The point of roses

Flowers are a waste of time. You can’t eat them…

or so my dad vowed and declared most of his life. His bugle shaped Gramma Pumpkins grew crazily on his woodpile. Mum, the Culinary Queen added sultanas and nuts to transform them into tasty, sweet pies for our dessert bowls. For years, flowers were grown by Mum… including vibrant nasturtiums (edible ‘bread and butter’ flowers).

Dad’s efforts focused on fruit trees and a strawberry patch full of edible rubies which he transformed into delectable strawberry jam. He wasn’t averse to using less than mint condition fruit but the end product was extremely popular with everyone he generously pressed it upon. He’d worked in a fruit cannery decades ago and operated on insider information!

However, roses wriggled their way into his gardener’s heart. They stood guard at the front and rear of his ‘mansion’. I owe my hurdling expertise to his rose bushes lining the fence. As an energetic teenager, I’d jog home, backpack jiggling like a koala's joey on its Mama’s back. Famished after a long school day — 10 slices of delicious bread, butter and creamed honey were a siren call — I took the shortest route to the kitchen. Foolishly, I would risk the roses’ wrath and hurdle the fence. Most days I sailed over like a graceful gazelle. Not so on a few disastrous days! Did my backpack mysteriously harbour lead weights? Had I actually engaged my brain as well as my mouth on those school days? Whatever... my trailing foot would snag the fence and pitch me unceremoniously into the rose bushes. They retaliated like a striking taipan! After a couple of painful plunges, my hurdling skills made any show jumper proud!

Despite the exclusivity of roses, preferring their own company… Dad’s beauties seemed happy enough sheltering wild cherry tomatoes, helpfully sown by the birds. Once, he ended up with a crop of weird orange spikey aliens from somewhere in outer space wild cucumbers. Terrifying to behold.

It seemed like Win-Win situation... his front yard boasted a fragrant, floral display and a less traditional bumper crop of juicy cherry tomatoes. Alas, despite exercising extreme caution when harvesting his crop, too often a yelp would pierce the still afternoon! Yet another rose thorn had viciously jabbed my foraging fingers. Those cherry tomatoes came at a steep price.

Like silent sentinels, rose bushes lined the edges of Dad’s narrow, sloping driveway. The challenge of extricating Dad’s precious Ford Falcon from its garage surely contributed to my snowy crown. With a mere handspan clearance on either side of the car, his double carport exited onto a single width driveway dropping off downhill. Razor sharp rose thorns loomed… branches outstretched, reaching to scrape any vehicle zigzagging recklessly past. Why? What possessed him to plant them in such a tortuous location? I reluctantly admit, they snared me a few times and scraped whichever car I was allegedly in control of.

When my lively Auntie Bina visited, she blithely snipped spectacular roses from stems and filled vases to decorate Dad’s dining room table. Over time, I figured if she could get away with it, surely his only favourite daughter could… so, I did. We were considerate enough to leave each bush amply adorned with colourful buds and blooms for Dad's enjoyment.

Of course, the entire world knows that the main point of roses is to smell them… and often. When life tries to chew us up and spit us out, it’s… roses to the rescue! Inhale deeply and slowly… remembering to keep an eagle eye out for busy bees. They do not appreciate noses intruding on their nectar hunts. When Toowoomba annually hosts their spectacular Carnival of Flowers, I am powerless to resist snapping far to many photos.

Although wonderful for mental health, there is a time and place for smelling roses. Charging through the Botanical Gardens shoulder to shoulder with 730 fellow parkrunners is NOT a rose smelling moment. I exercised great restrain in resisting their tantalising perfume... and swung away from their swaying stems. There’s always next time.

Written for the Through the Lens Challenge.