By the spring of 2013, four years after planting, the red double-knockout roses along the fence had grown quite dense and bushy.   In early May, they were bursting into explosive bloom. 

 By late May, the same was true for the pink trellis roses.

The trellis roses had become our favorite photo backdrop.  Above, our daughter poses in a high-low dress, a style that enjoyed a longer period of popularity than it merited.  At this point, D’s blink-and-you’ll miss it middle school career was nearing an end.  It had been an enjoyable and satisfying two years.  With her involvement in drama, she’d found her niche.  She loved performing in two musicals, both pretty good for middle school fare: Thoroughly Modern Millie (ensemble) and Guys and Dolls (at last, a small named role as Agatha the Mission Girl).  While she’d never been exactly shy, with all but her closest friends, she’d been more reserved than outgoing, a characterization that was no longer consistently accurate.  As for her core group of elementary school buddies, she’d drifted apart from some and strengthened ties to others.  Despite her ongoing tendency toward extreme procrastination, she managed her coursework.  She was on the cusp of high school.  At thoughts of the new school year, she was understandably a little anxious.  But she was ready to leave middle school behind. 

Before the eighth grade dance (an event of far lesser significance than the sixth grade dance), our daughter sits with Kiko, who exhibits his typical nonchalance.

In 2014, the roses were still denser and more luxuriant.  This is despite the aggressive pruning my husband gives them every year in late summer.  If he didn’t do so, the fence and garage might well be invisible by now.  They could, conceivably, pull a Sleeping Beauty’s castle number on us if we got very lazy.  Otherwise, these hearty, disease-resistant roses need little care.  From now on, the challenge will be reining them in.       

As for our daughter, as with any teenager, we face a constant choice:  when to pull the reins, when to let her run free.  Like our roses, she’s easing quietly but speedily toward maturity. Once she began high school, it’s been one milestone after another, toppling like dominoes in quick succession.  I remember very vividly her concerns as the first day of high school approached.  Could she learn to navigate the confusing corridors of a much bigger school?  Would the coursework and homework be overwhelming?  She second- and third-guessed her decision not to go out for field hockey, as so many of her friends did.  Try-outs would have interfered with our sacrosanct vacation time in Cape Cod.  Would her participation in drama be enough to give her a sense of belonging?  All those worries proved unfounded.  Her freshman year brought  many firsts.  She took them in stride. 

The summer after freshman year, right on schedule as she had hoped, she got her driver’s permit.  On Day 1 as a new driver, she attempted the most notoriously narrow, winding road in our neighborhood.  (I was cringing.)  She was determined to drive as often as possible so she could get her license on the very day she became eligible.  

Soon she was a sophomore.  There were more firsts.   

On April 1, right on time, she became a licensed driver.  The day fell during our spring break visit to Atlanta.  D was able, at last, to take my parents’ iridescent gold PT Cruiser out on the streets legally; she’d been circling the church parking lot in it since she was eleven. 

That day she drove us to Callanwolde, an arts center housed in one of Atlanta’s several historic mansions associated with the Candler family. 

Now sophomore year is over, too.  Our daughter is halfway through high school. 

This summer, more often than not, she’s out with the car, among friends.  It’s just me and Kiko at home.  His day is as full as he wants it:  a morning walk, followed by sleeping in the sun, moving to the shade, then back to the sun.  

And while our dog loves a ride in the car, he’ll never require his own vehicle.   

By early May of 2011, two years after planting, two of the three climbing roses had reached the trellis.  The shrub on the left lagged a bit behind.  Narrow vines were bursting forth with bright green leaves, and buds had formed. 

The red double knock-outs by the fence and the porch were nearing peak bloom in the photos above.  They had filled in considerably and surpassed the nandina in height.      

This view from our neighbors’ yard shows the dense barrier formed by the red roses along the iron fence. 

At this point our daughter was twelve and nearing the end of sixth grade.  She was more than ready to be free from the annoying constraints of elementary school, with its hallway stop signs and arbitrarily awarded stickers for standing quietly in line and not acting the fool.  That April, she and I had accompanied my parents on a Danube River cruise.  She’d been more like a sister or friend than a daughter on that trip, a capable, fun companion with whom to explore Budapest and Passau while my parents remained aboard the ship.  She’d certainly seemed older than twelve.  Somehow it’s comforting that, at least in the photo above, she looks much as I think of her today. 

Kiko was five then.  His appearance remains unchanged.  By mid-May of that year, the pale pink roses were in full bloom. 

As for our daughter, she’d decided to cut her hair, which had grown longer than ever before.  (I hadn’t been in charge of her hair for several years.)  After great deliberation, she’d made the change, just in time for the sixth-grade dinner dance.  In our area, this is a pivotal event that heralds the end of elementary school.  It’s orchestrated in minute detail by tireless PTA committees, highly anticipated by parents and sometimes even enjoyed by students.  The theme that year was “A Night in the Tropics.”  For the girls, the dance meant the need for a new dress, one closer to semi-formal than Sunday School, despite the school’s insistence that it adhere to strict school-day dress code regulations.  Many girls, like my daughter, appealed to parents to let them try out higher heels than those to which they’d been accustomed.  Photos from that night show her and her friends in that slightly uncomfortable coltish stage:  all bony shoulders and long legs, little girls teetering in big shoes on the verge of growing up. 

By 2012, the following year, three years after planting, even the climbing rose at left had attained trellis height and begun to wind its way across.  In late May, all the roses, red and pink, were in lush, abundant bloom, turning our courtyard into a cozy outdoor room. 

Our daughter had made the jump from tween to teen, from elementary to middle school, and we could all breathe a big sigh of relief.  Just as she’d expected, she reveled in the greater freedom:  changing classes, her own locker, electives like shop, news team and drama.  And once in a while, the opportunity to walk into town after school with friends.  We’d read and heard much about the minefield of the middle school years, a life stage fraught with angst and peril.  While I understand that not all kids are so fortunate, for D those worries were overblown.  No doubt it helped that she entered seventh grade with a solid group of long-term, likeminded friends and an attitude that helped her forge new friendships. 

And then there’s Kiko.  Lying in the cool grass of three summers ago, he looks exactly the same today.  A dog can be a big help toward denying the passage of time. 

During the month of May, our back courtyard is the site of a rose explosion.  First the red roses along the fence pop.  Then the pale pink climbers on the garage trellis follow suit.  Each year our family marvels.  We can’t believe these roses.  I’ve written about the evolution of the space behind our house from cement wasteland to cozy enclosed garden.  See Up From the Concrete, Roses.  When I looked back at the photos from that 2012 post, I was surprised to see just how much the roses have multiplied in three years. 

On the last Saturday in May we hosted a gathering and hit the weather just right.  The evening was pleasantly warm.  We were on the porch or in the courtyard from beginning to end, surrounded by roses.  Several friends asked how quickly they grew.  How long did it take the pink roses to reach the top of the trellis?  Seemed like two years, but I wasn’t sure.  So I looked back.  The changes were dramatic. 

This is the way the roses grew. 

The porch addition, the courtyard and lawn panel, and the changes to the garage were completed in May 2009.  Most of the plantings were in just before Memorial Day.  The climbing roses, each shrub almost two feet in height, were planted at the sides of the garage and between the doors.  The above photo shows the porch without screens and the yard as yet unfenced. 

Along the fence line, we alternated red rose bushes with taller nandina.  We didn’t realize then how quickly the roses would overtake the nandina. When the plants were first in, the transformation struck us as spectacular, a vision of instant lushness.  Six years later, we’ve grown more accustomed to our leafy flower-filled courtyard, and I’m amazed at how relatively bare it all was back then.  Hardly spectacular.  So much of the iron fence plainly visible, the unadorned white glare of the garage and the stark, naked trellis. 

I also forgot how young our daughter was when we began the project.  In this picture, from July 2009, she was ten and just out of fourth grade.  Goodness, she looked like a little kid.  Maybe because she’s our only child, and we tend to talk to her more or less as we would an adult, she’s always seemed relatively mature. I’ve never wanted to rush her growing up, but I generally think of her as older than she is.  Yet on that summer morning in her PJs  six years ago, she sure looked like a ten year old, with little-girl bangs and short hair.  That was back when I still laid out her clothes every morning, when I could shop for her easily, when my mother would sew full-skirted Sunday dresses for her.  Back before pierced ears, make-up and high heels, before she developed her own unique sense of style, very different from mine.  Way before she needed a steady supply of long gowns for drama events and prom.  That was my little girl.  Wow. 

Kiko was nearly two.  With relief I note that he looks exactly the same now as he did then.  

A year after planting, the climbing roses had nearly doubled in height, but were still a long way from reaching the trellis.  The vines were spindly and thin.  In this photo, taken in April 2010, our eleven-year old daughter models her classic (she would now call it old-fashioned and babyish) Easter dress. 

By July of that year, the red rose bushes were considerably denser and as tall or taller than their neighboring nandina.  Our daughter, eating a homemade popsicle, wears the tie-dyed shirt she made for her fifth-grade production of Alice-in-Wonderland.  Her hair still slightly wet from the pool, she was a typical, somewhat scruffy rising sixth-grader.  I don’t remember it ever entering my mind that she was in an awkward stage.  Hindsight is bracingly clear-eyed.  Still, compared to the less than stellar preteen me  (with glasses that evoked the cartoon character Morocco Mole, braces and an unflattering short hair cut), my daughter at eleven was a personification of tween elegance and beauty.  Much like our roses during their pre-adolescence.

To be continued.  Next up:  Flowers and girl continue the climb.