One of my lesser side interests has always been roses and members of the rose family, but I could not raise any of the horticultural forms until my wife and I bought a house in Mesilla Park in New Mexico, over 26 years ago. There we planted “Legends,” “Mister Lincoln,” “Lancaster” (Rosa gallica) “York” (Rosa alba), and several others, a few of which flourished, especially “York.” Actually “York” won the war of the roses in our yard as it grew and bloomed heavily while “Lancaster” died. That later seemed appropriate in some odd way when I discovered that one of my remote ancestors was the High Sheriff of Yorkshire!
The interest in roses was one of a number I cultivated (pun intended) from my youth. Unlike many young men I had a fascination not with cars (although I had a model building period, it was mostly ships and air planes, rarely cars), but with animals and plants of all kinds. As to plants, for much of my life I have been fascinated with trees (as in an earlier diary), orchids, bulbs, carnivorous plants, cacti (earlier diary), succulents, bromeliads, and of course roses. I had various gardens and potted plant collections over my lifetime and I throughly enjoyed my one botany course at the University of Arizona, Systematic Botany, taught by Charles T. Mason, Jr. I managed a few years ago to obtain the magnificent three-volume Wild Flowers of the United States: The Southwestern States, which he coauthored with Lyman Benson, among others.
Roses, in my opinion, are among the most beautiful of flowers. I am no expert and most of the roses that I’ve photographed over the years I have never identified to named variety. With this caveat in mind I offer this photo essay for your pleasure and to get away from the muck of the current election for a while. Enjoy! All photos are by me (I had to do something with all the rose photos I had accumulated!)