Love in the Time of Colorado

By: mesanger

Oct 29 2013

Tags: fall, flowers, Fort Collins, rain, rose hips, roses, snow, winter

Category: life

4 Comments

We didn’t wake to snow today because the temperature was only very slightly but just enough above freezing — though it was plenty wet and wintry.

And look at the roses outside of Aggie Village! Abundant new leaf growth emerging burgundy-ish and numerous baby buds. Through all this cold.

I admire their willingness to keep on going in the chill and change of light. Is it tenacity or stupidity? I don’t understand the botany of these roses and why they wouldn’t be already forming rose hips* and storing up nutrients to last through the winter. Why are they so perky through the sting of relentless fall?

These plants are oddly hip-less. I will watch to see what happens. And admire, meanwhile, the tenacity of a plant that pushes out nascent buds as the temperatures drop below freezing — the unwillingness of these wild roses to stop building beauty. I will call it tenacity, until the snows fall. Then, guys, really — it is time to tuck under.

It seems encoded in their plant DNA: I will produce wonder. Watch me.

These are the summer versions of the same plant.

*You’ve seen rose hips… Roses are from the apple family, and the hips look like little apples. High in vitamin C, they have a long history of medicinal usage. During World War II, there was a shortage of citrus fruit in England, and the British government organized the harvesting of all the Rose Hips in England as a substitute for vitamin C. Your trivia for today.