|
A
Rose for the Nose
Since my Mental Pause® column talks about bugs this month, I
thought it would be a good time to talk roses. And I’m going to
tell you some places to view them locally. And if you know of
some more, please do e-mail me back.
However, first, I will start with my own rose bush. And – no –
you cannot come over to see it.
My home is the site of one cherished rose bush named Tropicana.
The bush came with the house so it has to be at least 35 years
old. It is such a trooper. Since I can seldom bring myself to
prune it, it strains skyward each summer to unfurl its splendor.
Scraggly and infrequently watered, it has never ceased to amaze
me that it puts out a couple dozen pancake-sized blooms that
rival the succulence of an ocean sunset.
Now, 24 roses aren’t that much. I know that in my head because I
see bushes, during my walks and bike rides, which are so laden
with blooms that their owners can’t pinch them back fast enough.
So, to my chagrin, they lay on the ground, rotting.
But when a flower is in MY yard, it is an object of
unadulterated worship. I do, I freely admit, talk to my Secret
when she unfurls her yellow-tinged pink petticoats. And Gertrude
Jekyll (I’m not kidding, that’s the rose’s name) only gives me
half a dozen blooms but their purplish pink petals perfume the
air with the most heavenly scent.
Then there’s Fragrant Apricot. Oh, she’s a tangerine beauty!
Notice how I’m mentioning fragrance? It breaks my heart that
people seem to be planting and hybridizing more and more
unscented roses. I’ll take smell over longevity and bug
resistance any day. Just let me get at those aphids that green
my thumbs as I squish them.
Smell is the garden’s sensuality.
I’m in Nirvana once I don my scruffy straw hat and muddy
gardening gloves and get eye level with my garden. The golden
slant of light at summer’s eve illuminates my roses and makes
shojis of my lilies, smiling pansies, fading hydrangeas . . .
So, where do I go when I want to see roses? One place, which has
been written about ad infinitum, is St. John’s Chapel in
Monterey. There, against the wavy roof and weathered red boards
of the esteemed church is a modest, but beautifully variegated,
rose garden. And every rose is labeled.
If you want LOTS of roses, exactly one mile from the mouth of
Carmel Valley Road, next to Rancho Canada golf course, is
Community Church of the Monterey Peninsula. It is abundant with
neatly lines rose bushes of every fragrance and hue, all neatly
labeled. When the church is staffed the gate is open and all are
welcome. When the gate is closed for deer protection you can
still walk a meditation labyrinth there. And just down the road
a peck, past fields of Earthbound Farm’s organic blooms is the
most wonderful little Flower Farm, where you can pluck your own
roses and anything else that grows there in abundance.
Of course, take a walk in downtown Pacific Grove or Carmel and
you can be sated by roses in neatly tended gardens. And Carmel
Mission Basilica, where I first met artist Evgeny and Lydia
Baranov (also in my book), has ancient and glorious roses too.
Now that I think of it, my love of roses must date back to my
mother’s proper queen’s garden, with rows of delightful bushes
lining the spokes of gravel pathways in between them. She always
chose them for fragrance too . . ..
A little poem:
Garden, garden, garden
Pull weeds, work
Then rest in the flowers . . .
All answers will come.
- SCC
|
