I had just gotten out of the hospital after a month's stay. I wasn't supposed to get out with a working brain. Oh, well. I had a working brain, but the future wasn't looking very bright at that time.
I had to force myself to get up and out and start living again. So, I made a promise to myself that I would go somewhere new every day. I made a list of places to go and the first place on that list was a specialty miniature rose nursery. That was the beginning of my rose life.
As I healed, I got a job and my normal life continued, but my interest in roses also grew into a passion. I met a breeder who became my rose mentor. When we talked roses, he didn't dumb it down for me, but he gave me a list of rose books to read so that I could understand what he was talking about. I learned about the history of roses, the botany of roses, the breeding of roses, the breeders of roses, the rose industry and more than most people ever learn about roses. My mentor introduced me to a world of roses that is different than most people have a chance to know and experience. WOW !
I've probably had hands on experience with close to a 1000 roses through volunteer work at nurseries and in public gardens. I've worked on the recovery of lost roses for the living archive of Ralph Moore's roses, I've grown test roses for a few breeders. In other words, I've lived roses.
No, I am not an expert. I just learned about roses in a different way than the average rose gardener and played in a different rose world where I learned different skills. It has been a lot of fun, but I didn't learn how to be a gardener.
As for knowing other aspects of gardening, I am no longer a true novice, but I am still fixing my novice mistakes. I still don't think of myself as someone who gardens efficiently and well. I think I often am working too hard because I don't have good gardening skills. It's still early days for this part of my gardening journey.
I doubt if I'll manage to create the garden I had in mind when I first bought this house. My learning curve has been slower than I thought it would be as I've had to learn about soil, climate and plants as well as make my novice mistakes and start over on a few things. The roses I planted are fine. It's the other areas of gardening that are still more of a work in progress. It's just that I am now working in an older body, so I may not get it all done, but I am having a grand time learning new skills.
