Unamed (lost the label) blue delphinium - 5 June 2024

 

This blog is about my preparation of my Kitsilano garden for visits by the members of the Vancouver Rose Society in a few days.

In our old Kerrisdale corner garden house Rosemary and I opened it for visitors such as the Vancouver Rose Society, and other local garden clubs. Our garden made it to an article in Better Homes and Gardens so we soon got bus-loads of Americans coming to see it.

When we moved to our little house with deck garden in Kitsilano, Rosemary became depressed  because we lived in a double duplex . This meant we had to get along with our neighbours who weren’t gardeners. She disliked the fact that the back lane was a mess and I was commanded to weed-eat the weeds. Our duplex neighbour complained to me and used four letter words to protest that my huge Rosa ‘Complicata’ overhanging from my garden made is (slightly) difficult for him to deal with his garbage containers. I explained that the situation would only happen for about three weeks and then I would prune it.  It made it all worse.

With all that nasty stuff out of the way, today Wednesday I went to Phoenix Perennials in Richmond. Why?

Rosemary would have said, “Alex those four Mexican terracotta planters are empty because the plants in them died because of the bad winter. We need to buy something for them." And we would have gone together and any money spent would not have made us guilty in the least.

I went alone but I was in a happy mood knowing that Rosemary was close to me and would go along to make our garden as lovely as we could for the folks of the Vancouver Rose Society.

At the Phoenix I was looking for plants that Rosemary liked that had blue flowers. I bought two delphiniums. Each cost $26. When I arrived home taking out one of them from the car the whole stalk broke off. I swore in my best Argie Spanish!

But my depression dissipated when I realized that I could scan the flowers even though it ended up being an expensive scan.

With Rosemary so near me today in a garden that is lovely with all the roses in bloom I know that she and I would be proud when our visitors show up.

I realized driving back home today, that the reason I am willing to be alive and the purpose that I have within me is to celebrate the existence of my Rosemary who somehow pressured this fool (in a nice way ) to love my hostas and my roses. Plus, of course, her snobbish perennials.

My youngest granddaughter Laure,(a tradition it is) will bring a sign she will paint that we will put out on the street to point our visitors in the right direction. I will be making my signature cucumber sandwiches and iced tea (I use Russian Caravan ) and Hilary will be making Rosemary's favourite pineapple squares.

They are not predicting any rain.