Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Missing Sharifa Asma Rose

Have you seen me?

Last known location

I was preparing the bed, feeding, cutting matting so I could mulch, when suddenly I realized Sharifa was gone.

Description (as I have made bad quality picture)- most delicate blush pink, paling almost to white at outer edges. Growth upright and comparatively short. Scent distinctive with fruity notes reminiscent of white grapes and mulberry. Eventual height expected to be around 4 feet. (he was only about 5-10 inches, leafy and green the last we saw him, a wee babe)

He leaves behind two others I adopted at the same time, late this spring, his sister Heritage, and his brother Geoff Hamilton. Both are doing about as well as can be expected (they grew, and continue to grow, faster and fuller than he did. They appear to be strong) but they are very concerned. He also leaves behind a vast extended family, we all miss him, and now there is an empty spot in the bed. If you have any information on the where abouts of Sharifa, or if I will ever see him again, please notify me. I just can't believe he would run away, wasn't he happy here? Or, I know this is extreme but I am distraught, has he been plantnapped!!?? If you have taken him, please bring him back. I am also quite concerned that he may have been eaten (I am guite certain rabbits ate my purple passion), or otherwise have perished.

Oh the guilt, the guilt. I never should have let all those cosmos plant themselves in, and run wild through, our roses home. I knew those plants were trouble. They are so huge, at least 3 feet, and are growing so wide (they resemble pine trees) crowding out all the space, and blocking sunlight from smaller plants. I kept telling myself it wasn't safe having them hanging around, they had to go, but then I would hesitate, because it seemed too late to transplant them, unfair to move them, how would they survive? And the birds loved them so. But yesterday, in all my distress, I pulled them out without reservation. Wishing I hadn't considered the cosmos at all, and had instead tended better to my intentional plantings. How long has Sharifa been missing? How could I not have known? Am I that distracted? I visit my roses everyday and pull the beetles off of them, but Sharifa was just little and had no blooms. I have planted the cosmos in other places. I don't know if they will or wont survive, but it had to be done, I shall not sacrifice anymore of my children to their whims.

Now I am just watering the dirt, where he was, in hopes that he is still there somewhere (though truth is, the soil seems empty), and that if I pay him the attention I should have been paying before, he will return to me. I guess I shall just have to leave an open space in the matting around where I think he is, and if he does not return next spring, I shall buy another one to plant in his place, and not lose sight of that one. (and not let the cosmos plant themselves in that bed, I'll take them out right away. I promise).

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