Rose Porn
I am in torment.
My mailbox is being inundated with the spring gardening catalogs. See the picture at left? That’s from the new Jackson and Perkins catalog, and is a prime example of what’s known among connoisseurs as “rose porn.” It’s a saucy new floribunda called Black Cherry. It’s luscious, it’s heavenly, it’s no doubt been photo-styled and airbrushed beyond any possible resemblance to what an actual Black Cherry rose would look like growing in someone’s actual yard. Nevertheless, I, the inveterate rose gardener, want it bad.
But I can’t have it. I can’t have any more roses; I can’t have any more flowers, period. Why?
Because of The Snake.
I live on a heavily wooded, vast rural estate of 10 acres. The first year I moved here, I met The Snake whilst tromping happily through the woods with my dog. I was terrified, The Snake was terrified, my dog was oblivious. The next summer, I espied The Snake one afternoon from my bedroom window, slinking along the wood edge behind my 75-foot rose border. It was several weeks before I was able to muster the courage to go into the garden again, but I finally convinced myself that The Snake would heed my desperate telepathic pleadings to stay the fuck away.
Last year, The Snake made his appearance early in the season, not long after the roses had passed their first peak in May. (By the way, I fully realize that there are probably many snakes on these 10 acres, but in my mind it is just The One Snake, a terrifying being of mythic proportions.) On one occasion, I saw The Snake slinking horribly between the catmint and the Our Lady of Guadalupe floribunda. Another day I discovered him lounging in the lantana just inches away from my feet, despite the fact that I had been stomping about and whacking and weeding for half an hour. In mid-summer The Snake appeared in the back yard – inside the dog fence! – and scared the living daylights out of me by streaking across the yard, head held high, at lightening speed. After each of these encounters, it became harder and harder for me to brave the outdoors. Then we found a baby snake in the garage – dead, but still snaky – and I almost had a nervous breakdown.
The coup de grace came at the end of the season, when The Snake appeared right on our front porch. I have barely been outside the house since.
So here I am, imprisoned in my own home by The Snake. The gardening catalogs flood in, and I long to do what I’ve done every winter of my gardening life: pore over the pictures, sketch out new plantings, dream up delicious new juxtapositions of color and form. But there’s no point, because I no longer have the nerve to even step into the fucking yard.
27 Responses to “Rose Porn”
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NYMOM says:
I see porn is easier to deal with for feminists today then the rights of mothers to their children.
Well you can ignore it all you want.
It won’t change the fact that the real 21st century fight facing women will be on our rights to our children, NOT on how we can attract more male idiots by offering more casual sex to them…
January 29th, 2006 at 7:01 pm EST -
Karen says:
Re: to post 1: huh? aren’t you a bit off-topic?
Re: The Snake: find a local natural history museum, a zoo that does herpetology presentations to kids, a pet store that sells snakes and will let you handle them…
Go pet snakes.
The snake knows you, and he doesn’t identify you as either predator or prey. Why should he be bothered by your presence?
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Burrow says:
I second the huh? to post #1. We’re talking about Roses here people. Roses.
I know it won’t help to say that the presence of snakes mean that you have a healthy garden.
Sorry about the snakes.
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sally says:
NYMOM,
I’m surprised to say that I totally agree with you. Godd point. -
Violet Socks says:
Hmmm…..it seems some of my readers are deconstructing this post as a thinly veiled argument in favor of pornography and father’s rights. If I were Michael Berube I might be able to pull off that kind of literary legerdemain, but frankly it’s beyond my abilities.
No, dear readers, this post really is about longing for luscious roses and fearing an evil snake.
Karen: are you out of your mind?
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Karen says:
Not out of my mind. I don’t recommend handling poison snakes, but touching the kind of snakes people keep as pets helps see them as just another critter.
Another thing you might try is talking to the snake when you see it. I used to be freaked out by bees, so to pick lemons I had to wait until after sunset. That was inconvenient, and I felt silly being afraid, so I went out during the day and talked to the bees. I reassured them that I wasn’t going to hurt them, and I thanked them for pollinating the tree. They ignored me and I felt better.
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Violet Socks says:
Oh, Karen, you do know I was funning you?
I’m absolutely terrified of snakes. Well, I guess that’s obvious. I’m so afraid of them I can’t even imagine going through the desensitization thing.
I talk to The Snake all the time, both telepathically and vocally. I ask him to leave me alone.
You sound so much saner than I am.
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Txfeminist says:
You live in a deliciously beautiful place! And, you would NOT like my cat. He likes to bring me -gasp!- dead snakes. Oh, and squirrels, too. He is a most devoted, affectionate creature (and a serial murderer).
But, what KIND of snake inhabits your tranquil gardens? I don’t think a 12 foot python could keep me from enjoying such beauty.
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Burrow says:
Lucky, my cat brings me live snakes.
(You just need to grab them by the tail or behind their heads. I used to be scared of snakes too, but not any more. Garden snakes are harmless (but it’s hard to think of that if you’re scared of them, I remember) so at least you know they aren’t *too* dangerous) *shurg* That probably didn’t help at all.
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Violet Socks says:
It’s a black snake, Tx. A big black snake.
God, cats are weird like that. When I was a kid we had a cat who would bring us dead birds.
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Violet Socks says:
Burrow, bless your heart. The thought of me actually touching a snake….
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Liz says:
The Snake! Hah-YAH!
What is that gorgeous pink rose, by the way? Sharifa Asma?
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Violet Socks says:
Liz, I’m afraid to click on your link. Is a snake going to pop out at me?
The peachy pink in the close-up? Actually that’s Honey Perfume. That rose is astonishingly changeable depending on weather and season. Sometimes it’s a rich gold and sometimes — as in the pictures — it’s simply peach. Always gorgeous, though.
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Burrow says:
I didn’t think you’d actually touch one. Hehe
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pink says:
I hear snakes like to slither around in stinky manure, especially there own. change your fertilizer and watch your garden grow…didn’t snakes have legs in the Garden of Eden until he pissed off God?
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pink says:
Violet, are those pictures realy your garden? Just being nosey. If they are, I am truely jealous…
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Violet Socks says:
Yep, that’s really my garden. Well, it WAS my garden. Now it belongs to The Snake. Hope he enjoys it, the slithering freak.
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belledame222 says:
That story does have an oddly mythopoetic tinge, somehow.
No, but, I sympathize. I myself was terrorized by a mouse infestation in my apartment last summer.* and those are *snake snacks.* Snakes: scary. Vermin in general: just plain wrong. Would an exterminator do anything for you?
(*and, I have a cat. at best he’d manage to catch the funny little running snack, nip it delicately between his teeth, carry it to the center of the living room, and then fling it into the air. nothing better for the nerves I tell you.
mostly he’d just ignore them. at one point after I’d been driven shrieking from the bath by one too many skittering critters, I picked him up from the closet floor where he’d been napping, plonked him down near where I’d seen the little fucker last disappear, and said to him:
“You! Cat! There! Mouse! *Go get mousie!*
He went all splay-legged, looked bewildered for a bit, and fell to scratching the couch).
*beautiful* garden. exquisite, really. hope you can find your way back to the lost paradise…
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John Smith says:
Violet, this has nothing to do with this blog. is that really your pic? Are you really that cute and Victorian, you little minx? :)
Or is that a pic you just picked out and put up for a while?
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Violet says:
Well, considering that I’m reclusive, Violet Socks is a pseudonym, and I refuse to divulge my real identity, what do you think?
The woman in that picture has probably been dead about a hundred years. But I am a cute minx.
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John Smith says:
Well then, I’ll accept the fact that your still a cute lil’ minx. That is a compliment by far.
Getting back to the blog, Violet, yes I do raise hybrid roses. (No, they don’t run on special gas or nothing like that.LOL) My grandfather, Bless his soul, taught me everything he knows about raising all kinds of roses, and honeybees. So I have every color of roses there are known to man in my backyard. The beehives are at my Dad’s farm, where I go to tend them every spring and summer and fall.
This last fall I had one particular rose bloom on my orange rose tree, that bloomed out white with red trim along the edges only. It was beautiful!
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Violet says:
But do you have every color of rose known to woman?
Sounds like you had a sport on your orange rose tree. Do you know the variety name of your orange rose?
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John Smith says:
I have over 560 different varieties of roses whether they’re hybrid or otherwise. By the way, after coming to full term, I picked that white rose with red trim along the edges and gave it to my wife of over 26 years. It would be so hard to name them all here. LOL
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Reclusive Leftist » Blog Archive » What lies beneath says:
[...] It looks idyllic, but do not be deceived. Somewhere in there lurks The Snake. [...]
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Chris Clarke says:
If I were Michael Berube I might be able to pull off that kind of literary legerdemain, but frankly it’s beyond my abilities.
Oh, that statement is SO TOTALLY something that Bérubé would write.
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Violet says:
Finally! Two months later, somebody gets my Berube joke.
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Kaitlyn says:
9 months later, and I know what number 18 is talking about.
Our cocker spaniel was a serial bird killer, and the area birds knew it and left our dogs alone.
Then, Ginger got older and more interested in enjoying the sun than in killing birdies. We had one obnoxious one that harassed everyone, canine or not. This bird actually landed on Ginger and Dixie’s backs once, and plucked some hair! And he/she’d swoop down and hit us humans on the head if we went out front.
Ginger also killed a mouse once.
Once. Never again.
The three we have now are more than happy to bark, growl, and sniff at the mouse on the trap, but they can’t catch one. Dixie will kill any palmetto bug she can catch, and she’s killed outdoor pests, like the mole, but the mice run free.
We live in a semi-rural area, that’s why we get so many field mice, but we’ve never had snakes. We had bunnies under our shed and the stupidest turtle come up to our fence more than once, but no snakes.
The roses are beautiful, and your garden is amazing.
We have azaleas in front of our house, and in the spring, we have to give them up to the bees. I’ve never tried talking, just running as fast as I can!
