The Pioneer Rose

In a corner of the garden, a small rose bush is thriving.

We’ve been told that a woman carefully transported this rose’s ancestor from Kansas to Colorado by covered wagon more than a century ago.  I feel an affinity for the tender heart that brought a reminder of home to an unfamiliar territory. She gave a cutting of the rose to her friend, my great-grandmother, who planted it on her property in the Black Forest near Colorado Springs. The rose proved to be as hardy as a mountain pioneer, thriving despite unpredictable rain and no fertilizer or aphid spray. An offshoot was passed down to my grandmother, who later gave a cutting to my mother. 

Years later, the rosebush in my mother’s backyard is breathtaking. Long, cascading branches are covered in lush pink roses that seem to have three times as many petals as other roses, with the sweet, old-fashioned fragrance that smells of the past.

When Mom brought me an offshoot of the rose, a scrawny stick, I was so skeptical I almost didn’t plant it. But we gardeners often plant with faith, and so the rose was tucked into a sunny corner of the garden.  In its second year, five little shoots came up where there once had been one. This June, the little rosebush burst forth into bloom, covered with deep pink, fragrant blossoms

Making my notes about the garden, I write that we may need to move some other plants if the rose continues to grow so vigorously. And I stop to muse about the pleasure of having a rose that has been passed down through the generations, flourishing in every garden it graces.

This essay originally appeared in the Fall 2000 issue of Log & Timber Style magazine.