I have an unfortunate story connected with this rose that I nevertheless hope will have a happy ending with the help of this HMF website. For 15 years my husband and I lived in a house on a 1/4 acre near Victoria, British Columbia (Canada), in Zone 7a, with a garden I'd filled with rare and unusual roses over the years. One of the darlings of my collection was "Summer's Kiss" -- it was growing in a south-facing bed just under the veranda railing and unfailingly sent up perfectly scrolled, gently coloured blooms throughout each summer. I'm not much of a hybrid tea enthusiast, and had picked this rose up on a whim as a pot-grown specimen late in the season at a local Victoria nursery, having been enchanted by the unique scent and form of the flower.
Even now I can recall clearly the exhilarating anise-licorice & honey scent of a bloom of "Summer's Kiss" picked on a warm summer's day. It was the only rose in my collection that I suspected I'd never be able to purchase commercially again. When we sold our house this past summer to move to Nova Scotia (still in Canada, but the far, east coast!), I had only 4 weeks to pack up 15 years of living. One of the tasks I desperately attempted to make time for was to root a cutting from this rose to take across the country with us in our car to try and grow on at our new home (despite the fact it would be a bare root rose, I thought it was well worth the attempt). Alas, so many other urgent tasks demanded my attention as we tried to pack up everything we owned in time for the movers to arrive that I simply didn't have a moment to spare to rescue a piece of this rose, pot it up and care for it until it rooted. The day we left was so chaotic that there wasn't even time to snip a blossom from the plant to remember her by.
Now we're settled in Nova Scotia and I'm thrilled to be able to start my garden planning in this wonderful Zone 6b area. Bare root roses have been ordered accordingly to replace some of my old "favourites". However, there is a sad gap in the new collection, and I'm hoping someone at a nursery in the lists here on HMF will still be selling "Summer's Kiss". I've been delighted to have found HMF through a day-long search on the web, and am hopeful too that I'll once again be able to step outside on a sunny summer's day to the kiss of this beautiful rose. It is well worth preserving.
RD
