One thing I have noticed on our many walks around the
neighbourhood are the many and varied types of flowers. There’s daisies, rhododendrons, dogwoods,
wisteria, lilacs and many others whose names I don’t know. But the one flower that I don’t see at all,
is one I used to see all around the old neighbourhood, and that’s roses. It kind of amazes me really, they are so
beautiful and smell so nice. Finally,
though, the other day, I spotted a lone rose bush in someone’s front yard. No flowers yet though.
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| WISTERIA BLOOMS |
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| BLOSSOMS |
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| HAVE NO IDEA |
My grandfather used to grow roses, and my Dad after him, in
fact until the day I left, there was a Peace Rose in the backyard, that my
Grandfather planted. It wasn’t doing too
well anymore because it was overwhelmed by the Lilac tree, but it was still there. Almost every house around the block in the
old neighbourhood had at least one rose bush in it.
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| PEACE ROSE |
When I lived in Surrey, in a little garden at the front of
the house, with full Southern exposure, I had six rose bushes. I did very little to them except dust them
with Sulphur occasionally to fight “black spot” and I would dig in rabbit poop,
from our two rabbits in the back yard.
Those rose bushes grew to almost 8 feet in height and provided hundreds
of blooms all summer. When my ex and I
split, she didn’t want them any longer so I dug them up and transplanted them
to the house in East Van. They didn’t do
well there at all because there was too much shade from the cherry tree. Getting Toby didn’t help them either as he
used to gnaw on the stalks.
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| HAVE NO IDEA |
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| PANSYS |
I’m pretty sure you can grow roses in containers, and I
would love to do so, but with the townhouse, I’m not sure what I can get away
with. The back deck would be perfect and
I don’t think would cause problems, but it faces north and gets limited
sunshine until late in the day. The
perfect spot is the front entryway which is south facing and gets sunshine all
day long, it’s just with the strata I’m not sure if I can put a container out
on the entryway or not. I see lots of
other people have done so, but I don’t want to spend the money only to be told
I can’t have them there.
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| DOGWOODS AGAINST BLUE SKY |
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| LILACS |
I would love to plant them in the little garden area right
out front. The plants that have been put
there are not doing well at all and it may be because they were planted too
soon to finish off the exterior. Having
them in containers would solve two problems.
One I don’t think it would breach strata rules and the second is it
would take minimal work on my part, which of course was one of the things that
led to me selling the house and moving.
Too much back breaking yard work.
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| YELLOW DAISIES |
It would look very pretty and would bring back some pleasant
memories without all the work. It would
also and another touch of individuality to my place. That being said, I do love how each unit has
been designed with a slightly different look, so they don’t look like the
cookie cutter approach to most townhouses and condos. It could be a slightly different colour scheme,
different style entryway, some units have decks, some don’t.
I took the first step today by dropping into a nursery to
check out what’s available on the container growing front, but I couldn’t find
anyone to help me, nor could I find exactly what I wanted. I’ll go back again and try another day. What I would dearly love to get would be a “Peace
Rose” as a tribute to my Grandfather, but I didn’t see any available in the
nursery. Some red roses would be nice as
well. I’ll keep you posted on what I
decide and what I can do. Here’s hoping!
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