My Mom’s old surviving climbing rose is in bloom. It has been through a great deal, frosts, droughts, floods, and the weed whipper, and now rambles up and about like a wild thing. I think this plant is just the rootstock left from a grafted rose, because this one blooms but once a year; I do not recall what color or variety it once was before everything above the graft was obliterated. The shoots that sprang from the roots below the graft produce deep, velvety and slightly fragrant flowers, vaguely like an old fashioned Seven Sisters rose, but not in clusters of seven. I would love to have a Seven Sisters Rose, but I don’t think anyone sells them. So this one will have to do.
It does have pretty, disease-free leaves, leaves I used to feed my rabbits because they loved them so. I hope it will develop some nice rose hips, at least. Parrots love rose hips and they are a powerhouse of vitamins for people, too, something to look forward to when the blooming is complete. Both the hips and the petals are edible, and I add the petals to salads for color and a little intrigue. So, despite it losing its planned-for glory as some human-selected variety of rose, it fights on from its roots, and even defends the small birds that take rest within its thorny embrace. So out of tragedy, there is hope.