Flickr Creative Commons, mbadsey

My nana is thinking about leaving her house. It’s time. The house is old, with two stories, and the basement is moldy.

My other grandmother is selling her house as well, and moving to a ranch-style house. They both have big yards, but at Nana’s there are more rose bushes than any of us know what to do with. There is one, in particular, that no one could bare to see left behind. We refer to it as “Papa’s Rose” because my grandfather planted it and it was the one rose we weren’t allowed to touch. It also happened to be planted in a spot next to the driveway where we’d previously thought nothing would grow because he’d dumped oil there.

My holly does not look like this just yet. (Flickr creative Commons, listentoreason)

I don’t know when, exactly this was planted, but I can’t really remember a time when it wasn’t there. Every summer it grows to be well over six feet tall and get huge, beautiful pink blooms. We decided that if Nana was going to be moving we had to try and save that rose, along with some of the 12 or so others… and they were coming to my house.

Now, my yard was pretty much a blank slate when I moved in. The only things I planted last fall were a few winterberry holly, mums, spring bulbs, a peony from my other grandmother’s house, and some  black-eyed-susans from my aunt’s. Right now, except for the bulbs poking out of the ground, it looked pretty blank out there.

So this weekend I undertook a project with my family. We dug a bunch of holes at my house and headed over to Nana’s  to dig up the roses. We managed to get eight out, in all. There are at least four more I can think of still at the house.

Those, I’m afraid, may need to be sacrificed. I’m running out of logical places to put roses — and there are other things I actually want to plant, like a couple of blueberry bushes, blackberries, and love-in-a-mist…and the other crap-load of stuff I ordered off the internet today.