Die Stadt Palazzolo Acreide liegt 43 Kilometer von der Stadt Syrakus entfernt in den Hyblean Mountains. Der Friedhof ist eine Stadt aus Stein und hat wahrscheinlich mehr Einwohner als die Stadt der Lebenden.

Vorgestern hatten sie jedoch noch den “Il Giorno dei Morti” gefeiert, und wir fanden den Friedhof voller Blumen. Die Luft war gesättigt vom Duft der Lilien und dem schwankend kräutrigen Aroma der Chrysanthemen. Die Nachmittagssonne schien auf Granit und Sandstein, es gab beeindruckende Familiengewölbe in Form kleiner Kathedralen, und Gräber, auf denen die Marmorplatten so schwer lasteten, dass die Toten darunter selbst am Tag der Auferstehung sie würden heben können …
Die Toten hier ruhen nicht in der Erde, oder doch? Wie sollten diese massiven Steine nur gehoben werden?
Viele Steine ​​waren mit fein gemeißelten Rosengirlanden geschmückt, ganz im Stil sanft gerundeter Rokokorosen (im Gegensatz zu den Rosenreliefs auf deutschen Friedhöfen, die normalerweise eine Blume im Tee-Hybrid-Stil zeigen). Vielleicht war dies damals eine Spezialität des örtlichen Steinmetzes.

Alle Grabsteine ​​trugen ovale Email- oder Porzellanteller mit einem Porträt des Verstorbenen, die meisten in Schwarzweiß. Strenge Gesichter, viele davon noch sehr jung. Einige Männer wurden mit Sonnenbrille porträtiert. Unter den Frauen gab es viele Schönheiten, die schon mit Anfang 20 oder Anfang 30 gestorben waren. Niemand lächelte (außer einer Dame auf einem farbigen Foto der 80er Jahre). Zeit, Sonnenlicht und Regen hatten sich auf die Oberflächenchemie der Porträts ausgewirkt: Silbrige Linien und Flecken verdeckten Teile der Gesichter oder veränderten teilweise ihren Ausdruck. Sie erinnerten an Fotografien von Geister-Séances, bei denen das Ektoplasma als silbrige oder weiße Substanz auf dem Bild zu erkennen ist. Aber auch ohne Makel sprachen viele Gesichter deutlich von den Strapazen des sizilianischen Lebens: schwarze Augen starrten unerbittlich auf die Besucher zurück, wie unbesiegbare Burgen thronten die Frisuren und eine unausgesprochene Traurigkeit lag um die Münder aller

Es gab auch Rosensträucher, die neben den Grabsteinen wuchsen. Nach der Dicke ihrer Stämme zu urteilen, müssen sie alt gewesen sein. 50 Jahre, 70 Jahre und mehr. Ich fragte mich, warum oder wer eine Rose so dicht zwischen zwei Gräber oder an die Kante eines Steins pflanzen würde.
Diese Rosen, sagte Patti, “sind einfach aus den Sträußen oder Kränzen gefallen und haben Wurzeln geschlagen.” “Das sind gepfropfte Rosen”, sagte ich, “auf keinen Fall.”

Wir kamen an Dutzenden Büschen vorbei, die direkt unter einem Grab hervor zu wachsen schienen. In meiner Vorstellung waren all diese Rosen zuerst da gewesen. Vielleicht war dieser Ort einmal ein Rosengarten gewesen. Oder, als der Friedhof gegründet wurde, waren die Gräber kleiner gewesen und mit einem kleineren Stein bedeckt. Jeder Rosenstrauch, der damals gepflanzt wurde, könnte weiter gewachsen sein, nachdem er den Marmor-Unsterblichkeitswahn der späten 40er Jahre gnädigst erduldet hatte.

The garden of the Cappuccine monks in Sortino lies deserted, enclosed by high walls, and less than 2% of the inhabitants have ever set foot into it. Padre Matteo opened its doors for us. A former orchard and herb garden that hasn’t been tended for years. It is overgrown with Iopomea, oranges lie in the grasses, giant fennel (Ferla) stalks stand briskly in your way. There are olive, almond, and lemon trees. Crumbling stone steps lead up to the high cedars that flank the North side of the enclosure. To the South, we can see the lands of prehistoric Pantalicca and the valley of the invisible river – “Anapo” means invisible and it is called like that because this river disappears three times in the ground and resurfaces again.

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(Übersetzung folgt) „Aspirin is very good“, Patrick says, „but take care you buy uncoated tablets only“, and he’s not talking about his head but about the roses of the ELP Municipal Rose Garden on 710 Aurora Drive. We stand in the blazing heat and are talking roses.

A rose garden always seems to be a formal matter and the El Paso rose garden makes no exception. Its surrounding walls are whitewashed, the paths and plots follow prescibed horticultural plans, and yet, the neighborhood seems rather unimpressed. A police car is the only vehicle on the gravel parking lot of the garden. Teenagers in yellow shirts jump up and down under the terracotta colored roof of a nearby school. In front and behind the walls, rows of Hespealoes (Red Yucca) show off their last blossoms on gracious stalks, with black seeds spilling out of elegantly shaped pods.

Patrick is about 70, wears checkered trousers and a  Catweasel-like beard. How come we started talking about the roses? He was working at a stretch of red shrub varieties.  We admired him and the roses, unfilled simple red blossoms on age-grey sun-battered strong stems: desert hardy roses. And as it turned out, desert hardy roses were a favorite theme of Patrick who starts at 7 in the morning and has been working for the past 11 years in this garden.

He leads us to a shed where the gardeners stash garlic and onions to fight off the white fly, baking power against soil pests and aspirin against black spot desease and yellow leaves.
“If your roses becomes weak and sick, a good spell of aspirin helps them recover their health again”, says Patrick.

Desert roses are bred on rose wood that is not the European Rosa Canina but the (still!) hardier and heat resistant desert rose Rosa Stellata. They are bred to withstand the enormous temperatures encountered in the regions of Texas, New Mexico and and and.
The El Paso bushes, – floribundas and tea hybrids – bear mostly simple open blossoms, many of them with a strong, quite varied scent. Some are like apple, others almost cinnamon, others like old scented wood. Patrick shows us a box with carefully ordered notes and leaflets addressing the special needs of desert roses. “Worst of all is the wind”, he says.

He takes us back to his pruning work, a basket full of grey wood and wilted flowers stands next to him. Of course, he has the shears ready anytime, stashed in a leather sheath fixed to his belt. Next to the basket leans a very reliable looking pair of lobbers.

One of our questions seemingly puzzles him. “How about lavender?”, I had asked, to fight off the pests and give the roses company. “This has never been taken into consideration or planning… though, from now on I’ll think on it”, he says.

The sun has called its tribute already. The roses, hardly opened up, fold their leaves exhaustedly together, the rims of their petals at times even dried up before the whole flower has opened. Against one of the fences leans a tattered New Dawn, evidently unfit for this desert climate and close to fainting. Maybe this is a reason for the floribunda’s preference and also for the selection and breeding of smaller flowers. The resident tea hybrids of course still have prominent blossoms, but these are not always as much scented as one would suspect. Some have almost Dahlia-like spirally arranged petals, some variegated in while and red, or yellow and red.

The Municipal rose garden has quite a bit of staff to care for its roses, next to Patrick there is another elderly gardener (sturdier but with no beard and rather in his 60is) and a young woman who sets herself to work just as we are leaving the garden. In our bags we carry a small catalogue on desert roses and the inevitable leaflet on how to fight common pests and pruning.
  

One last theme: Almost all roses in the Municipal Rose Garden are American bred, the greatest part of them during the 50s and 60s. Their names convey quite accurately the diptych of culture and patriotism while a third section refers to their brilliance of colours: “Judy Garland”, “Betty Boop”, “Freedom”, “Roosevelt”, “Veteran’s Honor”, “Fourth of July”, “Proud Land”, “Prairie Lass”, “Purple Passion” and of course, “Knock Out”… 

(Übersetzung folgt) The only two times I photographed a desert prickly poppy (Argemone polyanthemos) was in 2003 and in 2018, and both happened on the occasion of a visit to the Chinati Foundation.

In a garden next to the studios (it was absolutely forbidden to take pics of the interiors and the library) a row of sunflowers lined a Judd-fashioned adobe wall. As the whole place is imprinted with this man’s concept of perfect proportion, it appeared to me that not even  the sunflowers could withstand his sense of zen-like order. Their silhouettes stood out in immaculate wilting… and reminded me somehow of a procession of Don Quixotes.

The open fields that frame the buildings and outdoor concrete sculptures stretch over an 340 acre areal bought by Judd  during his first visits to Marfa in the 70s. Inside and outside melt into each other on viewing his aluminum sculptures through the giant glass panes.

The ground is gravel and red earth, interspersed with pebbles and small rocks… and desert flowers.

Different kinds of prairie grasses grew there, e. g. so-called weeds like the Silverleaf Nightshade, that has much bigger blossoms than the European kind (Solanum nigrum). Its flowers appear in different hues of blue, from lilac and mauve to an almost clear blue).

The Prickly Poppy stays one of my favorites:

Also to be found are some handsome thistles, silvery dead aloe(heads), lots of  bronze-coloured dried up, unknown (to me) annuals, and in the background exhausted looking shrubs and desert willows meddling with the low hanging clouds.

And here are still some other (not yet specified) flowers that grew among the sculptures.