A little quest to find Frohsinn

With my one-year blogiversary coming up on the 1st of January 2015, I thought it would be fitting to visit the Chart Farm in Wynberg to see whether I could find – and take a picture of – my favourite rose, after whom this blog is named.

The amazing rose garden at Chart Farm

Mom, hubby and myself – with our overseas visitor Flat Kathy happily tagging along – thus headed south along the M5, to enjoy a delicious mid-morning tea and coffee with scones and cake at the Chart Farm Coffee Terrace. Tummies contentedly full, we went for a stroll through the gorgeous rose gardens afterwards.

I walked all over the gardens, looking for my favourite golden-yellow-apricot coloured rose known as ‘Frohsinn‘ (incidentally, this German word means ‘cheerfulness’ or ‘joy’ in English, and it expressed exactly how I felt when I first saw this rose; I thought that it would be a fitting name for this blog).

Although they have several types of yellow, or golden-yellow, or lemon-yellow roses, only one row looked and smelled like my beloved ‘Frohsinn’. But the new little signboards they had stuck into the start and end of each row, gave them a completely different name. It was most puzzling.

Eventually, after another unsuccessful circuit of the entire garden, I returned to the bench under the giant magnolia tree, where Mom and hubby – and Flat Kathy – were sitting in the shade.

Looking for that one special rose

“So, are you going to declare that that one over there is ‘Frohsinn’?” asked hubby. “Even though the name is different?”

Hm… no, I needed confirmation. So I took a couple of photos, and trudged back to the stall, where you pay for any roses that you’ve picked, and showed a close-up photo to the sales assistant: “Excuse me, do you know if this is ‘Frohsinn’?”

Giving me a blank look, he suggested I ask the rose expert at the nursery around the corner. I’d been to this place dozens of times, but I’d never even looked around the corner! There, I came across a stall, manned by a friendly black chap, who took one look at the close-up picture of the rose I showed him, and said, “Yep, that’s Frohsinn ’82.”

“But the label says that it’s something else?”

“Yes, I know… There’s a couple of roses that have been labelled incorrectly. I’ve pointed it out several times already, but they haven’t fixed it yet. This one is definitely Frohsinn ’82.”

I thanked him profusely, and hurried back to my family – Mission Successful! And I can thus now confidently declare: I have found Frohsinn!

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