My Grandfather's Roses
- Fred
- 20 hours ago
- 5 min read
For the Holiday, I would like to remember my late-Grandfather. Because of him, I have many warm and cherished Christmas memories from my youth. I am very grateful for the years I was able to spend with him.
But even though he hosted many a family gathering, whenever I think of my Grandfather, I don't think of the holidays, I think of The Rose.
When you think of growing roses, you think of a fairly innocuous hobby. Not for my Grandfather, for him, it was serious business.
On a third of an acre of land, he filled his backyard with roses of every type. He had miniature roses in the rose bed behind the house, standard, Old Garden roses along the fences and in islands around the yard, and climbing roses in the spaces in-between.
The roses, at their peak, were beautiful. Solid colored roses, hybrid colors, fragrant roses, some that grew solo, and some that grew in bunches.
My Grandfather and I would walk around the yard talking about all the different types of roses contained within. In front of every rose there was a tiny name placard and the rose I always remembered was Mr. Lincoln. It was a vibrant, deep red rose. My Grandmother's favorite color was red, so that specific rose stood out with its velvety richness.
My Grandfather was in World War II, but he rarely talked about the war. He would talk about the roses for as long as I had questions. We would talk about sports and current events also, but often, when I left, he didn't rest, he would go back to tending the roses.
He was a proud member of the Rose Society and would often show me things that shouldn't exist. The Rose Society was seemingly his best friend and worst enemy combined, he loved proving them wrong.
"According to the Rose Society, this rose can't grow in Ohio." I knew my Grandfather was right, I was looking at living proof.
"According to the Rose Society, this rose can't grow to this height." I knew my Grandfather was right, he grew the tallest roses I ever saw.
"According to the Rose Society, this hybrid doesn't exist." Well it obviously existed, I saw it with my own eyes.
What was my Grandfather's Secret? He used to talk about soil pH all the time, He was like a mad scientist, trying to manipulate the ground itself. If I ever wanted to goad him, I'd just say "isn't dirt just dirt?" Man, he did not like that smart-alecky comment. But I tried not to instigate him much, his roses brought him great joy.
As I mentioned before, my Grandfather was in the war. Again, he rarely mentioned it, but there were clues if you listened carefully. His roses were often surrounded by normal fences that circled the property, and then knee-high chicken wire to keep out the smaller mammals.
At one point, my Grandfather was very proud that something like 95% of his roses were coming back from year to year. Most of his rose deaths were new roses that never quite took root. But there were-
The Enemies of the Rose
The Vole: The tiny rodents ate at the very roots of the rose. Because roses are annuals, they have a specific life cycle. If the roots are damaged or eaten away during the dormant season, they could be catastrophically affected in the Spring. But because you couldn't see the vole, you could only surmise its existence from its trail in dirt or when you dug up a dead rose and found its half-eaten roots.
The trick was poisoning the vole without poisoning the soil.
The Rabbit: There were always rabbits nibbling away at the new growth of the roses in the Spring. My Grandfather would leave cigarettes in the rose beds to poison the rabbits. I asked him why he didn't just shoot the rabbits, he didn't believe in shooting any animals.
I think he just wanted to teach the rabbits a painful lesson. Why would I think that?
The Japanese Beetle: The bane of Grandfather's existence was the Japanese Beetle. That specific insect ate the rose itself.
So what my Grandfather would do was to take a simple glass jar and find a rose with a hole in it. If he found the Japanese Beetle inside, he would flick it into the jar, while it was still alive. It was a very time-consuming process. During some parts of the year, I would visit and there'd be a dozen jars baking in the sun, some jars were half filled with dead beetles, with a layer of living beetles on top. He said that the stench of death warned all the other beetles away. Sometimes he would talk to me while he captured the beetles.
At one point I said "why don't you just buy a Japanese Beetle Trap?"
He explained to me that the traps you would buy in stores attracted Japanese Beetles from all the surrounding yards before killing them in the bag. So the Beetles would fly into his yard, eat some roses, then fly into the bag. The best way to get rid of Japanese Beetles was to put the trap in a neighbor's yard 2 lots away. On the very, very rare occasion that a Japanese Beetle would escape the jar of rotting death, my Grandfather would knock it out of the air and smash it underfoot.
Deer - Deer rarely ate roses, but they were like bulls in a China Shop. They would use my Grandfather's yard as a cut through between the woods and their intended destinations. Every year, dozens of broken rose branches due to deer that just happened by.
In my mind, I can still walk the path around his yard, looking at the most beautiful roses that you've ever seen in your life.
After my Grandfather passed, I expected the roses to grow wild. The exact opposite happened, when he died, his hundreds of roses died, almost immediately. Every year, at the end of the growing season, my Grandfather would dutifully cut back the roses. That Spring, very few of the roses even came back. It was that sad and simple.
When I saw a backyard of dead roses, I was angry. Angry at dead roses.
I went to Google Maps before I posted this. Not one rose remains in that backyard.
Polaroid photos in my Mom's basement are the only proof that they existed at all.