Rosa 'Emily Carr' & Hosta 'Joseph' - 27 May 2026

Emily Carr  Red Cedar

This Saturday and Sunday I am opening my garden to the Vancouver Rose Society. Rosemary and I started opening our Kerrisdale garden by the early 90s. Before we moved to our Kits home Americans would come in buses to see our garden which made it into Better Homes and Gardens.

Such was Rosemary’s precision in getting the garden ready she would cut the grass at the edge of our beds with scissors. I had to remove all the black spot leaves from the roses and the hosta leaves that that had slug holes. I mowed the lawn with a special lawnmower that made our lawn perfect.

Back Lane Garden - 27 May 2026

Now today 27 May 2026 I have almost finalized getting my (formerly our) garden into shape and Rosemary is there behind my imagination’s shoulder. I have been at it for weeks.

Tomorrow I will order the special thin cut white bread as I will make my signature English style cucumber sandwiches. My secret is that I prepare home-made mayonnaise for them.

I am illustrating this blog with a photograph I took today with my Fuji X-E3 of the lane garden. The fabulous rose on the left  of the back lane photograph is the English Rose Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’. 

Rosa 'Complicata' - 27 May 2026

Rosemary never got to see one of my favourite roses, Rosa ‘Emily Carr’. I bought it at the shop in the garden a few months after Rosemary died. It was hybridized in Morden, Manitoba and it will survive Zone 3 cold.

I see in my memory that Emily Carr’s paintings have a lot of red and green. The red is in the warm tone of her tree trunks. This is why I decided to scan the rose with the nice green Hosta ‘Joseph’.

My youngest daughter Hilary will be the hostess and she will bring sweet goodies. I will make Mexican agua de Jamaica with fresh orange juice. Agua de Jamaica is made by steeping the dried leaves of a  Mexican hibiscus.

Rosemary would be working in the garden at least two hours before our Saturday opening. And yes the back lane garden has some grass so scissors would be in her hands.