The joys – and frustrations –of growing roses

There’s an old saying among rosarians that “he who would grow beautiful roses must have beautiful roses in his heart.”

And, I would add, the patience of a saint and the stubbornness of Harry Truman of Spirit Lake.

I care for about 60 of my own roses and another 80 or 90 at St. Rose Catholic Church. I love them all, but my affection for the “Queen of Flowers” has aspects of a love/hate relationship.

Many a spring day I have cursed the rainy skies as I clipped away mushy blossoms that were rotted by rain. Southwest Washington’s soggy springs often ruin much of the year’s first flush of flowers.

This spring so far has been an exception, with sunny skies and warm temperatures. But the weather is often fickle: One August we had record rain that wiped out the entire late summer bloom.

Too much sun can be equally damaging. When the mercury soars above 90 degrees, rose blossoms wilt and burn.

Then of course there is the battle against bugs and fungal disease, although by smart practices I have dramatically reduced the need for spraying and gone largely organic.

I’ve gotten close to apoplectic over all these “challenges” that nature sends my way. Fanatic rosarians sometimes go to absurd lengths to protect potentially prize-winning show roses, such as tethering individual blossoms with mini umbrellas.

I don’t grow roses for the show table. Yet I’ve considered building a retractable roof over my own garden, which has the footprint of a small basketball court. I’ve abandoned the plans after asking myself whether such extraordinary measures are worth it. Accepting things I cannot change is a lesson in humility, and that’s one way roses give back far more than they demand.

The kaleidoscopic abundance of color, and the old-world, grandmotherly scent of a rose garden in bloom is a sensory experience that should be the exclusive pleasure of the gods.

A rose garden is a walk through history. Roses have been around for 35 million years. No other flower has been so entwined with human history as the rose. The Romans were fanatics about it. Muslims and Christians have adored it (the five petals of a wild rose symbolizing the five wounds of Christ on the cross). Breeders have hybridized thousands of new cultivars and given them names that could be the basis of a class on human civilization.

Entrepreneurs, politicians, generals, performers, wives, lovers, poets, popes and mythological figures have all been immortalized through rose names.

From our garden, there is “Mr. Lincoln,” a velvet red with potent aroma introduced around the centennial of the president’s assassination in 1865. There is “Peace,” introduced at the end of World War II. “Madam d’Arblay,” a profuse white rambler named after the early English novelist Francis Burney, smothers a pergola. “Kazanlik,” an old damask rose grown in Bulgaria to make perfume, was a favorite until it succumbed last year. In Saudi Arabia, “Kazanlik” is fertilized with camel dung: So camel poop is transformed into the world’s finest perfume. As sportscaster Al Michaels exclaimed: “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” My garden also is a family memorial of sorts. “Garden Party,” a canary yellow, is there in honor of my dear late grandmother. “Madame Isaac-Pereire” — a late 19th century cultivar — honors my father. It’s an intense pink rose with powerful scent. It’s both loved and spurned by rosarians, some of whom object to its awkward growth habit and brazen color. What better way to remember my dad than with a rose as controversial and “out there” as he was?

As I care for my roses, my mind often drifts back to these people and innumerable and forgotten individuals who labored to create beauty. Creating beauty should be one of our purposes in life, should it not, even if it comes at great difficulty?

Roses prove that some of the hardest things to achieve give the greatest rewards. •••

Award winning journalist Andre Stepankowsky is a former reporter and editor for The Daily News. His CRR columns spring from his many interests, including hiking, rose gardening, music, and woodworking. More of his writing is available through his online newsletter on substack.com by searching for “Lower Columbia Currents.”