Lessons from a Rose

Anticipation is the imaginative leap which enables us to picture how a garden will look in ten, twenty, a hundred years’ time, and yet still relish the time in between. ~Katherine Swift in “The Morville Hours.”

July 19, 2022. Lessons from a Rose. The dappled morning sunlight plays on the fern frond hovering above the rose. I am paying my daily homage to our roses for their unrivaled beauty in the garden. They bless us with full, petal-filled blooms that smell floral fruity delicious or like sweet evening musk. They inspire a quiet thank you upward for this gorgeous creation. It is in the garden that everything comes together as it should, and you see the incredible beauty in this world through a lens. Just like a baby birthed from the smallest of seeds, so we see the same miracle when growing flowers. We plant the seeds and wait for them to grow into beautiful blooms. It is in the garden that you learn about the promise of life.

A few weeks ago, I spotted rose buds on a bare root rose planted a late in winter. Soon what had been several sticks attached to a root was covered in glossy leaves and pretty blooms all over. The patience was worth the end. Whenever something is planted it leaves a promise. To receive that promise care must be taken to tend the vessel the promise comes in. The rose bush didn’t look like much. In fact, it looked ugly with its 3 branches sticking out of the soil. However, faithfully I cared for it hopeful for the promise it had left. And now the beauty of faithfulness is revealed with the fragrant petals of nature’s garden queen.

As a gardener, little moments will occur that touch your heart with its natural beauty and lessons. You don’t just grow plants, you grow yourself. We have now moved several times with each season providing a new gardening adventure with new things to learn and new beauty to appreciate. The Alnwick rose at SomeTyme Place is a testament to this to this growth.

Lessons from a Rose.

Roses are my love, but nine years earlier when we moved to our mountain home, SomeTyme Place, I knew rose growing would be more challenging. So, when the order was placed for our first David Austin rose, the Alnwick Rose, it was with the calm acceptance that it might be in vain. For several years the bush modestly grew and reluctantly produced a handful of roses every summer. A few times I thought perhaps it was time to give the rose to a better home. But our last year living there, it happened- pink blooms burst all over the bush. The more I cut the more they bloomed. It was amazing! Beautiful things often need time, but the end rewards are worth the wait. This was an important lesson to learn and helped prepare me for our next home, Hidden Bluff, which would also require even more persistence and patience.

And currently as I acquaint myself with the landscape of Hidden Bluff the reality has dawned on me of the amount of work needed at Hidden Bluff to create that beautiful cottage garden- far more than SomeTyme Place. This has rather dampened my enthusiasm especially as I was still basking in the glow of the cottage garden that I had created over 8 years at SomeTyme Place. However, the page had turned, and my inner gardener kicked aside my groaning. The plain truth is that deep inside I know life happens and things change in spite of ourselves. And that every new garden is an exercise of faith and the rewards of patience and persistence. Little by little you build again, and the beauty is there growing bit by bit. And just like the rose, if faithful to nurture and care the promise will come.

Part of me wanted to dig it up the Alnwick Rose and take its beauty to enjoy Hidden Bluff, but some sense of internal justice wouldn’t let me. The Alnwick was a testament to hard work and perseverance at SomeTyme Place. So, it remains there as an altar to the journey. It stays to bless SomeTyme Place guests with its bountiful blooms.

Where we now live roses thrive inspiring me to order 10 rose bushes for Hidden Bluff. Of course, an Alnwick was one of them. It now sits outside our front door quickly sprouting up with its first buds reminding me of the importance of keeping on when creating beauty. It is a symbol of persistence even when groaning about the long road ahead and the wait for the promise that will come.

Have a beautiful day!