I never promised you a rose garden

I got these crimson beauties a couple of weeks ago from my buddy, Kevin. Thanks, Big K. You really know how to spoil a girl.  And their intoxicating fragrance instantly triggered a memory of my own rose garden.  And so…

Back in late 1978 when we first saw our house-to-be in Winnetka, it was wintertime.  But no matter the weather.  For me it was love at first sight.  And luckily, the most important man in my life agreed.

No, not my husband.  Our designer, Bruce Gregga.

On his recon visit, he declared it a “mini mansion,” and assuaged my fears that the property was set way too close to a busy street for parental comfort.

“Lots of kids have been raised on Locust Road,” he soothingly reassured me.  “And grab that eagle console and the Regency settee in the hall that they’re selling, too.”

So we bought it all.

Thus in March of 1979, Bill, baby Natasha, Arno- our apricot standard poodle- and I moved in.

And in April came the thaw.

And a revelation.

In our back yard was a rose garden.

We hadn’t seen it under all the snow and it hadn’t been mentioned in the real estate listing, either.  But there it was.

One circular bed filled with hybrid teas.

I was enchanted.

And it hooked me on a passion and addiction to gardening in general and roses in particular, ever since.

I started out easy.  I quickly learned that you looked for the stem that had at least five leaves on it before you cut a rose.  (Any leaf count less means that stalk might never bud again.)

I learned that there were thousands of varieties of hybrid tea roses.  But the darker the color the stronger the scent.

I learned that the key item with good rose maintenance- beside bug vigilance- is DRAINAGE.  Roses do not like wet feet.

I learned the names of the roses in my garden- Mr. Lincoln, Chrysler Imperial, Lady X, to specify just a few.

And I learned that a rose is a flower that looks better (to my mind at least) when it’s planted in a vase rather than growing wild.

The moment I cut them and brought them inside, my roses went to work- adding sensuous beauty and fragrance to every room in my house that they graced.

But most importantly, I learned that along with the need to garden I needed to cultivate a close relationship with a good gardener.

Again Bruce Gregga- and the evil sway under which he held both of us- was responsible for this necessity.  I had thought that our beautifully-landscaped back yard- almost an acre of venerable old trees, charming flowers, verdant shrubs and well-manicured lawn- was stupendous.

But Bruce- with his keen decorator eye and a much fancier frame of reference- knew that it needed tweaking.

So he set about to do that just.  A blue stone chip driveway, seat walls and blue slate granite patios started to spring up.  And Arno needed a fence.  

The only kind Bruce would countenance was a black, almost-invisible chain link kind- with a gorgeous black wrought iron gate.

The Price is Right Sidebar: I remember Bill calling me for the estimate on that fence.

“How much?” he wearily asked.  (Bruce’s improvements were fabulous, true, but so astronomical in price that Bill had become shell-shocked.)

“Umm, TruLink said forty-six,” I informed him.

“FORTY-SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR A FENCE!??!! I WONT PAY IT!” he screamed.

“No, forty-six hundred,” I reassured him.

But that was on me.  I should have been careful to clarify because, by now, Bill had been conditioned to only think in BG thousands.

Anyway, after the hardscaping came the new “green” plan.  Enter John and Frank Mariani, of Mariani Landscaping.

Mariani is an old-line- like fourth generation- landscaping company in Lake Bluff.  They are terrific.  Pricey but worth it.  And so booked up that new clients like the Ross family never had a prayer of getting them to come out to do the lawn and gussy up the rest of the joint on Fridays.  There was too much competition for that slot from all their other clients of much longer-standing who wanted to show their houses off at weekend parties.

I think the best we could get was Wednesdays.

John drew up a marvelous scheme- with yummy things like ornamental Bradford pear trees, boxwood, (I am crazy for boxwood) beautiful ground cover, an all-white garden, and another circular bed of hybrid teas to give symmetry- a Bruce Gregga must- to the one we already had.

This Capability Brown-like endeavor cost the earth and took forever.  But patience is a gardener’s best friend.  And Mother Nature, Father Time, and Banker Bill all worked in harmony to create a lush, tranquil oasis of calm, color, shade and scent.

(While all this outdoor work was going on, Bruce hadn’t neglected the inside of the house. That was undergoing a major facelift, too.)

Finally- after many years- the whole project was coming together.  The new gardens had been finished, the new kitchen wing done.  (Well, 99% done.  There was still a short punch list of minor additions and corrections for the contractor to finish up.)

And now, all that was needed was a final coat of new white paint and for that I turned to Frank Mariani again.  He had the guy who could do the job.

On Frank’s recommendation we hired him.

So this guy and his crew showed up and started torching off the old layers of paint that had accrued on the exterior over the last twenty years.

And they set the house on fire.

The fire took out the roof and my brand-new kitchen wing- right down to the punch list.

My head is in my hands even now.  You’ll have to forgive me if I can’t go into details.  I simply can’t relive the nightmare.

Frank had gotten called by one of the guys at the scene and he stood with me as we both watched in horror as my lovely dream house turned into a blazing inferno.

After we moved back in (five months later) he called me.

“Ellen, I feel just awful,” he started.

“It wasn’t your fault, Frank.  Don’t worry about it.  You didn’t set it,” I reassured him.  True enough, after all.

“Well, you’ve been such a good sport about all this that I’d like to make it up to you.”

Needless to say we got Mariani to do the landscaping on Fridays from then on.

Every cloud of smoke has a lawn-green lining.

So remember to make a little time to stop and smell the roses- wherever and whenever you can find them.

(And send some my way.)