Hold it all Close, Give it All Away
They’re here. The lilacs have blossomed and faded, and now it’s time for the roses.
Not just any old roses. My favorite roses. The roses I used to sink my face into when I was a small child. The roses that grew beside the door of the tiny little home we lived in during the summer while my father was in college. The roses whose golden petals I carried, crumpled in my little hands, to my mother, who helped me tie them into gauze-wrapped bundles, in hopes of hoarding that heavenly fragrance.
Have you ever seen them? They’re officially called Harison’s Yellow rose. First cultivated in 1824 in New York by George Folliott Harrison, Harison’s Yellow roses came west with the settlers, earning them their other names of Oregon Trail Rose and Yellow Rose of Texas. We used to call them wild roses, which is apparently not so very wrong, since Wikipedia claims that they grow “feral along the Oregon Trail.”
Not long after the lilacs fade in early summer, hundreds of tight yellow buds cover the rose bushes and a honey-sweet fragrance announces their impending arrival. Suddenly—overnight, it seems—the blossoms erupt in a glorious profusion of sunshine yellow, and we are in the heart of summer.
These are not hybrid roses with large, showy blossoms. These blossoms are small—only two to three inches across, but there are dozens of them on every branch. They’re commonly described as hardy, vigorous, drought resistant, shade tolerant, and needing little care. I can see why settlers brought the roots wrapped in a burlap sack, tucked away in the bottom of their covered wagons.
A little bit of cheer, of brightness, of home, for the wilderness.
That’s why I planted them.
I hadn’t planted them at our other house. The one we knew was temporary. There I planted tulips and petunias and gladiolus.
But this home we were building with our own hands needed something more. Nothing seemed home-like out here among the sage and cactus. Most of our furniture was in storage. We lived on plywood floors, with electrical wire strung between bare studs in unfinished walls. I missed the sweetness of my childhood.
Yellow roses would help turn it into a home. My home. Our home. The place where we would raise our kids. It needed flowers. But they had to be strong enough to make it out here. Tolerant of full sun, the wind, the drought. Tenacious.
I planted the roses on the south side of the workshop, where they were mostly protected from the weather, and would benefit from the reflected heat and the runoff from the roof.
The seasons passed, the house was finished and the children grew.
So did the roses.
They bloomed. They thrived. They spread.
Every year new shoots rise from the roots, spreading into a bushy, brilliant hedge. You can dig the shoots and transplant them.
You HAVE to dig the new shoots, severing them from the roots and moving them to somewhere you intend for them to grow, or else they’ll take over.
They’ll spread into the lawn. Or into the driveway. They’ll crowd out everything else if you let them, and soon there will no room for anything else.
To keep the bush looking beautiful, you have to prune the dead branches. Harison’s Yellow blooms only once a season, for a few weeks, and then the blossoms are gone, and you are left with the bush. If you’ve pruned it well, after the blossoms have gone, you will still have a lush, deep green bush for the rest of the season.
When I think of yellow roses, I still remember that childhood home, even though we only stayed there a couple summers. I remember bringing our new puppy to that home, making mud pies in the driveway. But the yellow roses are at the heart of it.
I wonder what’s at the heart of our children’s memories of this “homestead” we’ve built out here in this mountain valley. I hope it’s yellow roses. I hope the sight of those flowers inspires a glorious profusion of beautiful memories of growing up.
Of sunlight and sweetness.
Of weathering the storms.
Of wild tenacity.
I hope they take the heart of it all and plant it in their new homes for their families.
If I could, I’d wrap bunches of yellow roses into sweet-smelling bundles for everyone who’s shared our home with us, so they could hold the memories tight.
A new season is headed our way, and it’s time to prune the old, and transplant the heart of our home someplace new. It’s time to make room for something else to grow. We’re not sure where we’re going, but I can guarantee you that when we go, I’ll dig up the roots of some yellow rose bushes and bundle them into a burlap sack to take with us.
