The 'God Cares' Rosebush
A survivor
I grow roses in a raised bed that flanks my front yard. It’s a hedge of my favorite all-time rose - a hybrid musk called Penelope. But the rose at one end is different from the others. I wanted to grow exactly that rose and it happened to fit right into that spot. It’s delicate looking - twiggy and open, a little floppy, rather than sturdy and full like the rest of the hedge. I have a tomato cage around it, helping support it. It puts out sweet pink blooms with exquisite fragrance.
But it’s odd in its behavior. When we came home after the winter away this year, the bush was brown and completely bare. Dead, I thought. Oh, well. I’ll dig up a bush from another hedge out back to replace it. When I get around to it. And with spring pruning and mowing and planting chores; with setting out the watering clocks and hoses, ‘getting around to it’ would take a while, indeed.
Finally, I put water on the roses. And then one day, it rained. A little. A very little. And I looked outside after the rain and I saw a pink blossom on my dead shrub! Yes, really! And all it took was a little water, warmth and the right time. It wasn’t dead, after all. And now it looks like this:
God cares.