I have lots of roses.
They are always rewarding with their different shapes colours and perfumes and are often admired by visitors.
But there’s one in the garden, that’s a bit shabby and out of shape, and is the one most loved and cherished by all the family.
She’s had an interesting history.
Down at Mickleham I wanted a hedge of standard roses on the pathway next to the house.
One of my favorite hedge roses was called Apricot Nectar, and I ordered six from my usual rose nursery.
In the entire thirty years I had been buying from them, there had never been an error, but when the row flowered, it was obvious, in the row of delicate peach-coloured blooms, one was very different.
A brilliant yellow.
So I picked a bloom, went back to the nursery, asked what it was, and Diana was horrified.
They had obviously been sent a mislabelled plant, and instantly offered to replace it.
I said, no it’s there now leave it, and asked its name.
She is called Catherine Macauley, a nun and founder of the sisters of Mercy.
So she flowered happily, contrasting with her more delicately shaded sisters, until the awful day of the bushfires.
As she was right near the doors the burning walls fell on her, she was badly burned, there wasn’t much left of her, as you can see the dead branch on the lower right in the photo (which was taken after we moved her) but she still flowered the next day, one bright yellow rose in the ash, mortar and devastation.
All the dreadful time through the following week she was there, crippled but brave.
She did the same thing two months later, after we lost our precious granddaughter Jess, just one bright yellow bloom, so when the time came to move, there was no way Catherine Macauley was being left behind.
She was dug up and came with us, staying in a pot at the rental house, and then came here to the new place.
If ever there was a sign to never give up, she’s it… she’s still bent out of shape, bloodied, but unbowed. She still does her beautiful best.
I photograph her every year when she flowers as she is a symbol of survival. One very special rose.
