The things we do to our homes are a kind of calling card left behind for those who are still to come. The improvements, the alterations, the color of the walls, the cut of the trim...they all say, “we were here.” There has been one constant in the many calling cards we left for the next inhabitants of the houses we owned: roses.
The rose is almost as old as history itself, with fossil evidence indicating it is over 35 million years old. Across the centuries, roses have been symbols of love, beauty, war and politics. For me, they are a tie to my maternal grandfather. He came to the United States from Italy in 1920 and began working as a gardener, which he did until his death in 1972. As a child, I recall visiting the estate he worked on in Montecito, CA. Filled with trees and plants of every kind, it was the perfect place for a kid to run and play.
The Rose Garden at Mission Santa Barbara is filled with a myriad color of roses. It is where I first saw David Austin Roses, planted near a stone wall which is a remnant of the Mission era. Introduced in 1969 by hybridizing already existing hybrids with old world species of typically English roses, David Austin built the foundation for an ever expanding collection of roses never seen before. Appealing forms of older species combined with the hardiness of modern hybrids produce a masterpiece of artfully arranged petals.
Who could have predicted one day I would work for Jackson & Perkins, one of the premier rose growing companies in the world? Or that one day David Austin himself would visit J&P in Medford and I would get the opportunity to meet him?
New job, new city, new home, and this house is no exception: there are seven calling cards in the yard, and five of them are from David Austin.
Biblical parables have their mustards, Johnny Appleseed spread his trail over the country, and Jack planted magical beans to find a beanstalk the next morning. We plant roses.
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