La Vie en Rose

Imagine a backyard of beige concrete, some 1000 square feet, bordered by bone-dry clay soil. A productive Meyer lemon tree shades the right edge of the yard, and the back is covered by a small Japanese elm, a large, a rounded juniper, and a guava tree with fruit I’ve never tasted because the squirrels always beat me to it. In the stretches of soil between these trees, which more closely resembled decades old Play-Doh than any sort of fertile ground, my dad decided to plant a rose garden. 

We researched what types of roses we wanted, weighing what qualities we valued most – color, how it opens, stem length, and more. Before we knew it, the rose garden wrapped around to the front of the house, and even to our neighbor’s side yard. My dad has a binder where he keeps all his gardening files, and it boasts over 50 varieties.  

In my parents’ eyes, no rose will ever surpass the Eiffel Tower. Its fragrance is what iconic perfumes can only attempt to replicate. Buds bloom into picturesque spirals that hold for days. And, when grown from a mature plant, the stems are longer than a CVS receipt. The age of the plant is an important detail here, since my parents have at least 10 buckets full of young Eiffel Tower bushes sitting in their backyard made from cuttings. The babies’ stems are a little more modest. I am proud to have received one of his most mature cuttings, probably 8 years old, and transplanted it at the new house when we moved.

In this garden, I learned how to cut flowers and prune rose bushes, plus some amateur experience arranging the blooms. As an adult, it dawned on me that one of the greatest lessons I learned from my dad’s garden is that I, too, can build the garden of my dreams– and that is what I hope to do here at Benson’s Best Buds.

More flowers from my father’s rose garden

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