Rose - - The Queen for All the World Flowers

For me Rose is the queen of all flowers. Slowly I plant more Roses in my garden even though I am unable to thin thread among the plants that are already spreading widely in every corner of the garden. I am already aware of the sad status quo between me and the space: “No More.” To calm myself I secretly plan to set up a Rose garden on the soil of my neighbor. I am sorry to say that this plan will be accomplished only at the beginning of 2011. At this time I will, also, add one more climbing Rose to my garden. In my imagination it is already climbing on the top of the arbor above the gate on the right side of the house. I have enough time, about six month, to ask Amos to build the arbor for me and at the same time to make him believe that it is his idea in the first place.


The Roses in my garden enjoyed the 2010 rainy winter. The first flowers bloomed on April 17.





Now a month later they are ablaze even though I already have to trim the old flowers. I walk with the pruning shears and clean the fading flowers. I collect the tiny branches in a pail. I look at the pail down and the pile grows high. I look up at the Rose bushes and there is no sign for vanishing flowers, more and more buds open and fill the crown of the queen of flower.









The bed floors are covered with fresh petals. Walking through the short trail to our home is like walking in a delicate unseen cloud of the sweetest perfume on earth.







Our first experience with planting roses here in Palo Alto was twenty years ago. Today our yard is divided to the old yard and the new yard. In our old yard, the previous tenants, the Millers, left a bed with four beautiful fragrant Roses in the backyard. We planted different red roses in the front yard bed and Rose bushes in the backyard. All of the plants are now full with flowers and fragrance. I never cut the flowers, but Amos brought me two flowers and I enjoy their sweet perfume around the kitchen table. The southern fence of our old yard is covered poorly with light pink climbing roses. Too much pruning probably was bad for them. I do not know the name tags of the roses in the old yard.
The most exciting rose show is in our new yard. When I started planting the roses unfortunately I did not kept record of their names. Hopefully I will slowly search and find their names.
Some of the ancestors of the roses in my garden are mini roses sold at piazza food market for decorating the table at home. Once the flowers faded I planted the mini rose in the garden. Few grew up and forgot they were once mini roses. Here is one that turned into a climbing rose.

Our Gargage door is decorated with two climbing red roses. The climb slowly above a beautiful arbor made by Amos when we just moved into the house. I got the two climbing roses from my friend Mindle who shares my love for Roses.

The most beautiful climbing rose in the garden is trying with great success to welcome who ever go through the southern gate to our garden.












You can read in many web sites and in many books about the Rose. The Wikipedia has beautiful pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose
Lately I bought most of my roses, bare roots, from Jackson and Perkins
http://www.jacksonandperkins.com/gardening/GP/homepage/GardenRoses
Some time when I am not lazy I drive across the Dumbarton Bridge to Regan Nursery in Fremont.
http://www.regannursery.com/
I love paging through the Jackson and Perkins catalogue. When I go to the Regan Nursery I take the catalogue with me. I slowly stroll among the hundreds of Roses, read their names, search for their character in the catalogue, and debate with myself and with Amos which one to buy. Our last visit to Regan was about a month ago. The new Rose we purchased was Salsa.



Many yards in Palo Alto now in May 2010 are exploding with blooms of Roses.

Writing the blog stirred me up to look for legends, stories and poems about the flowers in my garden. Roses are subject of an infinite number of books, essays, poems and legends.
Last night while writing the blog I enjoyed reading Oskar Wilde's story "The Nightingale and the Rose"
http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/wilde/330/