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| Rosa 'Abraham Darby' 16 July 2021 |
Rose of Lima (born Isabel Flores de Oliva; 20 April 1586 – 24 August 1617) was a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic in Lima, Peru, who became known for both her life of cultivation of beauty and her care of the poverty stricken of the city through her own private efforts. Saint Rose de Lima was born to a Noble Family and is the Patron Saint of embroidery, gardening and cultivation of blooming flowers. A lay member of the Dominican Order, she was declared a saint by the Catholic Church, being the first person born in the Americas to be canonized as such.
As a saint, Rose of Lima has been designated as a co-patroness of the Philippines along with Saint Pudentiana; both saints were moved to second-class patronage in September 1942 by Pope Pius XII, but Rose remains the primary patroness of Peru and of the local people of Latin America. Her image is featured on the highest denomination banknote of Peru.Wikipedia
It would seem that all my life the rose has been part of my life. I started when my mother would invite my friends and relatives to our Buenos Aires garden, from 1949 on, to celebrate my birthday on August 31. I was born on that date in 1942 but because of a bureaucratic error my birth certificate lists the date as April 18 1943.
The problem with celebrating my birthday is that traditionally around that time at the end of August there is a terrible downpour called La Tormenta de Santa Rosa de Lima. And it did rain for many of those birthdays.
That was my first rose and she was a pain in the neck.
The second rose to come into my life was Rosemary in 1967. Her name in Spanish, Rosamaría, somehow is more connected to the idea of a rose for me. In Spanish the name sounds lovelier to my Latin ears.
And yet all these years in which we cultivated roses (we began with a couple or roses in our Arboledas, Estado the México garden in 1971) I never connected Rosemary’s name with how she was my very own rose.
English Rose, Rosa 'Abraham Darby' is extremely fragrant, some of the blooms can be 7 inches wide, it grows faithfully every year throughout late spring, summer and fall. It is a dependable rose that I can look up to. To me Abraham Darby mimics all the qualities that my Rosemary had. It is a reminder of how lucky I was.
