This photo was made today, March 27, 2008, after I weeded the flower bed and added pine bark mulch.
This antique rose can be traced back to Savannah, GA, in the early 1800's. An 80-year-old friend in Albany,GA gave me a cutting from her rose bush to root in 1992, and I have rooted dozens and given them away. My friend said she got a cutting from her great grandmother's homeplace in Savannah many years ago. That's how old it is.
I rooted 5 rose bushes when we moved to our present home in 2004. Can you believe these 5 big bushes were 12" cuttings only 4 years ago. They are just beginning to leaf out.
In this photo you see the same bushes in bloom on May 1, 2007. They look like cabbage roses when they open up, and smell so sweet. The stems are covered with "fierce" thorns that can really stick you.
The third photo is a close up of the flowers in bloom last May. I like to cut bouquets and give them away and also place some inside our house.
And the nicest part about these roses are that I am reminded of my friend Sara who is now 96 and living in Jupiter, FL. We got to know her very well during a flood in Albany, GA in 1994 when we were assigned (by our church) to help her with her flooded house, etc. Her husband had died just 3 months before the flood and they had no children. We spent about a year helping her get her beautiful home restored, filling our paper work, etc. She was a golfer and played regularly until the flood and the death of her husband.
So you see why I smile when I look at the roses in bloom and memories of my friend come back to me.
This antique rose can be traced back to Savannah, GA, in the early 1800's. An 80-year-old friend in Albany,GA gave me a cutting from her rose bush to root in 1992, and I have rooted dozens and given them away. My friend said she got a cutting from her great grandmother's homeplace in Savannah many years ago. That's how old it is.
I rooted 5 rose bushes when we moved to our present home in 2004. Can you believe these 5 big bushes were 12" cuttings only 4 years ago. They are just beginning to leaf out. In this photo you see the same bushes in bloom on May 1, 2007. They look like cabbage roses when they open up, and smell so sweet. The stems are covered with "fierce" thorns that can really stick you.
The third photo is a close up of the flowers in bloom last May. I like to cut bouquets and give them away and also place some inside our house.
And the nicest part about these roses are that I am reminded of my friend Sara who is now 96 and living in Jupiter, FL. We got to know her very well during a flood in Albany, GA in 1994 when we were assigned (by our church) to help her with her flooded house, etc. Her husband had died just 3 months before the flood and they had no children. We spent about a year helping her get her beautiful home restored, filling our paper work, etc. She was a golfer and played regularly until the flood and the death of her husband.So you see why I smile when I look at the roses in bloom and memories of my friend come back to me.
