This week, I brought home a pair of stray plants. They’re miniature roses and were on the discount produce table at the grocery store. They must have been part of the Valentine’s Day offerings, but were forgotten at some point. They were looking pretty sad, with lots of dead growth. They had been watered recently though and had some new shoots. They were 49 cents each, which made them irresistible.

I love miniature roses, not just because they’re pretty and fragrant but because they’re tough. They’re also pretty much the only kind of rose that can be planted in a Canadian garden and left to fend for themselves for the winter.

(The other kind are Explorer roses, specifically bred at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa to survive Canadian winters. They’re named for Canadian explorers and were developed by Dr. Felicitas Svejda. These are amazing roses, either shrubs or climbers, and prolific bloomers. Here’s a link to the CEF’s page about them.)

So, two stray roses hopped into my cart. I brought them home, cleaned away the debris, gave them a drink and put them on a sunny window sill. Here’s what they look like now:

It’s a grey day today, so the colours aren’t too vivid. We’ll check back in a few weeks and see how they’re doing.

I was cleaning up this pair before I remembered that my grandmother used to do this, too. They’re on the window sill beside the kalanchoe that came from the discount bin, so I guess it’s a habit of mine as well.

Do you bring home stray plants? It not, where do you share your TLC?