Posts Tagged ‘garden’

A Rose is a Rose

In case you’re tired of hearing my rants about inside v. outside, trees v. buildings — here’s another take on “nature” from my good friend and wonderful writer, Bette Lamb. Thanks for this fragrant, beautiful piece, Bette.

ROSE FEVER

by Bette Lamb

I’m a rose geek. I love them all.

Like the mixtures of people that inhabit the earth, there is no one race, one color that is the most beautiful. We are like a rose-filled garden. Exquisite!
“A rose, is a rose, is a rose.”

I think Gertrude Stein really was a closet rose geek, informing us that merely saying the word rose could encompass everything wondrous and elegant in life. What more need be said, when the word rose says it all?
People? Trees, plants, roses. We’re all alive and vibrant for such a short span of time. And for roses, that interlude is gone in the blink of an eye. But in that moment of existence, they are all ravishing. Every single one.

Yes, I am a rose geek.

What is it about that gorgeous creation? A flower that exists with a wild palette of colors that can make my heart soar every single time I walk into my garden. As I slide by thorns that sometimes glide over my skin, sometimes puncture and hurt, I’m forced from a dreamy state of mind into the reality, the duality of good and evil, the duality of life. Things that are pure can be polluted, beauty can turn ugly, friendships can sour, love can die or turn to hate, or fear.

Many complain about the work it takes to maintain roses. The constant deadheading (I have over fifty roses bushes, so you know I’m busy), and I know the hardest chore is being right there in the early spring ‒ long after the massive job of pruning ‒ watching each plant carefully to catch that moment when a thumbnail spike of green magically pops out from the stems. It’s then I can lay down nitrogen-filled alfalfa pellets that will nourish the earth and my roses. It’s critical. It all has to be done before that spike opens and leafs out or you’ve missed a golden opportunity. And sometimes I do miss that exact moment. But that’s another thing about roses; they’re forgiving. If I’m off in my timing and toss the pellets anyway, everything still seems to work out and I end up with an eye full of the most gorgeous flowers you can image.

They must love me, too.

If you came into my garden and shared those precious moments, you could feel the passion that I and so many others feel when they see this incredible creation we call a rose. Watch people’s eyes light up when you bring them a bouquet right from your own piece of land, your own secret garden. Have you noticed? If you have one or two blossoms that have nose-flaring aromas, every single person experiences instant rapture; even the most cynical among us. It’s hard to resist a ravishing rose staring you in the face. And that’s the rapture I feel when I walk into my garden, particularly at this time of year. My senses swim in a kaleidoscope of color, and I am dazzled, I simply can’t take it all in at once — the different shapes, the reds, the pinks, the yellows.

And the aromas?
Even the ones that don’t have an odor, have a freshness that surrounds you and makes you feel your primal connection to the earth. Every single rose calls out to you and makes you want to stop. And right there in the mix of it all is the miracle of the bees flitting back and forth, sometimes stopping to look at you as if you were a flower. Maybe it’s silly, but they seem to like me hanging out among them as they do their massive job—‒a job that helps to preserve life on our planet.

There are many people in the world who aren’t rose geeks, garden geeks, plant geeks like me. And so many who continue to take for granted all the living wonders of our diverse planet—the same people who never look up at the trees or admire the beauty that the struggle for life creates. But when they smile at single rose, I feel hope.
Someday they’ll understand.
Do you think they will?

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BETTE GOLDEN LAMB has developed parallel careers as an RN, writer, sculptor, and ceramist. Her art works can be found in a number of galleries and in private collections nationally. Bette, unmistakably from the Bronx, says that’s a clue as to why she loves to write dark and gritty thrillers. She has co-authored, with husband J. J., six crime novels, four in the Gina Mazzio RN medical thriller series. She’s also under contract for a stand-alone, Rx Deferred  — a  near-future medical thriller, scheduled to appear in late 2014.