The next post will continue with raptors featuring Eastern Screech Owls at the Clinch River Raptor Center.
For today, the post is about an old rose bush from Wales.
A Delicate Welsh Rose
This rose photo is here because each year I take a photo in memory of my mother and in joy of an old Welsh creeping climbing rose. The original bush is said to have come over with ancestors from Wales possibly 200 years ago although the date is quite uncertain. Known is that the bush was with my great great grandmother somewhere. Later, a cutting was planted in middle Tennessee where my mom grew up and while a child she planted her own from that rose. When married and settled, she took a fresh cutting to start a bush at the new family home where I was raised and disciplined with willow sticks. That bush was to reach 7 feet high and perhaps 10 feet across, a village for countless birds nesting there over the years. Not everyone likes huge thorny bushes on the property line; the bush was a joy or aggravation to the several neighbors who moved in and out over the years. Being concerned with what would happen when my mother died and the place was sold, a few cuttings were planted at our place. Sure enough, the old home sold and the new owners removed the rose bush. The birds found new places to nest and I don't go back to see the empty spot next to the property line. Our cuttings did well and a much smaller rose bush with a long history is here, blooming just like the one in Wales did years ago.
Each year during blooming time I take photos of the fragrant yet delicate blooms. Writing poetry of its own style, each bloom comes forth asking to be seen and for its gentle and pleasing fragrance to touch the senses. Too soon the short lived blossom drops its petals like light pink snow around the bush. At the peak, the bush is covered with blossoms and surrounded with the carpet of petals. That peak is now.
The creeper climber rose is quite hardy and is too aggressive a grower for many gardeners. Not being a gardener, I do not know better and am self assigned the job of reaching in, tying back and looping around the new canes. New growth is flexible and complaint but the thorns are thorns, grabbing and sticking the flesh and clothing. “Whatever you do,” cried Brer Rabbit, “Don’t throw me into the briar patch” I have been to the briar patch... but not so accustomed to the thorns as was Brer Rabbit in Joel Chandler Harris’ Uncle Remus tales. Brer Rabbit came out playing a briar whistle and I emerge a torn mess. Still, the bush is better for it.
coming soon...
The next post will tell about the Eastern Screech Owl educational birds at the Clinch River Raptor Center. As a teaser, I introduce screech owls with this bunch from June of 2010. These are not educational birds but a group of wild fledglings. At the time two areas were full of Eastern Screech Owls with eight in one room. Another area was full of young Kestrel falcons. The Kestrels constantly wanted to be fed and the owls all took turns being comedians. Sometimes, the group performed a Screech Owl circus, always starting with the group doing funny faces and poses.
These birds were later released.
