A Rose Is A Rose
Posted by terrepruitt on April 1, 2010
I have learned a lot from our backyard here in San Jose. One thing I have learned is even rose bushes change.
I am posting pictures of our roses because they have changed over the years. When we first moved in there were ORANGE. I had never seen roses so orange. My husband wanted to rip out all the rose bushes and rearrange the yard and I requested that he keep the orange rose bush. I didn’t care about anything else in the yard but that one bush. I was fascinated by the orange roses. And so were many people that saw them. When we first moved in we had a ton of roses, all the time, or it seemed like all the time. We would have flowers in the house all the time. I would also take them to work. People would stop and ask me about the orange roses. That is how vibrant their color was. 
While I am not sure about how my hubby felt about the orange roses, I know how he felt about the rose bush. He HATED it. It was one of those bushes that had thorns everywhere. At the top of the stem near the flower there would be hundreds of little tiny thorns. When they got in your fingers, they felt like fiber glass. The thorns were progressively larger as they went down the stem. There was never any room on the stem to put your fingers. So working with these roses always resulted in bloody fingers. The thorns at the bottom where huge, sometimes as big as a half of an inch.
Also the blooms had “less petals”. I think of the “less petal” roses as “real” roses.
Early this week, while I was practicing Nia, I looked out the window and saw a huge rose on the bush. I decided I wanted to have it inside. So I went out to cut it. Even though the rose was next to a bud, I decided to cut them both so the stem would be long enough to put in a tall vase. I also cut another rose. I was holding them while I was looking for a vase to put them in, it occurred to me that there was one (ONE!!!) thorn on the big rose’s stem. And the other one hardly had any. Then I looked at the rose itself and noticed it too is different. I had previously posted about the color change of our roses, but I had not noticed the lack of thorns nor the increase in the amount of petals before.
They are still very beautiful and I love having roses in the yard and in the house. But, there are not the same roses that we had when we moved in. So I learned that roses morph. The rose bush that has been in our yard since we moved in eleven years ago has changed. Interesting. I guess most things change huh? I had noticed that the flowers were not longer the striking orange color they had used to be, but I just noticed the flower itself is different and there are less thorns. They have been changing over the years. Do you know why? Is it cross pollination? Do all roses do that?
Terre Pruitt's Blog 
niachick said
Hmmm…well let me see now. You know by now that I can never take a normal subject, like roses and thorns, and not give it a good spiritual/metaphysical twist. So here goes.
You’re right, I think roses do change over the years, although we’ve had a white rose bush in our front yard and they are still white as snow. There are “hybrid” roses that are created by cross-pollinating and however else the botanists and horticulturists do their thing.
Kind of like us as people…we grow up in an environment usually raised to believe that we’re always going to respond a certain way to something because that’s “just the way we are; it’s in our DNA; it’s always been done that way”. Well, the Great Horticulturist of Life offers lots of doors from which to choose. We can be an orange rose one year and decide to be a pink rose the next, or maybe not a rose at all…perhaps I want to be a StarGazer Lily this year. What I don’t want to be is a weed…but then what some consider weeds are actually quite beneficial (like dandelions, or mullein for instance).
Are you the same person you were when you moved in? Haven’t you changed over the years? I don’t think you can teach Nia and not be involved in some kind of change at some level. To me, the roses might not be as striking as they used to be because YOU are more striking and they don’t want to compete with your beauty. They still want to be pretty, but they bow before you. They don’t have as many thorns because you’ve given them so much love and care that they don’t need as many. Perhaps whoever lived there before didn’t love them as much as you and they had to protect themselves.
So a rose a rose is a rose, yes. But roses are living things. They have the energy and love of God just like you do. We weren’t meant to be the same forever…how boring would that be? And I know some people that are EXACTLY like they were 20 years ago…perhaps they haven’t changed out of fear, perhaps no one has ever invited them to grow into their greatness…and maybe that IS their greatness…the world needs all kinds of people. But change is inevitable. It’s the only constant.
So, there you have it. The answer to your question is yes to all of your questions.
Much rosy love to you Terre!!!
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terrepruitt said
I actually changed this post a lot while I was writing it. I went from it being about flowers changing, to it being about people changing, to it being about my blog changing, so it is funny you should link it to people changing. Because at one point I had too.
Wonderful little analogy. Could be?
No matter the reason the thorns have gone it amazes me when I think about it because these were the thorniest roses I have even seen. In order to handle them I had to hold the blossom its self.
Thank you for reading and commenting. You always make me smile. XOXOX
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suzicate said
We had what I considered a lovely rose bush when we bought our house nineteen years ago. My husband ripped it out (Iwas ticked off!) and it came back (yay!).Did it again for the next too years and it never returned (so sad!). I envy your roses no matter the color.
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terrepruitt said
The roses are awesome. I am lucky to have them no matter the color.
Again, thank you so much for dropping by!
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suzicate said
Award for you at my place.
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terrepruitt said
Wow! An award! And a “Snake’s Awesome Blog” award. Why thank you. I am flattered that you thought of me. And it is funny because I was just (well the day you did this) on your sister’s blog saying how I was so happy to have come across you two! Yay! Thank you.
I apologize it took me so long to thank you. Actually haven’t been on my computer long enough to check on blog today until now.
Thanks!
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Angelia Sims said
I think it’s cool the one that changed was something your husband didn’t like. 🙂
I love roses. I had a to leave a prized bush when I moved. It was amazing! Lots of blooms. Interesting on the color change. I have an antique book on roses my sister gave me. I may have to see what it says.
Niachick’s take on it was very interesting and very true about life and change. We are always evolving.
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terrepruitt said
Ang—
He probably DID IT! He talks to the plants and, if I hadn’t have witnessed it myself I wouldn’t believe, but THEY LISTEN. I think that his voice is one that is on a vibrating level that plants respond to. I would NOT be surprised if he was talking about the thorns while working on it and it changed! Sounds crazy, but you know . . . . sometimes the things that sound the craziest are true!
But seriously, he does have a voice that plants respond to. I have brought him many a dead plants and said, “This is dead.” And he says, “No, its not.” And I just look at him like he is crazy (because he is) and he “brings it back to life”. Because I guess it wasn’t dead, but it LOOKED dead!
Sorry you had to leave a love plant, but I bet someone else is enjoying it. Did you grow new roses when you moved? Yeah, see what the book says.
Niachick is a smart cookie! 🙂
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