Grandma's Rose Garden

My Grandma, Nadine Brewster Burnett, is the daughter of Sheldon and Edna Leone Brewster (married 1921). She currently resides in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the house her father built. This is the story of the rose garden in front of that house.



When my Great Grandpa built that house on the hill, the one thing he and my Great Grandma wanted was a rose garden. I asked my Grandma if rose are easy to grow, she said “I think this rose garden is blessed.” After the house was finished, Sheldon and Edna planted rose bushes one by one.



After Sheldon died, my grandparents came to live at the house to take care of Edna and the rose garden. When they relayed concrete for front driveway they had this commemorative brick made:


"Edna and Sheldon Rose Garden 1966"

1966 is the year they moved into the house. Of course, when the brick makers first made the brick they put 1996 instead of 1966. Grandma and Grandpa complained, so they made another one but didn’t have to send the first one back. So the brick with the wrong date is also a part of the rose garden, on the other side of the driveway, hidden under the over grown roses on that side.

Aren't the roses beautiful?


Grandma’s are amazing people—they know a lot about things I would never think to learn. Today my grandma taught me something I’m sure she learned from her parents— I was gardening with Grandma and she taught me how to properly cut-back rose bushes. She calls it “heading” the roses. Here’s how: You have to clip the dead rose hips. Cute right? When all the petals fall off, the left over bit is called hips. It doesn’t make much sense when you realize you’re ‘heading’ the roses, you would think it would be ‘hipping’ roses. Anyway, you have to snip the hips and the stem off before the first five-leaved leaf because it does no good to just cut off the hips. I never realized that roses had different amounts of leaves on their stems. As they grow toward the bud, the leaves go from groups of 5 to groups of 3. When they sprout new buds, the new 3-leaved stem starts growing from the 5-leaved spots.