“Some Rose!!!”

There is an extraordinary rose bush bordering a garden in our neighborhood—I pass it every time we go out—that drives me crazy.

It is in tree form—one shoulder-high stalk exploding in a voluptuous armload of buttery-gold-apricot roses as ripe as summer fruits.

When I finally stopped to ask the owner the name of the rose, I was knocked back because I once had dinner with the namesake: Julia Child.

Ohmygoshesandgollies.

In all my days of roses, I have never seen a more floriferous bush. Truly astonishing.

Finally last year, I bought a small Julia Child plant at our local nursery. Placed it at the base of a tall manzanita tree at the side of our house so that when you drive up the street to us, it’s warm in greeting. Straightway the rose began blooming extraordinarily. I’ve left it as a bush, not trimmed it as neighbors did, one stalk to make a tree rose.

Our garden is, like me, lackadaisical.

Introduced in 2006, Miss Julia’s buttery rose is a floribunda…”many-flowering.” This modern rose (post-1867 in the rosarian world) is composed of hybrid tea Voodoo (“hybrid” tells you it’s already a cross) and soulieana…a descendent of wild China roses, and Summerwine, a corraly single-petaled climbing rose.

In England, the rose is named Absolutely Fabulous.

Some will tell you the rose is scented with licorice…others say No, it’s butter… To me, the fragrance is pure sweet rose.

I looked to see who bred it. Tom Carruth is a remarkable man who has brought into existence more than one hundred roses, eleven of which have been named All America Rose Selection, AARS, the best of the best. Julia Child earned her Best in America in 2010. In England, she gained the Award of Garden Merit in 2012.

Now I’ve long adored David Austin’s golden Graham Stuart Thomas rose…a rich and gorgeous golden rival to La Julia’s. I had it on the mountain, and afternoons I’d sit with Graham Thomas between me and the sun setting behind it… molten gold…a remarkable esthetic experience…

Julia’s blossom, to me, is a match for Graham Thomas. But her bush is extraordinarily generous …which suits, because friends who were close to La Child speak of her with boundless admiration and affection. She was quite a person.

And hers is quite a rose.

Remember Charlotte spinning the message about Wilbur, “Some pig!”?

Well, if I were a spider, I’d spin the line, “Some rose!” across Julia Child’s glory.