duchess of Edinburgh. Today while pruning roses I found that she was dead. I will have to go to buy her replacement at Phoenix Perennials.