Mary Claire Rowe

This is the special week we celebrate the third week of every October. People from all across Texas and the nation, come to Tyler to participate in the extravaganza that we lovingly call the Texas Rose Festival.

It just would not be the fall of the year without the East Texas State Fair, the Texas State Fair in Dallas, and our cherished Rose Festival. Families work for generations on this annual event, passing on their legacy from great grandparent to great grandchild, taking pride in all they have contributed to the success of the festival.

Throughout history, the rose has been one of the most popular flowers in the garden. We love them, and give them as gifts to those we love, as tangible proof of our love. What could be more beautiful, we think? What could possibly show honor more than a perfect rose?

In the past, botanists explored the world, looking for new roses to cross breed with the native plants of Europe and America. New and wonderful varieties found in the late 1700's and early 1800's in China and the Far East were brought back. Our "China" and "Tea" roses, so beloved today, were developed from that process.

According to Dr. William C. Welch, in his wonderful book, "Antiques Roses For The South," Musks, Centifolias, Damasks, and the once-a-year blooming Gallicas, all native to Europe, were crossed with the newcomers. From that process new classes of roses became available. These were: Noisettes, Bourbons, Portlands, Hybrid Perpetuals, Polyanthas, and Grandifloras.

In the early 20th century, the development of the Hybrid Teas overshadowed all the others and made them the most popular class of rose. It is the one that we still prize the most today, a century later.

Kings and queens, moguls and presidents, all have had incredible rose gardens of which they are rightly proud. Even ordinary people, who live in areas not really conducive to growing roses, give it a try anyway.

I have frequently told the story of my grandfather, taking a sealed, steel can, filled with well-composted cow manure from his backyard garden on Fleishel Street in the early 1930s, to his revered mother-in-law's garden in Fort Worth.

She lived on a soil-poor, limestone hill there, but because of his regular contribution to amending the soil, her roses bloomed profusely, which gave her great pleasure. They reminded her of her family home in Kentucky, where roses grew abundantly.

Another family story involves my mother-in-law's attempt to grow roses in dry, rocky, western Fort Worth, my husband as a boy and sheep loam.

To hear him tell it, it is not a pleasant story. I think that is why to this day, he is not a happy gardener.

We have it so much easier these days, with all the wonderful pre-mixed chemicals that we can add to our gardens from tidy sacks. Hopefully, they are all organic, and well-aged.

The perfection of shape and striking colors of roses enchant us.

We revere them so highly that we give them to our loved ones, as a symbol of our love and admiration. We mark occasions with them, as a signal that it is a most "special" event; one that is worthy of a rose.

This week, we celebrate the beauty of the rose with our pageantry, laughter, and joy. We salute the Queen of the Rose Festival with the "Queen of the Garden.''

How "rosy."

Mary Claire Rowe is a gardening columnist for the Tyler Paper.
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