It sounds like they were using the dead cat as fertilizer, not unlike Massasoit (?) teaching the Plymouth colonists to plant corn with dead fish.

I'd say they weren't cat fans....

I've thought of burying my cats and planting a rose there in their honor, but I don't think this is the same thing.

Our dogs are all cremated, and own-root roses are planted on top of them.
Once, when we'd won a trophy with the climber, Sombreuil, someone asked
what we DID to it to get so much out of it.
Without even thinking, I replied:
"I buried a dog under it."

A dead silence ensued.

Jeri

I also thought that perhaps this cat had been very difficult and they finally found a use for it. It just shocked me that it seemed so callous and in this serious rose book---

Perhaps it was said "tongue in cheek"----

Jeri---that is so funny-----LOL I can just picture the dead silence---LOL

We have many of our pets buried with a plant over it for remembrance ----

Buford--I too got the impresion they were not cat lovers

I was reading this in the middle of the night when I was having trouble sleeping and I just kept reading it over and over.

It just didn't fit in a serious rose book---

I guess it was meant to be funny---

Florence

This brings to mind a passage in one of Gertrude Jekyll's books in which she ventured forth to plant some chrysanthemums (if memory serves) with gardener in tow carrying a live rabbit. He dug a nice large hole, broke the rabbit's neck, tossed it in the hole and proceeded to plant the chrysanthemum over it under Miss Jekyll's supervision. I gather this was before the days of MiracleGro......It may sound cruel but then how many of us are vegetarians?

Ingrid

Jeri wrote: "I buried a dog under it."

It reminds me of my favorite poet Robinson Jeffers, who buried the ashes of his beloved bulldog Haig in his rose-garden at Tor House in Carmel, when he also had his own ashes spread so he could become "part of the beauty".

His poem for Haig.

The House Dog's Grave

I've changed my ways a little; I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream; and you,
If you dream a moment,
You see me there.

So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
And you'd soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
The marks of my drinking-pan.

I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do
On the warm stone,
Nor at the foot of your bed; no,
All the nights through I lie alone.

But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet
Outside your window where firelight so often plays,
And where you sit to readÂ
And I fear often grieving for meÂ
Every night your lamplight lies on my place.

You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard
To think of you ever dying.
A little dog would get tired, living so long.
I hope that when you are lying
Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.

No, dears, that's too much hope:
You are not so well cared for as I have been.
And never have known the passionate undivided
Fidelities that I knew.
Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided...
But to me you were true.

You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures
To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,
I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.

So far, I've had my 3 cats who've died cremated. One was named Twilight and when I found out that Crepescule means Twilight in French, that's her rose. I still need one for Pindar and Sheba.

Oh, d*mnit Bill.
THAT set me off.
:-(

Jeri

All my cats have roses and when they move on to the next square, I bury them beside their roses, sometimes whole, sometimes cremated. I am still hoping someone has Kordes' Marlena (I haven't yet jumped thru the hoops to import it from Europe). Marlena is 20 yrs old. Meanwhile, I have Lili Marlene as a backup. Here's a poem I wrote for a kitten named Isaac who broke his back when he fell out of tree:

Isaac is buried beneath the rosemary bush
Rose Marie, bitter rose.

I go there sometimes with a watering can
to dampen his shrinking shroud of earth,
earthen altar,
that wouldn't accept a sheep in trade
because all blood is the same
and the grass grows just the same
and all that remains
is a milk tooth lost in a ball of yarn
and the seasons of Mary's rose.

I wandered all over the display gardens in Brenham at ARE, and finally selected Lady Hillingdon for my gentle, tender golden retriever Brady. There's a quality in dogs that's aptly called "soft" and that's what Brady was. I think in every lifetime there's one companion that is just special to us, and never to be forgotten. I keep moving, and when I move I plant Lady Hillingdon again. Then I'm home.

Just a note about what's available at the cemetery at Lynchburg VA. There's a quiet peaceful scattering area, for folks to scatter the ashes of their pets.
What a nice thing for folks who live there but don't own land.

Bill, that was a wonderful poem. I was quite moved. Thank you for posting it.

Rosefolly

I distinctly remember reading something similar by Liz Druit and Michael Shoup in their great book "Landscaping with Antique Roses." Somewhere in the book it says that a dead donkey is an effective way for fertilizing a large rose garden, or something to that effect. This was written more in jest by the authors but, I could see how this may be a good way of recycling a dead donkey, if you happen to have one at your disposal. This makes me wonder if all those old cemetery roses were able to survive for hundreds of years by nourishing themselves on decomposing corpses.

Jeff

Please forgive me if this takes the thread terribly off topic. But I hope you'll allow me to share Robinson Jeffers' poem anticipating his own end.

He too had his ashes spread in the rose-garden of his home on the Carmel point. Tor House is a magic spot BTW.

Jeffers was a poet of such astonishing greatness that it almost incomprehensible to me that, outside a devoted following, this giant of American poetry is today largely unknown. Sad really. Lost poets. Lost roses. How and why do we lose our culture?

Bill (who doesn't mean to be "depressing")

Inscription for a Gravestone

I am not dead, I have only become inhuman:
That is to say,
Undressed myself of laughable prides and infirmities,
But not as a man
Undresses to creep into bed, but like an athlete
Stripping for the race.
The delicate ravel of nerves that made me a measurer
Of certain fictions
Called good and evil; that made me contract with pain
And expand with pleasure;
Fussily adjusted like a little electroscope:
That's gone, it is true;
(I never miss it; if the universe does,
How easily replaced!)
But all the rest is heightened, widened, set free.
I admired the beauty
While I was human, now I am part of the beauty.
I wander in the air,
Being mostly gas and water, and flow in the ocean;
Touch you and Asia
At the same moment; have a hand in the sunrises
And the glow of this grass.
I left the light precipitate of ashes to earth
For a love-token.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tor House Foundation

Isn't it wonderful how we can learn something new everyday---
Bill---the poems touched me deeply --thanks so much for sharing them with us----

I guess we all have beloved pets buried near us---I know I do so I can visit them.

This post has shared some wonderful thoughts .

Bill thanks again for the poem about the dog----You touched me.

Florence

Thank you Florence, I'm pleased.

I must tell you I've been moved reading of your story. My wife Carole had a hip replacement surgery about 3 years ago, following the birth of our son. She was only 36. As a young child surgeons had basically "created" a left hip for her with a series of surgeries. This served her quite well over the years, but finally the cartilage wore away and she was faced with the torture of crippling bone on bone pain.

It was quite difficult to see the woman I love in such pain. And it has made me quite sensitive to people who have suffered with hip-pain.

While I have not mentioned it, I have on numerous occasions sent good thoughts for you out into the universe when I read your struggles. I only wish I was able to come plant roses in the sunny part of your yard. I really do.

I should mention Carole is doing quite well with the new hip. It took awhile (longer than we had figured) for her to fully rebound, and there are times when she can feel the rod, or she feels aches. Still, compared with the alternative, the hip replacement has been a miracle.

I wish you peace,

Bill (who would prefer discussing almost anything other than DEAD CATS)

Bill, thank you for taking the time to post those lovely poems. Very moving. I will read more work by Robinson Jeffers.
Thank you.

Not to be a master of the obvious, but The Old Rose Advisor is essentially a compendium of historical observations on roses derived from many sources with each source identified. Brent, I presume, included every quote he could find on each rose without regards to its apparent "tongue in cheek" message.

Note also that "Very useful and very glorious in spring-the Cl. American Beauty reposed in luxury less than a foot above the body of a finally useful cat that had been run over on the highway" is a concatenation of two quotations.

"Very useful and very glorious in spring." is from the American Rose Annual from 1928 and "The 'Climbing American Beauty' reposed in luxury less than a foot above the body of a finally useful cat that had been run over on the highway" is from ARA 1925.

The Old Rose Advisor and The Old Rose Adventurer are both "serious" rose books and are essential references for the rose enthusiast.

Artemis, I particularly recommend you seek out some of Jeffers' "epic poems". This form is where he made his true mark. Most are set in the Big Sur-Carmel coast and have the power and form of Greek tragedy.

Warning. His writing are extremely powerful, and can include controversial and upsetting themes including incest, murder and the like. This is not literature for the faint of heart. However, it is work of such absolute genius, you will no doubt wonder how he was written out of our history.

Short answer. He got cranky as he aged and took a rather "reactionary" position against American involvement in WWII. And he took some scathing swipes at FDR. In those "patriotic" times he committed literary suicide.

Still his writing are there to find, and well worth discovering. I last read "The Loving Shephardess", a late and terrible sad epic. But so many good ones.

Bill

Oh, what a lovely thread it turned out to be. Having recently lost a sweet furry baby, I am even more touched by the testaments and poetry to sweet lovable fur babies than I might normally be which is enough, to say the least, but this made me realize how fortunate we are to have such sweet babies who do not expect to live forever but who probably cherish our friendship as much as we do theirs but we can never repay them; they do not live long enough. My 12-year-old Persian is beginning to show signs of aging. The one we just lost was 20. This one does not seem to have the stamina of the one we just lost, but if and when this one passes in my lifetime, I will not get another. I do not see how it would be fair as I would like an animal to live at least 15-20 years and I cannot promise or even hope to promise one that much of my life and why should I get one to abandon to someone who might not care. That would be so very unfair.

Yes, this thread has been amusing and touching, thanks for the poems and the thoughts of furry friends (and the quote from the Old Rose Advisor that kicked things off).

Talk of hip replacements makes me think of my niece, whose juvenile arthritis led to a replacement at age 25 - hope that you are recovering well, Florence, and have regained mobiity and lost the terrible pain. Bill, I hope that your wife's surgery was successful, too. My niece has done very well, and is a busy mother of two.

Talk of not getting another pet, Patricia, makes me think of my mother's cat, Fred, whom she was utterly convinced would outlive her. I don't know how many times she tried to make me promise to have him put to sleep when she no longer could care for him, but I never made such a promise, of course. Fred now rests between the two blue spruces outside my mother's bedroom window - she outlived him, after all, and she misses her lovely companion even as she enters her 90s. I've resolved to go on getting pets throughout my life, no matter what my age, because the good that you do for each other is all that matters.
Anita

Thank you, Anita, I liked what you had to say. We invest so much in our animal babies, but not nearly as much as they give back to us. I think we were meant for each other - at any and all ages. And though I had never thought of it before, a beautiful rose garden is a very suitable place for such a loved one.

Sherry