What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Dedicated rosarian? Rose admirer? Rose curious?
If roses make you swoon or simply leave you wondering why they make so many others swoon, this lecture is for you. Think roses are too fussy? Too disease prone? Too much work? Afraid roses may be above your gardening capabilities? Yep, this talk is for you, too.
Roses get a bad rap.
I know many garden designers who mostly shun roses from their designs. Some practically run away at the thought of them, fearing that they will prove the weak link in whatever beautiful plans they have created for their clients’ gardens. A few years ago I was walking a garden with a garden magazine editor who turned to me suddenly and asked, outright, “So, what’s with you and all the roses?” He was mystified that I photographed so many rose stories for other publications and nonplussed that I could consider them worthy of adoration and dedicated storytelling, at all.
So roses have a reputation for being difficult and sometimes more trouble than they’re worth in a garden… But, seriously, how many other plants can you think of that can survive, even thrive for decades in some abandoned graveyard? Roses are tough and tenacious. Sure, some of them will break your heart in a given year, but how is that any different from tomatoes, or peonies? You don’t hear anyone talking about not growing them.
Roses are many things to many people. They feed the eyes, delight the nose. Roses come in all shapes and sizes, provide wild sweeps of color and texture. In my humble experience, many roses are anything but fussy.
Prepare to be delighted and surprised. Prepare to feel vindicated and perhaps, better understood.
Storyteller/photographer, David Perry has dedicated a great deal of time photographing in some profoundly inspiring rose gardens, and even more in gardens that simply embrace roses as members of a much larger and more complex garden family. He grows nearly fifty different roses in his own Seattle garden without any pesticides and believe me, no one would ever think to call his garden a rose garden. Instead, it is a garden with roses that grow quite happily in and among an abundance of other shrubs, trees, grasses and plants.
A Rose By Any Other Name; if nothing else, this lecture promises to get your group talking.
