OK, It's hilarious NOW in retrospect.

When DH and I first started out rustling for old roses, we were as naive as we were enthusiastic. We searched for old treasures everywhere, especially in unkempt old cemeteries and abandoned homesites. Soon we had a bit of a reputation around town of adopting any rose so long as it was old and free. DH owns our local hardware store in our very small (and nosy) town and has been there for 33 years so everyone knows him. At times that is a good thing. Pretty soon folks started offering him suckers, cuttings, or even entire bushes of what they considered to be pesky, once-blooming 'weeds' (because let's face it, most people don't appreciate the beauty of the old roses the way we do.) To many, these bushes were nuisances and were either chopped down, mowed over or in extreme cases, burned or poisoned. That horrified me. But you know those old-time roses....they don't give up that easily and folks were more than happy for us to take any or all of whatever remained of those stray suckers that kept popping up.

We had taken some suckers of a wonderful pink moss rose from a man whose very old home was being rebuilt and its crumbling cement foundation being repoured. The roses had been growing up against the foundation and the rest of them had to go. There amongst the moss roses was a large unidentified rosebush whom the man reassured us was very old; however he could not recall the blooms because honestly, he never paid that much attention. He couldn't even remember the color. Since the house was old and the moss roses turned out to be such a wonderful find, we felt it our mission to save this equally wonderful and mysterious old rose, even though we did not know its identity. It pained me to think it had survived all those years despite neglect and indifference, only to be bull-dozed and discarded.

So armed with a shovel and a pail and not much in the brains department, DH and I started digging out the rosebush that promised to be our monster treasure. (Monster being an understatement.) In our defense, if indeed we have one, it was late in the season and the leaves were gone and it was just lots of healthy canes. It looked marvelous and very old judging by the immense size of it. I gave up digging immediately and DH who is armed with giant muscles was sweating and swearing as he struggled to dig down around a massive taproot the size of a good-sized dog. I swear that thing was bigger around than my waist. It was enormous and went down to infinity. It was so deep that DH had to chop

it off at about the 3 foot deep mark with an axe. It most certainly was not going to fit in the pitiful 5-gallon bucket we had innocently brought along to put it in. DH has a truck he uses for hauling outdoor equipment like tractors, so he left me with the monster rose to go get the truck. It took both of us to lift that thing up and get it onto the truck. We were dirty, exhausted, and jubilant that we were the proud owners of such a venerable old rosebush. We took great care in planting it in our garden, pruning it back, and giving it the best of everything. All winter long we speculated and dreamed about what wonderful old rose it could be. Maybe it was an obscure rose that only we were fortunate enough to find. We have come across many that I have never seen in books that we consider ourselves lucky to have in our gardens. If indeed this was something rare and special, all that sweating and those pulled muscles would be worth it.

It did not bloom the summer after. It put out some leaves but not much in the way of growth but we were patient with it because after all, it had been through a lot of trauma. (As had we.) I started joking with DH that it was 'probably Dr. Huey' and not an old rose after all. We both laughed nervously. The leaves were just a bit too glossy and I had this nagging feeling that it was none other than the old rootstock, Dr. Huey. But without flowers, there was still the chance it was something else.

So we tried to keep our hopes alive.

The second summer, we were out there every day watching and hoping for buds. When at long last there magically appeared a few buds we ached for them to open, checking them at regular intervals of a hundred times a day. Then soon there appeared the undeniable red glow of the bud which made our hearts sink. Our wonderful monster of a rose was none other than the good doctor.

At first, we felt like ripping it out of the ground but then realized that wasn't possible....it had only grown huger. Now it was the size of a small pony. There was NO way we were going through THAT again. Next we felt like chopping it down out of our sense of betrayal. How dare it be some ordinary rootstock after all that we had suffered, hoped and dreamed? We had saved its life, and for all that we were rewarded with three dark red blooms of a despised, suckering rootstock. But if we chopped it down, it would only arise from the dead like a phoenix, stronger than ever. What could we do?

When all hope is lost, the next logical thing to do is laugh. We laughed and laughed and we are still laughing.

We had to laugh at our foolish hopes, our ignorance, our sensational adventure with the shovel and the truck. If we got rid of Dr. Huey, then we would be getting rid of a part of our rose-growing experience that is the substance of great story-telling. WHO but us would suffer so greatly and try so valiantly to save Dr. Huey? Only someone who believes that all living things have a purpose.

And Dr. Huey's purpose.....?

To make us laugh and not take life too seriously.

BTW, we look forward to those dark red blooms again this year but we're not expecting much. I think in total there were a half-dozen blooms on that gigantic bush. Dr. Huey is here to stay, blackspot and all.

Celeste