2013—John’s Rose Garden

My brother John has a green thumb. His garden is not planned nor is it meticulously groomed. But it is a riot of color and his roses are breath takingly gorgeous. Most seem to have fewer petals and large clumps of buds on single stems. At least one is an old rose, whose name and ancestry is probably lost to the ages. We call it the Sunset rose because it was planted in the late 1800s at the Sunset building in Petaluma, once a Belding Corticelli silk mill, where my father’s fishing line business was housed from the mid 1940’s for more than 60 years. John took a cutting from the rose and it flourishes in his garden. Here are a few of my favorite shots from yesterday. The first photo is the “Sunset” rose.