A Valentine’s thorn in Rose City’s side
For Valentine’s Day, I wish I could be writing about Welland’s ongoing, passionate love affair with the rose.
But sad to say from my point of view, it just isn’t so. Not any more.
It’s over. The bloom is off the rose. For the rose, life isn’t a bed of roses these days.
OK, call me the anti- Cupid if you are so inclined. Call me twisted for writing about this breakup in the Rose City. Call me heartless on Valentine’s Day for penning this exposé, on this day of all days.
It’s a thorny issue, but somebody has to do it.
Let’s be honest. Welland has been less than forthright about its relationship with the rose.
This is painful to admit, and I know I stand the risk of being labelled a thorn in the city’s side, but feelings for its flower of choice seem strained in recent years. If things go on like this, will we next be severing our tie to being Canada’s Rose City? Oh, the shame of it.
We turned our back on the rose when Main Street Bridge became coveted, perhaps lusted over, as the object of the city’s intentions a few years ago. After that the writing was on the wall soon enough without the powers that be having to proclaim to its partner, heartlessly: ‘ We never promised you a rose garden.’ Oh, the pain. Cold, cold- blooded are these affairs of the heart.
The rose’s fate was sealed when the bridge image started to appear on everything from business cards to city vehicles.
Oh the ignominy — for a flower widely known as the queen of the garden — in being jilted for a towering, iron and steel landmark.
But let me also say signs of the rose’s falling out of favour were around even before the bridge’s shameless wooing.
For example: There are fewer roses in the showpiece Chippawa Park rose garden now than there were, say, 10 years ago, and chances are the number may continue to decline in favour of other flora. Though meticulously maintained by city parks workers, the rose garden just isn’t what it used to be.
And the Rose Festival, once known as Welland’s foremost promotional event, pays little more than lip service to the flower whose name it bears.
The festival does not have a rose show of it own — the rose show in Welland being an event proudly held by Welland Horticultural Society. One would think a festival in receipt of annual public funding would have its own event promoting the city flower and raising its profile in the community. Can you imagine the Niagara Grape and Wine Festival without wine- tasting parties?
Oh, for the rose, the pain there must be in being scorned after a relationship going back to 1921 when the city council of the day passed a motion designating it Welland’s official flower.
Oh, the shame of this sordid, sordid turn of events in recent years. A wound that not even a dozen roses will heal. How thorn in cheek is this.