Cherish
I come by my love of roses quite honestly. My mother grew roses in profusion, as did her mother before her. When Mom went blind, Dad took over the care of the roses, and I think he took just as much pride in them as Mom had. I started growing roses almost 35 years ago, and enjoy them just as much now as I did then. There are over eighty different roses in my garden. Some were gifts, some I ordered, a few were intentional memories. For instance, I grow "Cecille Brunner", the sweetheart rose, because my grandmother grew that in the back of her property, and my mother used it for a bouquet for her wedding rehearsal. (It's nicknamed "the attack rose" in my family because it's so vigorous, and has quite impressive thorns.)
This is absolutely the best time of year for the roses. My sister and I gathered a bucketful of roses two days ago, and took them to the cemetery to decorate graves. You couldn't tell we'd cut a single rose, and we left lots of flowers on eleven graves. This first blossom will last the longest, will have the most beautiful buds and the fullest open flowers, and be wonderfully scented. If I got only this bloom, it would be worthwhile, growing these beauties. Even better, they continue to blossom through mid-fall...and if you look at my earliest blog posts, this past year they even bloomed into winter. A gift of beauty that keeps on giving...
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