"Emil" wrote in
:

Hi group,

Out of curiosity...How did everybody start with their hobby, more like
a passion :-) of roses? Did you learn by watching parents plant roses?
Is growing roses your occupation, any of you own a nursery? Etc. Etc.

The short version (I hope it's short):

My mother always grew roses but they were gangly, raggedy HTs so I never
paid much attention to them.

In late high school I got the gardening bug (I'm a Capricorn---we like to
dig in the dirt anyway); found that seed catalogs could be gotten *for
free*, wrote away for about forty of them just because I could afford
them (Caps like free stuff too).

Found out about one catalog that costs the enormous sum of one dollar,
from Roses of Yesterday & Today, decided to spring for it because the
subject matter looked antiquy and such. Found out that there were a class
of roses that made your mind bend; instead of calm, cool closed buds you
had to get used to fully-open blossoms and even (heaven forfend) roses
that only bloomed once. Bought a few (Mme. Hardy, Jacques Cartier, etc.)
and was blown away by their fragrance and style.

Joined the Royal Horticulture Society, went to the Chelsea Flower show,
got hooked by Austins in 1979, determined to get 'Perdita' despite that
fact that there were no Austins here at the time....

Never really lost the bug, it just grew quietly over time. And now, in
full circle, a local rosarian has reintroduced me to HTs and I'm learning
to speak their language at last.

The end. :-)

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