ROSES on the WALL

My neighbor has a lovely red rose plant outside her front window. I can smell their heady scent even two houses down the path.

ROSES on the WALL – © LYON 2026

But she knows nothing about how to dead-head for more flower growth, nor how to let the last roses of the summer die and stay on the stems so she can harvest the rose hips later on this winter.

So I watch sadly as she butchers the bush, collecting flowers before they are ready, cutting the stems wrong so they grow out in odd angles.

My biggest exercise this summer has been watching in silence. I’m a say-it-plain person, so it’s been very difficult to mind my own business.

So I stand here at my door, aching for the rose bush, knowing it knows how it ought to be pruned and harvested, but patiently allowing her to do as she will with it (without sticking her with its thorns the way I might have done if I was that bush! No, that was mean. Sorry. Not sorry, darnit.)

So I decided to draw it, whole, happy, pruned right, waiting for winter to make its healing hips.

And here is the blue repeat version – wouldn’t it make glorious tiles? Or the color version could be a fabulous bright wallpaper for a single kitchen wall or even used in a bathroom!

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