Great read, thanks!

I'm glad you liked it! It made me feel really good about our community here and all the different ones we grow in :)

Lovely read, but a somewhat sad ending. :(

I enjoyed reading that, thanks for sharing :)

It's so wonderful to see healthy, everyday things like gardening reflected in and reflected upon in art. I'm glad y'all liked the essay. SoFL Rose, it is kind of sad that in the end he left his roses behind, but one could also interpret it as giving them a life of their own, without him. Though I'm sure many of us would have been glad to take guardianship of a rugosa or two. I know I might not always be able to have a garden, but for now I can't even think of letting my plants go. I can barely stand watching their flowers fade; I've been pressing the petals into books, and even then only after the blooms are well-spent. Maybe one day my plants can be like the flowery, feisty monsters that Chee (and sometimes you guys) imagine them to be!

Yes, I wonder what the Voodoo rose is. Nice peace.

K S and farmerduck, we should ask him on twitter! I hear he's very nice and approachable.

Wow, his autobiography is good by the time I was reading parts about bones and all...I was so into it.

I wonder if he ever go back and see his roses. I meant see them :)

Jin

Yes, it really makes you think about all the energy we put into our roses, not just the labor, but the feelings that come up when we're growing them. I also wonder if he's ever gone back to see his roses, the way people might sometimes with homes they have special memories from. With NYC, though, I dunno...

Rosario , I have a very good friend with same name as yours but Rosario is his first name. My friend is from Sicily, Italy.

Lovely name.

Yes, pls tweet n find out. I am also curious. I also wonder if he still grow roses now :)

Jin

Lol okay I have tweeted about it and tagged him, and he has liked the tweet, so I added your question as well :D

His reply is attached to the second tweet he was tagged in. What a lovely person! I'm going to go hide under my plants now and pretend I didn't just bug a famous writer about gardening stuff lololololol

I love this story too. Just what we need right now.

@Shiela

Thanks for reminding me cause I just re read it again. Yes, I agree with you. Just what we need right now.

Oh what a wonderful essay!

Thank you so much for sharing, @f.rosario margate !

Good story. And, I'm still wondering what the climber is.

I enjoyed reading this. Thanks for sharing. If you haven’t already read Michael Pollan’s start in rose growing, I found it enjoyable also: https://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/into-the-rose-garden/

@noseometer...(7A, SZ10, Albuquerque) Oh I love it! So witty, thoughtful, and beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

@noseometer...(7A, SZ10, Albuquerque) Hm, quite a lot of talk about GMB's resemblance to the... thigh... of a nymph. 🙄 lol. I guess I'm unimaginative, but when searching photos of it on HMF a few months ago I didn't find myself getting hot and bothered over its supposed resemblance to the female anatomy 🤪

@Mischievous Magpie (CO 5b) yeah. i just skipped over those parts. I liked the part ”PREPARING A BED FOR ROSES IS A LITTLE LIKE getting the house ready for the arrival of a difficult old lady, some biddy with aristocratic pretensions and persnickety tastes.” and then all the worrying about how difficult he expected rose growing to be…and the history…and then how blown away he was when his first blooms appeared. Been there, done that. I do find that roses are sensual, in that they stimulate te senses: sight and smell of course, but also touch (thorns), taste (if you go there), and to a lesser extent sound (bees). But I wouldnt go into the areas that he does. i assumed he wrote those few paragraphs to get a rise out of people (no pun intended) or to get a chuckle. Or maybe just as an illustration of how deeply people get into their rose obsession.

@Mischievous Magpie (CO 5b) @noseometer...(7A, SZ10, Albuquerque)

Lol, I agree the comparison with a thigh can sound weird, but it's not totally random, although it is perhaps a slightly pedantic reference.

In French, Great Maiden's Blush is called "Cuisse de Nymphe": litteraly, Nymph's Thigh. That is still the name used in commerce today in France.

https://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.4071.7

Yes, I did understand that from the article. I just don't see what so many other people agree that they see in those blooms and was being cheeky about it.

Oh! I didn't go back and read it, and I didn't remember he had explained it. Ugh, I guess I shouldn't post when it's late at night!

@seasiderooftop 🙃 how's your bulb lasagne going?

Good thanks ! The second layer is starting to burst through the surface as well now, it looks ike a volcano and I am starting to worry I may have packed too many bulbs in there! Heh we'll see! I'll post a picture in the seasonal thread soon.