Centre left- Anemone hupehensis 'September Charm' and mystery perennial - 21 October 2026

 

When my Rosemary and I started gardening in our Kerrisdale garden in 1986 I was the amateur. By 1991 she had made me a rose enthusiast to parallel my almost obsessive passion for hostas.

Rosemary was a perfectionist. I mowed the lawn with a reel mower but she would still cut the edges close to our flowerbeds with scissors.

Often when we went to nurseries (and yes this was often) she would notice little details in little plants. She would insist on buying these. I called these Rosemary’s perennials. Now Wednesday, October 21 I noticed two little flowers in a pot that had four plant tags of plants that are no longer dead. This plant is healthy but since it has no tag I have no idea what it is. I decided to scan it with a plant that I bought this year that Rosemary would have instantly liked.

All I can now say is, “Thank God and Rosemary for little things."            

Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' 16 October 2026

21 October 2026

Inmigrants who come to Vancouver want to have a new house or apartment, a brand new car and everything they own must be shiny.  

Their children once they have lived her for a while come to understand the concept of antique cars and newness is no longer so important.

I remember that when I bought my Asahi Pentax S-3 at Foto Rudiger in Mexico City in 1962 (because I had little money to buy a new camera) I was attracted to the look of this black camera showing its underlying brass.

But I was not always enamoured with the idea of perfect newness. Scuffing my brand new shoes was a slightly devastating happening as putting that dent on the new car.

A photograph that I took of my two young daughters in 1979 sitting on a multi-coloured bench of the Royal Hudson has been in my bedroom for years. A week ago I noticed how much the print had faded. I had printed it in my home darkroom in Burnaby. I have the original negative so I could have scanned it and made a new inkjet. I chose to remove the print from the frame and scan that and then I fixed it. Somehow while the new print might be correct in colour and contrast there is something of the original which attracts me to the instant I snapped the photograph.

Six years after the death of my Rosemary I remember her as that young woman I first met in 1967 while my portraits of her in months before she died are attractive to my eye and in particular one where she is smiling holding her cat Casi-Casi. I have it on my oficina door. I smile when I see it.

The framed family photographs on my home walls are all reminders of how time passes and sometimes without our noticing the changes.

To begin with an illustration for this blog I have as evidence a rose Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’ in all its pristine glory and then as it faded days later.

How that rose went from de pe a pa (Spanish from here to there) is reminded of how the final change is death.