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| Top Rosa 'Darcey Bussell' & Rosa 'Sombreul' 30 July 2023 |
My friend Alex Summers (now gone no longer with us) in 1967 was working a mimeograph machine to print the newsletter for the American Penstemon Society. As he was doing he thought, “I hate the smell of this machine and I don’t even like penstemons.” He quit the society and in 1968 he founded the American Hosta Society.
Because I have been a member of the society since 1990 I have met all the hosta greats including Summers and the hostas in my garden have some of their faces.
I believe I can do the same with roses, but differently. It is the history behind roses as to where they came from, when and who introduced them that fascinates me.
Then there is the name of some roses when they are named after people that have interesting stories.
Of Rosa ‘Sombreul’ a vigorous and ever blooming white rose in my garden I have written the story here about how its whiteness is connected with either red wine or blood
Rosa Sombreul - Blood or Wine?
That is why I scanned the red English Rose, Rosa ‘Darcey Bussell’ today 30 July 2023 but placing this blog, to fill a hole, to 26 July 2023.
My Rosemary was a snob who inherited from my mother this concept in Spanish, “Hay poca gente fina como nosotros,” which translates to, “There are few people with a sense of taste like ours.”
Because she was a snob she did not like the long stemmed (one rose per stem) hybrid tea roses. Luckily I never ever sent her roses for any kind of celebratory occasion. Most men would have gifted a dozen white or red hybrid teas (in winter imported into Vancouver from Colombia). I knew better.
She would also have known why in baroque cathedrals those round windows are called rose windows. Just look at Sombreul.
