Roses
While my paternal grandmother was certainly responsible for my lifelong love of gardening, it was my maternal grandmother who sparked in me the love of the rose. She loved flowers of all kinds, but roses were her all time favorite. She had a lovely rose garden in the center of her backyard, surrounded by a neatly trimmed lawn and a gentle path. Grandma also loved anything purple. Back then it was difficult to find purple roses, especially any that would grow in San Francisco's foggy Richmond District without turning into a lump of mildew. The one that she did manage to grow was the Sterling Silver rose, one that, to this day, wrenches my heart strings whenever I see it... which is none too often. Oh, Grandma would be amazed by the sheer number of purple roses available today. The purple roses on this page are dedicated to my grandmother.
So far, I only have two roses, both climbers, neither purple. One is a lovely dark pink/red color whose name I don't know, and the other is a Cecil Bruner. They're both relatively new, growing in pots, of course, and climbing and blooming their sunny faces off. This is their best spring yet, in their short lives. I have hopes of many more blooms in the future. You can smell the fragrance of the Cecil Bruner when you come out of the front door. It's heavenly.
So, here are my lovely climbing roses. They're free and wild-looking, like most things in my yard. One of these days I'll get down there and tie them up again, but I rather like the loose and free look. I know the top picture looks sort of odd because of the angle. Have I mentioned I live on a hill? I'm standing on the driveway, looking down to take the picture of the eight foot roses below. The last picture is of ground level, so you can see the half-barrels that the roses are growing in. You can see part of one trellis against the wall. The barrels are just sitting on the dirt at the foundation of the house. By now I expect their roots have gone through the bottom of the barrels into the earth. That was the plan. While roots have no problem traveling through our ground, we do. There are so many rocks in our soil that it's impossible to dig. People in the neighborhood have been known to use jackhammers to dig holes to plant trees. No kidding. You should have seen what I had to go through one day to bury a poor dead little hummingbird. Pathetic. I got him buried, but it wasn't easy. So, yes, everything I plant is in pots, even in the yard. At least I can dig in those!
It's been a few years, and things have been growing, in spite of my best efforts. The Cecil Bruner roses are especially wild, and need to be pinned back again, but we obviously haven't gotten around to that yet this year. They don't seem to mind too much though. They're blooming like mad. And they smell divine. To give you some idea of how much they've grown, if you take a look at the half barrel in the photo above, when I stand on my tip toes on the rim of that barrel and reach up as high as I can, I can reach maybe the second board from the bottom above the stucco, which is right about the top of the trellises. And I'm 5'7" tall. And when I'm standing in the entry, which is right behind those roses, and reach up, I cannot reach the top of the window opening.
Won't you come into the garden?
I would like my roses to see you.
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