It has been a great pleasure, over these last few years, to meet fellow gardeners throughout the world via the Internet. Without this wonderful Worldwide Web, I probably wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now.

Every so often, one of my blog posts, or my wacky product ideas attract someone who wouldn’t necessarily be interested in miniature gardening per se, but the cute idea, or the new item, shows up on their radar, and a door is opened.

Last month, I had the opportunity to speak with Lynette – a cloche collector in California. It was my Mini Moss Terrarium blog that did it, she saw the wee cloches and they were a must for her collection and thus emails started.

And Lynette always ended her emails with “Roses will always bloom again.”

My roses were still blooming in September when we were emailing back and forth, so I commented at one point, that my roses were, in fact, blooming again. I then got the unique chance to hear the story behind Lynette’s signature line.

This fit in perfectly with my ‘Garden as Metaphor’ theme that I’ve been gradually adding to over the years. This is in Lynette’s words – I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, want to even try to rewrite this.

Thank you very much, Lynette for sharing. I know this will bring hope to whomever needs it – and it’ll always be a quote to remember during the heaviest days that life can bring:

The Rose Story

My German neighbor was 4 years old during World War II and her father was fighting in France. She and her sister, who was 5, lived with their mother and their mother's parents in Northern Germany.

There were many air raids during the conflict, which sent all the townspeople to a large building in the center of town. They would hasten to the basement of this building and wait until the 'all clear' sirens would blow.

On one particular night, the fighting was fierce. England was dropping bombs from planes roaring down through the area. It was night and again, the townspeople ran to the safety in the building.

My neighbor and her sister were terrified.

The town had suffered much destruction and rubble was everywhere. The explosions and screaming of bombs and planes and gunfire all around was too much to bear.

My neighbor's mother, sensing the unbelievable trauma her little girls were experiencing, kneeled down in the darkness of the basement sanctuary, pulled her little girls close to her and with her hands cupping their tear-streaked faces, promised them that it was all going to be okay .... roses will always bloom again.

In the last three years, we lost our 20 year business, my father died, my best friend died, I had emergency surgery and my husband nearly died in January of a horrible staph infection in his knee. Forty-five days in the hospital and our beloved Chihuahua died in my arms while he was in the hospital.

That same German neighbor left a small glass vase on my doorstep filled with about 10 rosebuds and a note taped to the vase, "Roses will always bloom again."