EVICTING THE ROSE
I am not very good at ending relationships–even with inanimate objects. My cellar is full of gadgets with which I once had a passionate involvement. Years may have gone by since the last encounter, but I still find it difficult to get them out of my life and off my premises. Now it’s time for something even worse than divorcing myself from the old pasta roller. It’s time to end a relationship with a plant.
Worst of all, the plant in question is a rose and roses are my favorites. Like rosarians the world over, I am entranced by the infinite number of rose shapes, colors and fragrances and I covet more bushes than I can ever accommodate in my suburban garden. While some gardeners only find joy in perfection, I love my forty-two bushes, even when they are ailing with black spot or besieged by Japanese beetles. To add insult to the injury of having to part with a rose, the soon-to-be-jettisoned specimen is a yellow-flowered one and yellow is my favorites rose color.
But it has to be done. My yellow rose, a hybrid rugosa, is diseased. Its first few seasons were glorious. The bush flowered early in the spring, producing large numbers of pale yellow blooms long before many of the other roses had even tiny buds. It rebloomed sporadically over the summers. Then, about four years ago, something changed. The bush still sent out strong green shoots every spring and even put forth a somewhat diminished number of flowers. By mid summer though, the flowers were long gone and the green leaves were darkened and shriveled. Several times I cut back the diseased branches, hoping that whatever ailed the rose would depart along with the cuttings. I got my hopes up whenever a new shoot burst forth, but the shriveling process repeated itself. The rose didn’t die, but it didn’t thrive. This year the same healthy shoots appeared in the spring, but there were no flowers. It may be my imagination, but it seems that not even the aphids visit the shrub any more. I am forced to throw in the trowel on my once lovely yellow rose.
I know people who would have scoured books and the Internet in the hopes of identifying the rose’s disease and finding a method to treat it. I didn’t go to that extreme, but common sense tells me that the problem is systemic and specific to the plant itself. Another rose thrives only six feet away, so the symptoms are probably not caused by a soil-based pathogen. Chances are my rose was diseased when I bought it and the disease process took a few years to show itself and begin doing its evil work.
I know there are boatloads of plants I can install in my rose’s place. If I feel like digging out and replacing all the soil that cradled the yellow rose, I can even replace it with another, stronger rosebush. That prospect is appealing, but I still can’t work up any enthusiasm about making the break with the old bush. I feel as if I am betraying a friend. After all, the yellow rose is eight years old and has gotten through cold winters and torrid summers. My daughter went by it as she left to go to high school graduation. I have tended it lovingly over the years and our relationship has, at times, been intensely personal. Rugosas are among the thorniest species and I have suffered many wounds inflicted by its hundreds of small prickles. The yellow rose has ruined countless tee shirts, even as it has inspired me with its fragrant flowers. Any relationship that complex is hard to end.
But life goes on and I am running out of room in the garden. One of my favorite rose nurseries is having an end-of-summer sale. The absence of flowers this year helped me make the decision. I am going to make a clean break and revel in the freedom of being able to fill the space with a new healthy plant. I am going to celebrate my decisiveness and lack of sentimentality. I am going to get right on it–as long as I don’t see any new green shoots before next week.