Thursday, Apr. 22, 2004 – 8:49 p.m.
2004-04-22 8:49
Ok, it has been a REALLY long time since I last posted. It is well into spring now and my last posting was before Christmas. [sigh] What can I say? Things have been chaotic. In terms of life events, I am now divorced, I totalled my car, I injured my left hand (I tripped in a parking lot and fell with my hand under me, bending fingers backwards…, dislocated my ring finger, chipped a bone in my middle finger, and partially tore the A2 pulleys in both those fingers….Well and truly messed up… should heal completely and I shouldn’t lose any function [big sigh of relief]), and had another water leak in the house while I was gone. Yes, life has been busy this spring. But enough about that, I want to talk about roses.
Rose Activities not related to the Garden
- Pictures from the National Gallery: Over the Christmas holiday, I stayed with Anne in VA and we went up to Washington, D.C.,to the Smithsonian for the Walter Anderson exhibit and to the National Gallery. I was looking for examples of roses in period paintings. I found out that one is allowed to use a camera (and even a flash) throughout most of the National Gallery of Art. I was able to take pictures for a number of paintings by Spanish and Italian painters from period but galleries of the Flemish and Dutch art from period were closed for renovation. I came to realize that I either need to use something like a monopod (tripod are NOT allowed) to stablized the camera or use a real film camera with high speed film. Next time I go, I am going to take a couple of cameras with different kinds/speeds of film in them and take the same picture on each camera to see what works the best.
- Teaching about roses: I also taught my class about roses in the middle ages several times. The first was to the Eastern NC Rose Society down in New Bern. Nice folk. I was supposed to teach again at a big demo at the Carolina Club in Chapel Hill at the end of January but we had several inches of snow that day and the authorities were telling folk to stay off the roads. I heeded their warning and stayed home. The following week, however, I was off to teach TWO classes at winter University in southern VA. I was doing a new class on roses in art and literature as well as my “Roses Then and Now” class. That’s when I wrecked my car. Luckily, no one was hurt and no one else was involved… just my car and a guard rail. I still got to University and taught my classes! I haved determined that I will break Roses in Art and Literature into two classes: Roses in Art and Roses in Literature. There is enough material to do one hour classes on each.
I also put together a display poster that contains much of the material from my “Roses Then and Now” class. It was supposed to be for the A&S display at the Carolina Club demo but it didn’t make it because of the snow. I should be able to use it for future A&S displays but I need to redo some parts because they have come unglued.
- Carolina District Winter Meeting: In late January, I went to the winter meeting of the Carolina District of the ARS in Salisbury, NC. It was a good meeting with lots of good info. I bought one rose from Almost Heaven Roses (the only rose nursery there) but I ended up leaving it in the main meeting room after the day’s sessions and it disappeared. [grrrr] I also got some of the All Organic rose food and some liquid rooting hormone. I had hoped to talk with Roses Unlimited and Ashdown Roses at the meeting but they didn’t come. I did renew my subscription to the district newsletter.
- Rose Day at Roses Unlimited: In March, Anne came down and we went a rose study day down at Roses Unlimited in Laurens, SC. I had originally planned to get a bunch of roses for the new bed while there but since I had injured my hand several weeks before, I figured I would just have to wait until next year. I should have known that the draw of roses would be over-powering… I ended up walking away with nine new roses bushes. Ok, I did have gift certificates for 5 bushes that I needed to cash in and Anne bought me two bushes for Valentine’s Day. I will list the new varieties down under the “Garden Related Activities”.
Also on that trip, we met my parents in the mountains and went to look at the new property outside Brevard. At lunch in Brevard, I had the idea of planting Mermaid on the bank overlooking the road and letting it go. This is a pretty aggressive climber/rambler with large yellow single blossoms.
- Rose Rescue with the Raleigh Rose Society: In the middle of February, the Raleigh Rose Society gathered at Astor Perry’s house to dig up his roses. A long time member of the RRS, Astor was also a pretty successful amateur rose hybridizer with about 30 roses registered to his name. Alas, Astor had gotten to the point where he was unable to live on his own so he and his family were selling his house in Raleigh. They had contacted the RRS to come and dig up 250 roses he had in his yard because they were going to relandspace the yard and any remaining roses would be bulldozed. About 10 folk from the RRS showed up that day and dug up most of the roses. I ended up with about 20 bushes. Most of those are going to Muir for a rose bed (or two) at her new house in north Durham. However, in the mean time, they are planted at my house.
- Expanding Rose Library: I need to repost my list of rose books, both those I now own and those I am still looking for. I have probably added two dozen books to my library since I last posted the list and the looked for list continues to grow as I read through some of the books which contain bibliographies.
Ok, this is getting pretty long so I am going to continue with the Garden Related activities in another entry.