How did you become interested in roses? I love to ask people this question. After my first book was published, I asked it of myself. You see, I was rather stunned that I was now a published author and wondered how on earth it had happened. It took a while to piece together my initiation into the rose world. Here is the best way I have found to describe it-
Conference of the Roses
Four single (five petal) roses met and planned how to woo me. Here’s what they said:
“You, little white wild thing, greet Carolyn in a redwood forest as a long lost friend.”
“Rosa Californica, since you cover a vacant lot near her cottage, your fluttering pink single blooms, followed by fruity hips will really get her. Since she’s a back-to-nature type, she’ll probably harvest you for rose hip jelly.”
“When she returns home to visit Oregon, the sight of you, small-ivory-golden-centered-single, will thrill her. Your dive over that retaining wall will surly inspire her to take cuttings.”
“Irish Elegance, you will make the final play. She will be rocking her baby by the big window in her bedroom when she first notices your appearance. Your pointed orange buds will look like flames rising above the junipers,
when you open into 4-inch wide peach blooms, she’s done for.”
Hopefully the above reads as a fun story- to me- that’s exactly how I was introduced to roses. Singles were my first love.
Each part was magical to me.
Before long, a rental cottage provided a garden with more roses- there was a Tea similar to G. Nabonnand;
the Hybrid Tea Snowbird;
and a lovely Cecile Brunner shrub.
I learned about roses, and rose gardening as I cared for my garden-loving toddlers. All the roses shown here imbedded themselves in my consciousness, but they would have to stay put until our girls were in high school and I had closed my fashion business.
That’s also when we purchased our home. Its derelict garden was a wonderful blank canvas for the little Oregon girl with the ugly back yard.
