Since I was a little boy in Buenos Aires, trains were part of my life. We lived in a neighbourhood called Coghlan, named after an English railway engineer, as the Argentine train system was built by the English. I think about the cavernous downtown Retiro Station where I would end up with my parents when they took me to the movies on that movie street that was Lavalle.

A recurring dream for me in these 2021 days is that I am on that train bound to Retiro. At each station people get off. When the train finally arrives I find that I am the only passenger.

There is a Canadian connection with my concept of death. In earlier times in Vancouver, I seemed to suffer the expensive consequences of having Italian cars (two Fiat X-19s and one Maserati Biturbo). My mechanics would tell me, “The clutch might go tomorrow, next week or in a year. I cannot tell you when that will happen.” To me, then, death is driving to Calgary with a slipping clutch and getting to that destination when the clutch finally fails.

Nine months since the death of my Rosemary, she is not only in my thoughts constantly but I try to rework in my mind stuff related to death.

Today marks the third anniversary of bassist Randy Rampage’s death. I have been invited (I attend all of these Rampage gatherings) to be at the Mountain View Cemetery at 3. I will go.

I do not believe that there is anything important of what was Rampage’s under his tombstone. He is not there.

So why am I going?

To share, in a location that celebrates death, the memories  of who was Randy Rampage with his living friends and all who loved this scary looking man who would not have ever hurt a fly.

Upper left Rosemary's unidentified Eucaliptus, R. - Crambe maritima, bottom L. - Senecio cineraria & R - Artemisia ludoviciana 'Valerie Finnis' 12 August 2021

Today I have been thinking of the colour gray. To begin with I have problems figuring out if I should write it gray or grey. When I write in a blog that I like Earl Grey Tea I invariably have to look it up. Grey for me reminds me of the terrible, damp and grey days of the Buenos Aires winters of my youth. And now in Vancouver grey is a colour no different from my Buenos Aires grey.

For Rosemary grey was a colour that she looked for in her plants besides the ones that might have blue or white flowers. I never did discuss with her the fact that many of her grey plants have yellow flowers, a colour she disdained with the exception of the yellow of Rosa ‘Mrs. Oakley Fisher’ and last year, a few months before she died the lovely English Rose, Rosa ‘Buttercup’. We both shared a fondness for the little yellow patio rose Rosa ‘Emily Louise’.

I never did tell  her that the last colour that Jorge Luís Borges was able to discern before he went blind was yellow.

Borges wrote sparingly and he described many of his story protagonists as having grey eyes and a grey beard as he does of Doctor Stephen Albert in his The Garden of Bifurcating Paths. In the story one finds out that Albert is an eternal man who lives endless repetitive lives. Some see grey as a vague and indefinite colour.

I believe that Rosemary saw in grey plants a colour that would not clash and would blend in with plants that had bright colours. Or it could have been that my Rosemary saw grey as an elegant colour. She was an elegant woman.

 Who was the Valerie Finnis in the cultivar name of Artemesia ludoviciana? Here is her Wikipedia citation.

This poem by Emily Dickinson is one that Rosemary would find as fun as it is positive (certainly not vague or uncertain) and a happy one.

A slash of Blue by Emily Dickinson

A slash of Blue --

A sweep of Gray --

Some scarlet patches on the way,

Compose an Evening Sky --

A little purple -- slipped between --

Some Ruby Trousers hurried on --

A Wave of Gold --

A Bank of Day --

This just makes out the Morning Sky.

More Emily Dickinson

I cannot dance upon my Toes
a door just opened on the street 
Amber slips away
Sleep

 After having opened our garden for visitors for many years, Rosemary and I understood the protocols. There were several.

 One of them is that visitors never asked to use your facilities. Another one that Rosemary always warned me about was not to point out our Rhodochiton atrosanguineum particularly to some of the older “ladies” that were her friends from the UBC Botanical Garden. I often ignored her warning since for reasons that I have never understood, Rosemary kept buying the plant (it is tender) every year.

This year the protocol was that open gardens would not have any food or drink available. Visitors just came to look at the plants and most asked before taking photographs.

There is one very pleasant gift that opening your garden to the Vancouver Rose Society includes an unexpected pleasure. A VRS member, Bev McClellan, picks a rose she likes from your garden and does a lovely card which is then given to garden openers with a gift card. Some years they were vouchers for roses, this year it was a credit to spend at Lee Valley.

On Sunday when I attended the yearly VRS picnic (this time at Brenda Viney’s garden in Coquitlam) we were given our gift cards. 

Sunday VRS Picnic

I have to acknowledge here my deep appreciation for Bev McLellan’s illustration of my Rosa ‘Shropshire Lad’ and how delightful it was to open her card in a garden full of friends who all share a love for the rose.

Coincidentally today Monday, Shropshire Lad was in bloom so I thought I could combine Bev’s card with the rose that inspired her.

Thank you Bev.

Brenda Viney

Twenty Twenty was not a good year for me between a pandemic and the death of my Rosemary on December. Twenty twenty one has had a few pleasant distractions. Most of them have been botanical or feline.

One of botanical ones was the yearly Vancouver Rose Society open gardens. In the beginning of June I had many visitors, and between the hosting by my youngest daughter Hilary and her assistant, my male cat Niño, I had some fun.

Today I had the pleasure of going to the Vancouver Rose Society’s yearly picnic get together. It was at former president of the society's garden, Brenda Viney who lives in Coquitlam. She has a very large rose garden.

But, and this is most important, it is a garden that my Rosemary admired and would have had a lovely time in it this year. Why?

Many who are participants of plant societies tend to grow a monoculture. Viney has roses, many roses but she has a variety of fabulous perennials. Rosemary would have approved of Viney’s generous use of that South American verbena, Verbena bonariensis.

And as a card carrying member of the American Hosta Society I have to point out that Viney has handsome and very large specimens. Not only that, some of her hostas are not the usual ones. There is a somewhat little known fact that hostas, when they reach maturity, should be left alone. Nothing bothers me more than when friends ask me, “When are you going to split your hostas? I would like some of them.” Viney has obviously been botanically correct in not sharing them.

Dahlia 'Bodacious' & Hosta 'Julie Morss

 Her roses are all in splendid shape, but I played Rosemary and looked at the other plants. Two stood out. One was Dahlia ‘Bodaceous’ and the other, a not run-of-the-mill hosta called Julie Morss. Vine’s dahlia was in open splendour as you entered her front garden. But I was attracted to a bloom that had not quite opened.

With roses, particularly the moss roses, the buds are beautiful before they open. In the last few years I have discovered the beauty of the often ignored hosta flowers. Like moss roses, they too, display elegance and poise unopened.

All in all the day was most pleasant. What a luxury to be surrounded by people with shared interests on a day that was not too hot.

Thank you Brenda and Al (her suffering husband who is responsible for dealing with pruned stuff).