The Garden Imaginarium
Planting Rose Bushes
This past week I learnt how to plant roses. I don’t mean dig a hole, add some compost, shove it in, firm it down. I mean the roses bushes – delivered as bare root plants in dormancy – told me how things must be done:
Soak the roots in water whilst reassuring them they have come to a good home.
Say a prayer to celebrate the soil and encourage its fertility.
Thank the rose bushes repeatedly for their presence and for the future blooms that are already alive in the garden imaginarium.
Sing a little song of thanks to the water, to the prepared bed & to the rose roots and shoots.
As you place the rose bush in the earth, make sure their roots are spread in the way the rose bush wishes to spread them.
Be generous with good compost.
Firm in each one, as though you’re swaddling a beloved child.
When all the rose bushes have been planted, listen to their song, witness their excitement at being in a new home alongside each other. This is what happiness looks and sounds like. Know this happiness to be shared in all four directions and across thresholds we humans wish we had names for.
Give thanks for being the Chief Weeder alongside the Head Gardener, and learning something new about roses.
Roses emit a special quality of light that only roses emit. So too each plant, of course. So too, each human. But the light that roses emit is especially dear to me and when I’m in their presence, there’s a sense of the boundlessness of love. It’s no wonder they represent the flower of lovers.
When I walk by them, I feel the pull of their presence. It’s as though they have tiny antennae that tune into the Chief Weeder’s frequency and she can’t help but go to them and whisper silly songs in silly voices. This pleases them greatly and they never mind whether I know their names or not, whether I’m adept as caring for them or not – as long as I listen.
Roses have no need of names. This is always a revelation to me. How liberating to exist without the need of names, to be in on the cosmic joke!