Growing fair roses and tender children*

When I wrote about my flower garden recently, built by friendships, my youngest daughter pointed out I had left out her rose bush.

Doreen, at a much younger age, pointing to our lovely red tulips.

True. I felt it was a separate story, one that I am equally proud of, but it deserved its own post.

I could say that Doreen has always shown an interest in nature and flowers but then, all of my girls love flowers and will one day likely be even more knowledgeable and eager in this department than me.

Top to bottom: Michelle, 8; Tanya, 6;  Doreen, 3.

But Doreen was the one to bargain for a little flower garden of her own, and even purchased and planted her own rose bush sometime while she was in middle or high school. I was always worried I didn’t have a green enough thumb to grow roses, but she plunged right in.

The first home for the rose bush. It had a nice rustic look, but too shady. I always wondered about the age/history on those old wagon wheels we inherited with the place, but never found out.

After we planted the rose, we realized it needed more sun than the shady nook behind a garden shed provided, so we moved it behind the house.

I warned her that it might not survive the move, but she wanted to try it anyway. Over the years I had planted many different flowers there, trying to figure out what worked best. The white rose bush flourished, and my daughter dug up this photo from her collection.

When we moved to our current home in 2007, of course the white rose bush moved along, I believe the only plant which we brought along—the first bush and landscaping at our new home.

So it has survived several moves already, and I am the current happy host of the lovely white flower bush she chose, although it has had its ups and downs (bugs, holes in leaves).

(It began blooming again yesterday, but can anyone tell me what to do for the rusty edges on the petals??)

It will likely have to survive more moves if it is to follow her to where she eventually settles in a non-rental location. I was just happy it eked out this past winter, as my other rose bush succumbed to the cold (and I was negligent and did not cover it with straw as she always did so carefully).

My formerly lovely knock out rose bush (modified, the blooms were always bigger than most knock out roses)
which did not survive Virginia’s harsh winter.

Doreen has also become an avid gardener—although I hate parental typecasting of one’s children and will not rule out where my other daughters go in this area, who are happily focused on raising babies right now. For instance, I did not start out loving gardening, and was mostly a “we-garden-to-eat” variety of gardener. But I confess that now that we have a garden which is very close to our back deck, on level land and where the weeds are visible from my kitchen window, I’m taking some joy and satisfaction (and a little cursing of bugs) in almost daily work and exercise in our patch which is really much too big for a pair of empty nesters.

Doreen posing with our gigantic corn stalks (Silver Queen) a few years back,
(10 or more), in our old garden at the bottom of a big hill.

My point here is two fold: to celebrate Doreen’s interest in nature and the career path she has followed into environmental science.

Doreen more recently in one of the fields where she studied habitat at urban/forest edges for her master’s degree in urban ecology.

It’s also a reminder not to fall into the parent trap of bragging up a child “oh this kid has always loved swimming, she is so good” when another child is going (in her head), “well Mom, I love swimming too and I’m not that bad” or whatever their interest, sport or hobby. We tend to classify and stereotype: “Timmy has always loved cooking even when he was small,” and Bobby is thinking, “I like baking too …” Or “Tiffany was always so good at math,” yada yada.

Whether it is skills, grades, looks, or mischievousness, or whatever, no one wants to be cast into a mold. Our children are great and tender gifts, as beautiful and sensitive to their environment as any flower or rose, and deserving of our best support. We want them to “grow and be strong in spirit,” like Luke says of both John the Baptist and of Jesus.

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Did your parents typecast and stereotype? Do you do that? Or am I the only one who ever felt that way?
Do you wish there was someone you could tell: stop typecasting me!

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*The name for my blog post today inspired by the the novel Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith.

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Somehow this all reminds me of an earlier book I wrote, Why Didn’t I Just Raise Radishes, published by Herald Press in the early ’90s, not a book on gardening but meditations on the challenges of raising children. You can still buy it used online. And no, that is not a picture of me on the cover. 🙂