As I entered the cemetery's main gate, I saw three roses ... two tall white Noisettes and one pink, cluster-flowered shrub.
This is one of the Noisettes. I didn't photograph the pink shrub.
I cruised slowly through the cemetery, and it took a while for me to find any more roses at all. The first one I saw was probably a wild Multiflora ... perhaps planted by a seed dropped by a bird. The next one (two, actually) were pink Rugosas. One, pictured above and below, is probably 'Pink Grootendorst'. It was about four feet high, and is very healthy and vigorous.
Beside 'Pink Grootendorst' was another pink rugosa. The foliage is very similar to 'Pink Grootendorst', but the flowers were different ... much more delicate and not fringed like PG.
The final rose I found is one of my favorites ... one I can identify just about anywhere, even without flowers (which is a good thing, since it only blooms in the spring) ... Banshee. Banshee's growth habit varies, depending on location, but her distinctive foliage gives her away every time.
This Banshee was growing in the shade of a large tree, and it appears that its leaves were beginning to shut down as fall arrives. Banshee in my garden, planted as a sucker from a plant in growing in a cemetery in King William, Virginia, is growing in full sun and has happily reached eight feet high. (Here's a photo of a flower from my Banshee, so you can see how lovely she is.)
I came away from Thornrose Cemetery feeling a bit lost. I know that there were once many more roses growing there, but those are but a memory.
Isn't that what a cemetery is, after all ... a place for memories. In this case, we have memorials to memories of loved ones ... and memories of roses that once were.
