Mom’s rose is
clearly visible from my kitchen window.
I planted it where I could see it daily, regardless of the season.
The two of us, the rose and I, lived in temporary circumstances for
quite a while before we were each given a place to call “home,” a place to put
down our roots and become established.
The rose bush spent several years in a large container; I had lived with
a daughter and her family before passing through several apartments on my pathway
to permanency.
A surprise
gift, my father gave me the rose bush after Mom passed away. A start from her favorite rose, it was just a
tiny thing, rooted from a stem he cut and placed in the ground. Dad was a farmer, not a gardener. That he took the time and made the effort to
propagate a rose cutting with me in mind makes it that much more meaningful.
Given the
length of time civilization has been in existence on this earth, the advent of
nurseries and garden centers where flowers, plants, shrubs, and trees are
readily available for purchase has been a recent development.
Prior to that,
plant sharing and seed exchanges between neighbors and friends were the foundation
of gardens. Often a cutting, usually a
stem, leaf, or root was cut from a plant and placed either in water or moist
soil to promote growth. Perhaps a shrub
was rooted by simple layering--bending and burying a low-growing branch in the
ground or the roots of perennial flowers were separated, divided, and shared. Scions, branches cut from fruit trees, were
either placed in a planting medium where they took root or grafted onto trees, the
beginnings of new orchards or expansion of existing ones. Vegetable and flower plants were allowed to
fully mature, the seedpods removed, saved, and exchanged. In generations past, century upon century,
they were the methods used for proliferation of house plants, vegetable and flower
gardens, and orchards.
What is it
about gifted plants, either starts, seeds, or plants which come from another
that make them special? Over the years
my own garden has been filled with them: daffodil bulbs given by an aunt, a mother, a grandmother;
an intoxicatingly fragrant daphne odora, the
cutting taken one Sunday morning after church by my mother from one at my
childhood church home, placed in a little container of water on the kitchen
window sill and rooted; a Joseph’s Coat climbing
rose transplanted from my daughter’s garden; raspberry starts from my father’s
patch; a peony root given by an elderly client, just before she passed away; a
hearty fuchsia shrub from my mother-in-law, its origins going back to her
ancestral home. There are plenty of
plantings in my garden gifted by a friend whose own garden has to meet a
deer-proof criterion. When the deer
ignored the deer-resistant plant list, I was the recipient of several of her
shrubs.
Nurseries are
filled with plants, shrubs, and trees to buy, but none carry the emotional
importance of those which have been given, shared, passed down. Gardens are a living thing, always a work in
progress. For me, gifted plants carry
with them a sense of the one who gave them to me. When I tend those plants and shrubs shared by
friends and family, I am reminded of them, their presence, and their role in my
life. As I look out the window at my
beautiful rose with its stunning blooms, I do not see just a plant, I see
“Mom’s rose,” and I remember those who bore me, raised me, loved me, and who
are no longer on this earth. What a
gift, in plain view from my kitchen window.
This past fall,
I took several cuttings from that same rose bush, placed them in soil, and
covered them with plastic containers. At
Christmas time, after checking for roots, they were lovingly transplanted into
containers prepared with beautiful, composted soil and given to each of my four
children. In this first summer of life,
there are reports of blooms. Mom’s rose
has been perpetuated to bring pleasure to her grandchildren. Living gifts from the past, carried forward
into the future.
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