Great Grandma's Rosebush

I like to garden.

Not that I'm really any good at it, but my front lawn is green and has interesting plants. I couldn't really tell you what most of them are, but they have color and I like them.

The most important one, of course, is what I'm going to tell you about.

{pause to comfort fussy child}

OK, he's asleep.

Way back when, my Great Grandmother had a rosebush. This is, oh, 75 years or so ago, as far as I can figure. She gave my *other* Great Grandmother a cutting to start in her own yard, and this cutting grew into a gorgeous bush. The rose has yellow/peach/pink blooms on it and is absolutely gorgeous. In fact, you can see a picture of this rose below. At the time of the picture, the rose had not recieved any care, water, NOTHING for around 20 years. This is amazing, considering we live in a desert that gets around 9 inches of moisture a year.

SO, I took it upon myself to SAVE THIS ROSE! For about 5 years, I tried "rose rustling" the silly thing, which is to say, I faithfully cut branches from it and tried to root them at my home, with dismal failure every time. Finally, I found out who owned the property, and called to see if I could have the rose. No luck. He said "Well, people like to take cuttings off it all the time so I don't want to lose it". Heh.

SO, I settled for just digging up one shoot from the rose, and voila, I had me a start of this amazing flower. So I planted it, and it sprouted and grew canes, wonderful, long, graceful canes, and put out beautiful, heavenly blossoms. YAY! Then, it put out more canes and more blossoms, and as a result, more thorns. And it drooped over my sidewalk and attacked people as they tried to come visit me. The carnage was ghastly.

SO, grudgingly, I decided the rose needed to be moved. The next spring, I dug it up and moved it to my backyard, where it promptly leafed out, and even more promptly, lost all it's leaves. All summer, I fed, watered, and TLC'd it, to no avail. The poor thing was naked all summer, but green and not brittle.

So, worried about my precious rose, I dug it up last autumn, potted it, and brought it inside, still leafless, but alive. I managed to keep it alive, but leafless all winter, until one day, it finally gave up the ghost and died. Let me tell you, I was so bummed! I worked hard to get that rose, with all it's sentimental value.

But wait! There is a happy ending! A few weeks ago, I was preparing my front flower bed, where that rose used to be, for my spring plantings, and lo and behold, there was what looked like a tiny rose shoot growing up next to my foundation. It took me a couple of days to figure out what itw as, but gosh dang if that rose didn't come back up from the remnants of roots that I left after it was transplanted last year. WOOHOO! YIPPEE! HAPPY DAY! So that's the story of my rose, which is staying in that front planter no matter how many visitors it eats.


This is a picture of my Great Grandmother's rosebush in front of the house she lived in. As you can see, it's been sadly neglected for many years. Our family no longer owns the property it sits on.