They Grow on You

Moving into our first (and potentially last) house held so much meaning and promise, with so many emotions running through me, that I barely paid attention to them at first.

Four tall, spiney bushes all in a row. Surrounded by decorative rocks in an otherwise drought-resistant yard with no grass or other vegetation save the ash tree in the front. One red, two yellow, one white.

Roses.

Ick.

The owner had been an older woman, retiring to move into a smaller place that required less upkeep. We could see why - the sixty year old house needed a lot of work, despite all the care put into preserving it - and when you're that age nobody wants to tend a corner lot. The layout of the rose bushes, with their little terracotta rings underneath, felt very grandmotherly to us.

Originally we had viewed the all rock & mulch landscape as a good thing, because being a working couple neither of us wanted to spend much time outside mowing grass. We also felt no need to water, prune, or tend to any foliage.

So I made a deal with the roses - if they could live on their own, they could stay.

Since the previous owner left instructions / sprinkler systems behind I presumed she had kept the roses up with persistent hydration; I figured once they died we'd just rip them out and put in some real plants with character, like cacti.

I like cacti. They're just straight up prickly. They don't put on a pretty face and then stab you. They say "Hey - back off, buddy" right to your face. $!@% roses and their pretentious "Ooh, I'm pretty but don't touch" thorny crap.

The months went by. No water. No changes. Then the months turned into years, at least three with a drought. Still no water. Still no changes.

The dang things just wouldn't die.

I stared at them one spring as we started trimming them down, since they'd actually thrived somehow without a regular water schedule. The red, yellow and white colors seemed tacky. The petals came off way too easily. The thorns still sucked. I frowned and wondered how long I'd have to wait for my cacti dreams.

Then one V-Day my coworker received a box of roses from her soon-to-be-ex husband. She snubbed them, because they were slightly wilted in the box / crystal vase. The fact that they probably cost a quarter of his weekly paycheck, or that they were long-stemmed and hand delivered with fancy cards and ribbons, didn't matter one bit. The roses failed to buy her love, or save her marriage after she ended up with the head of sales.

That same morning my partner took one of my coffee mugs out and filled it with roses from the yard. They weren't long stemmed and sexy but big and bloomy - like old lady flowers are meant to be. They lasted maybe a whole day before falling apart into a little pile of petals. Somehow, they seemed the perfect gift though - a simple testament to our home owner dream we'd built together.

I started to like the roses. Maybe. A little.

Then after many years and renovations my partner remarked, "Well, I guess they're not dying. How about we pull them anyway and put some shade or fruit trees in?"

I nodded, but felt troubled. The roses had survived without any help - that was the deal. They had proven they could make it. Did I really want them to forsake them now?

Yeah, they didn't really match the new motif for the yard we were going for. We'd remulched, repaved, replanted everything else. The olive tree had been replaced with a fruitless cherry tree that didn't leave any little pits on the ground. The strange shrubs in the front yard had all been removed. The ash tree had been pruned back away from the roof. The roses were the last of the old guard, standing along the sidewalk like prickley old ladies in line for tea.

Life got busy and plans got postponed. At the moment, we're still working out what to save up and fix next; more yardwork isn't really at the top of the list. The roses may last a few more years, or at least until the itch to hit up the local nursery kicks in.

Maybe one day they'll get uprooted. I'd prefer to sell them to a good home. I'm sure they could survive the transfer, and given how heartlessly they've been ignored perhaps a new home would be best for them.

Someplace with a little old lady that appreciates them.

.........

Or I could try to talk my partner into redoing the entire side yard into an Alice in Wonderland theme and get them to stay...

But either way I guess...

They grow on you.