Sorbaria sorbifolia 10 February 2022

While I cannot be a spokeperson for other men I believe that at my age of 79 I know about myself.

Until I met Rosemary my interest in gardening was next to nill. As a little boy in Buenos Aires my parents cultivated a lovely garden. I played toy soldiers in it but did appreciate all the different kinds of plum trees we had. I did not like our huge fig tree because it was a tough one to climb. It was my job to burn the fall leaves. My little turtle like to go into leaf piles...

Rosemary 4 May 2019 & Hosta 'Liberty' - Kitsilano

Once we moved to Mexico City in 1954 I went through an explosives stage. With my friend David Harris we discovered that that potassium chlorate (we bought kilos of it at a downtown drugstore called El Elefante) was better than the nitrate and that if mixed with aluminum powder (sold at tlapalerías (hardware) to mix with linseed oil to make paint) it made a tremendous blast. We exploded tins full of this concoction under my mother’s rose bushes. I was given a severe spanking with a Filipino chinela.

When Rosemary, after a couple of years of marriage, and I  moved to a little house we had a garden. My mother and Rosemary tended it. I was not in the least interested but I did plant a Mexican Colorín tree (Erythrina americana) as I thought that when one purchased a house one planted a tree for good luck and prosperity.

Once in Vancouver in 1975, we had a tiny garden in our Burnaby townhouse. Rosemary grew restless with it and had us (I took orders from her most of the time) move to Kerrisdale to our Athlone corner garden.

It was patently obvious that with that size of the garden we could not afford a gardener. So we began to garden.

Because this man likes big things and those include big plants I fell for large shade hostas.

From there I graduated to roses and ferns and by the beginning of 1990 I was a full-fledged gardener who knew his Greek and Latin botanical nomenclature.

But most important it was Rosemary’s love for small plants that taught me to notice details. It was Rosemary who taught me to notice how hands were placed in portraits and thanks to her I became very good at portrait photography.

Now in this rainy Feb 10, 2022 day I noticed not far from the door to my oficina the little Sorbaria sorbifolia and I knew I had to scan it but in some way associate it with Rosemary’s love for lovely small plants. This plant can get big but Rosemary was into the details and this scan does it justice.