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This is a very hardy rose bush. I can’t remember if it’s classed as a climber- I don’t think so, but it is quite tall. It grows to at least 10 feet in my garden. The red blooms are lightly scented too.

This particular rose has a history in my family.

We purchased our house in May of 2001, but we weren’t set to take possession until the end of June. My parents happened to come to Toronto in mid June of that year for my brothers birthday and while they were visiting we brought them over the our “house to be”. Since we hadn’t pre-arranged a visit to the house with the former owners they didn’t let us in. One of the home owners was apparently sleeping, so my parents only got to see the outside of the house.

We moved into our home at the end of June 2001 and we got busy refinishing the floors, repainting every room of the house and doing many other smaller jobs to make the home our own. As a result I didn’t visit with my parents again until September of that year, and then again in October. My fathers health declined during that period and he died in December of that year. He never got to see the inside of our house in person – although he did see many photos and heard lots of stories about what we were doing.

The following summer my mother came to visit us for a week. He brother lived in a smaller town outside of Toronto and he was sick in the hospital. We brought her to visit him several times during her visit. Unfortunately about two weeks after she went home my uncle passed away. My mother came back to Toronto for the funeral and stayed with us for a few days.

While my mother was in town that second time we went out and picked out a rose for her home. We chose Sympathie because of it’s beauty and name. I think my mother meant it to be a tribute to her brother and possibly even my father.

The rose thrived and grew besides my mothers front steps for a year and then my mother became sick with cancer. She passed away in August 2003. My siblings and I went through all of the items in the house and either divided them up or gave them away to charities.

One of the items that I decided to take was the Sympathie rose. This rose now thrives in my backyard, growing larger and more beautiful each year. As are many of the plants and items in my garden I now think of this rose as a tribute to the memory of my mother, father and uncle.

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