A freak of nature?

You can't tell from the picture, but these rose stems are over five feet tall. I didn't photograph the bottom of the plant, which is extremely ugly, and will be uglier still when I cut off the dead flower stalks. This rose put all its energy into making just four blooms, and now it's spent for the year. The poor guy has been trying to do the right thing in the wrong spot. His name (somewhat appropriately) is Caesar Chavez.

A person can grow roses for years and they still surprise. Some thrive in poor spots, then the ones you baby along with fertilizer and spray get all the sundry diseases of roses. I've decided it doesn't matter much what you do, it's what you start with. Some plants are naturally strong and healthy. My advice is to put the new ones on probation for a year or so, and if they don't measure up, you might as well dig them out.

We have an old climber called "Joseph's Coat" that I finally trained along the top of the fence. It is a orange/red color (some would say garish) that brightens up the street view of the house. The top looks healthy enough from the sidewalk, but on our side it's leafless from black spot. I keep it for sentimental reasons. We still laugh about when we bought it, because the rose "expert" at the nursery made a snide comment that it was pretty "if you like that sort of thing."

I can see why people give up on roses. Although a few glorious weeks in June make you forget the toil and trouble of growing them.

Here's a beautiful poem by Walter de la Mare:

When the Rose is Faded

When the rose is faded,
Memory may still dwell on
Her beauty shadowed,
And the sweet smell gone.

That vanishing loveliness,
That burdening breath,
No bond of life hath then,
Nor grief of death.

'Tis the immortal thought
Whose passions still
Makes the changing
The unchangeable.

Oh thus thy beauty,
Loveliest on earth to me,
Dark with no sorrow, shines
And burns, with thee.

Walter de la Mare