My very romantic rose garden is taking shape in surprising ways.

Having established that it is not peligroso para mi.... i.e., a problem for my husband that I have hearts all over the garden, our gardener is going to town on the theme of romance.   Apparently, for local men such bold symbolism could be very problematic.  No worries here.

His creative spirit is running free out there in the roses.  I have heart shaped beds and heart shaped stone shapes in the middle of beds, beds with just red roses and so on......  I like it quite a bit.....and it is still early days.

Progress is a little slow.  I am OK with that.  Time to put in some practical improvements like a mechanized irrigation system.  

Should be ready for showtime around Christmas.

Courtesy of our artistic gardener, this is a flower arrangement of a red rose in a bottle of water. Now sitting on my mantlepiece. 

It has attracted much attention in the house over the last few days.  Visitors Panamanian and foreigners seem equally curious.   

Apparently the possibilities of keeping flowers in bottles of water are endless - the single red rose is a simple rendition.  This way blooms will keep without oxygen in water for weeks.   

Guess what I found in my rose beds this week? Watermelons, tomatoes and .... any idea what that is in the picture looking for all the world like a very large weed?   

I am told, it is actually a very important herb for burns.  If you have a little accident with the stove or ironing then a few leaves of that will be very useful.   As I am the only one who will do the ironing.  That is OK.   

(Although there are ladies to do almost every domestic chore in Panama, most do not iron.   Legend has it, ironing will make your face all twisted and crooked.  So the chance of a Panamanian lady getting burns from an iron are small to nonexistent).

Gardening and gardeners here are practical folk.   Useful things are allowed to flourish even is the aesthetic is a stretch.  I have mint mixed with begonias and Sugar cane at the back of a flower bed.    It is part of the charm of my rustic garden in the coffee.

Today, we went on a road trip to the other side of the Volcano to buy roses for planting.  It is now raining hard, time to plant.

The 'other side' might as well be another world, people do things differently:  Ladies proudly doing their shopping in cylindrical spongey curlers, gentlemen having their hair cut on front porches, men plowing with horses and some with old tractors.  We followed a little corn truck going around delivering corn husks for Fathers Day in return for money, or in at least two cases I noticed for small red peppers or a sack of onions.

Almost at the end of the road, there is a very nice Señora and her daughter, who sell roses for $2 a plant;  200 yds down the road at the junction with the main road, the same plants $3;    In Volcan, the town a few miles down the mountain,  behind the municipal market. the same roses are now around $3.5; And by the time they have travelled to Boquete in the market they are $5.  It has taken me sometime to work out the price dynamics of roses as well as the identity and location of the Source.

The Source wore a pink hat and was drying her laundry around the rose bushes in the morning sunshine.  She has some very large mother plants, a great book about rose cultivation she was happy to share by a lady called Alvaraz and a garden full of healthy young rose plants.  

We purchased 112 plants, were gifted 3 and given a discount on a large pot of a rarer purple blue rose.  It took half a tank of gas and 6 hours with a stop for lunch.  For a 60% discount, break-even point for me (I like a good lunch), is at around 20 plants.  All assuming you enjoy visiting the 'other side', which I do.