A Love Letter to My Roses

Charlotte Moss lays bare her long-running romance with the garden megastar and the cache of secrets and stories hidden in its delicate layers.

- Photograped and written by Charlotte Moss

Arriving in the country shortly before Christmas I was delighted to find a few of you still waiting for me. A testament, surely, to your stamina and willingness to hang on long enough to have our last tête-à-tête before spring.

STANDING ROOM ONLY

This demilune-shaped bed in my garden is of a single palette, but it's brimming with variety: Here, 'Quietness, 'Felicia,' and 'Abraham Darby' roses compete for attention with 'Savoy Hotel' and 'Mother of Pearl' in the company of an arched white arbor.

Unlike your cousins, the beautiful blossoms of summer, you waited. The last bud of the season, shy, unopened with the weight of moisture from a heavy winter frost, yet standing tall, there you were hanging on so I could bid you a final farewell.

Alone at last, we finally have some privacy, and there is one fact about you that we have never discussed: your past associated with so many men. Apart from a few female social types with world-class gardens who relished the bragging rights of having your acquaintance, all in your orbit have been men. The retinue of lovers, scholars, explorers is an enviable coterie of gentlemen.

André Dupont, Jean-Pierre Vibert, Joseph Pernet-Ducher, Antoine Meilland, Graham Stuart Thomas, Peter Beales, and David Austin, all intoxicated with the prospect of having you as their mistress.

I guess it all makes sense really, your loyalists, your salon of men, all captivated by your beauty and driven to do anything in their power to make you more perfect than you are.

Your allure is your elusiveness.