Forgotten Rose

A couple miles down the road from our house, near an old wooden fencepost at the corner of a field is a climbing rose.  It’s not native, so I asked Harland who planted it there. He said he wasn’t sure of all the details, but it was his understanding that a local farm-wife long ago planted climbing roses at all her field corners.

What a great idea I thought. So I borrowed Harland’s pliers, and gathered a few cuttings to make rosebush starts. My plan is, if the cuttings survive, to plant rosebushes at the corners of the small pasture near our house.

And someday, maybe a hundred years from now, someone will stop to see a blooming rosebush in the middle of nowhere and wonder how it got there.

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———->  Friday: Wide open, untouched, unspoiled, never been turned by a plow, verdant with native grasses and wildflowers:  The Flint Hills.

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Suzanne

Cattle, corn, wheat, beans, mud, snow, ice, and drought. Plenty of fresh air and quiet. Our life is sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyous, but never boring.

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17 Responses

  1. Mary says:

    Thanks for the idea. I will have to do something like that at our new property. I love memories left behind by our predicesors. Thanks for sharing.
    God Bless

  2. Janet says:

    I have a climbing rose same color that I got a start from My Aunt Marge, who got her’s from an abandoned farmstead in Kansas. Living in AZ I didn’t think it stood a chance, but every spring my Aunt Marge( as I named it) blooms. Thanks for sharing.

  3. Brenda says:

    What an awesome sight and idea. Your cuttings will thrive!!!!

  4. Sue, a Florida Farm Girl says:

    What a fabulous idea and what a treat to see. Just goes to show how hardy those roses must. They thrive without any tinkering by any human being!!

  5. Willow says:

    The roses are beautiful and need to be preserved as (possibly) heirloom varieties. Thank you so much for sharing. I look forward to your pictures and posts.

    Willow

  6. Kelly says:

    How do you take cuttings and grow them? Just snip and place them in soil and hope they root?

    • Suzanne says:

      I take stem cuttings about 4 inches long, trim all the leaves off except for just a few, dip the ends in a growth hormone powder that I found in the plant section of Lowes, and then place the cuttings in little holes in dirt in a pot. I put 5 cuttings in a 8inch pot. Then I firmed up the soil around the cuttings, watered well, and placed a ziploc bag over the pot and closed the bag to make a little greenhouse. Then I put the pot in a sunny window. I thought about doing a post about this, but my results are sketchy, and sometimes I get just one live plant, and sometimes all of them grow, so I didn’t want to give advice that may result in dead rosebush cuttings all over the planet. 🙂

  7. Dianna says:

    What a nice idea! Whenever I ride by an abandoned house (or an area where a house once stood) and see flowers blooming, I always wonder about the person who planted them years ago…..

  8. Glenda says:

    This is a wonderful story and great idea! I’ve marveled at all the old time orange day lilies that just keep on thriving through weeds and what not in the ditches and byways here in Missouri. Thoughtfully planted by a long gone farm wife trying to spruce up her surroundings.

  9. Doe of Mi. says:

    I love seeing things like this – always makes me wonder about who planted them. What a great photo the last one is – shows the antique post the rose is growing on. Beautiful.

  10. Eliza says:

    Summer is in bloom! My father grew these roses at my old house! Beautiful 🙂

  11. Kara S. says:

    Those roses are lovely. What a wonderful way to “mark your territory.” Your pictures are beautiful too.

  12. Laura says:

    beautiful pictures and a beautiful story to go with them. i too am curious as to how you get your cuttings started.

  13. Peggy says:

    What a great idea. I really wish I had a picture of that. Your last photo is beautiful. Once again it could be in a magazine. Isn’t there a mag you can send in photos to? Farm and Ranch I think.

  14. I love this! What a great story! I hope your roses survive! I just love old stories like that, and I love that the roses are still there!

    • Suzanne says:

      The cuttings are coming along. There was a mold issue over the weekend, but I attacked it with a mold spray. So far so good. Keeping my fingers crossed they’ll make it.

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