MADISON, WI — A longtime home gardener, 62, said Wednesday that her prize-winning David Austin roses have, this spring, developed what she described as “a really lovely warm yellow undertone” that she was, until Tuesday afternoon, unable to explain.
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She has, per an interview with her grandson conducted Wednesday morning, now explained it.
“The boys have been peeing on them,” the retired bookkeeper said, standing in her backyard in a sun hat. “Apparently. For a while. I did not know this. My daughter did not know this. The neighbors did not know this. They have, per my oldest grandson, been doing it in a coordinated fashion since roughly April.”
The perpetrators, sources confirmed, are her three grandsons — ages 9, 7, and 5 — who visit her home approximately every other weekend. The boys, per the 9-year-old’s testimony, discovered in early spring that the roses were “right there” and “easy” and “nobody was watching,” and had, over the course of the following six weeks, established a rotating unspoken schedule under which at least one boy urinated on the rose bed during every visit.
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“We didn’t tell nobody,” the eldest grandson confirmed Wednesday, unprompted. “It was our thing. It was a tradition.“
He was asked why they had chosen the roses specifically.
He considered the question.
“They was the closest,” he said.
The grandmother, who has been growing David Austin roses in her backyard since 1998, said she first noticed the color shift in mid-May.
“The Golden Celebrations were coming in golder,” she said. “The Graham Thomases were coming in with a real punch. Even the Charlotte Auslanders — which are meant to be a soft pale yellow — were coming in with, like, a depth I hadn’t seen. I thought maybe I had, you know, changed the fertilizer. I thought maybe I had adjusted the pH without realizing. I thought maybe the weather. I did not think it was three of my grandsons.”
She paused.
“In fairness,” she added, “they look great.”
Her roses have, per her horticultural records, produced their strongest bloom in over a decade this spring. They are, per her assessment, “the best they’ve ever looked.” She has already received two inquiries from a neighborhood garden club about entering them in a regional competition. She has, per her calendar, a photographer scheduled to visit next Tuesday.
She was asked whether she was planning to enter the competition.
She thought about this.
“Yes,” she said.
She was asked whether she planned to disclose the growing technique.
She thought about this longer.
“No,” she said.
Her daughter, a 38-year-old dental hygienist, was reportedly horrified when informed of the situation Tuesday evening.
“I asked my oldest, like, gently, if there was anything he wanted to tell me about the roses,” she said. “I was fishing. I was trying to be, you know, an engaged parent. And he looked me right in the eye, and he said, Mom, we been peeing on Nana’s roses since Easter. Just like that. No shame. Like he was reading me a book report.”
She paused.
“I was not prepared for that answer,” she added.
The daughter said she immediately called her mother.
“I said, Mom, I am so sorry, I did not know,” she said. “And she said, don’t be sorry, they’ve never looked better. And I said, Mom, they’ve been peeing on your roses, and she said, I heard you the first time, they look great. And I said, Mom, that’s not okay. And she said, honey, they’re roses. They love it. It’s basically a very expensive fertilizer that I have been getting for free from three small children.“
There was a long pause.
“I don’t know how to feel,” she said.
Horticulturalists, when consulted for this article, offered guarded confirmation that human urine, applied in moderate quantities and diluted by rain or watering, can act as a nitrogen-rich fertilizer that some plants, including roses, respond well to.
“It is not, like, a recommended technique,” said a rose specialist at the Upper Midwest Institute for Ornamental Horticulture. “There are, in fact, specific products designed to deliver these compounds in a controlled and hygienic manner. What this woman is describing is not those products. What she is describing is three small boys doing whatever they want. The two are, biochemically, closer than one might hope.”
She paused.
“The roses do not care,” she added. “The roses are, in fact, thriving.”
The gardener said she had, upon learning of the arrangement, made only one adjustment.
“I asked the boys to make sure they were peeing on the base of the plants,” she said. “Not the flowers. The flowers I want the judges to see. The base is where the roots are. The base is where you want it going. I explained this to the oldest. He nodded. He said he’d tell the others.”
She was asked whether she had considered simply asking them to stop.
She thought about this for a long time.
“No,” she said finally. “I did not consider that. I did not consider that at all.”
She looked at her roses.
“Look at them,” she said quietly.
The roses were, per direct observation, extraordinary.
At press time, she was preparing her garden for Tuesday’s photo shoot. The grandsons were scheduled to visit that weekend. She had, sources confirmed, moved the Charlotte Auslanders slightly closer to the back fence, where the boys tended to congregate. She had also, sources further confirmed, put a small stool by the base of the Graham Thomases.
She was, sources also confirmed, hoping for a big Sunday.