UNITY (July 1): Sari Hou and Jerry Cinnamon grow roses of every name and description at their home on Unity Pond.

But one -- young, with heavy blossoms ready to open into rich, pink flowers, mildly fragrant -- is unique and personal. Its name is Sari Hou.

Dolly Parton, Elizabeth Taylor, Chevy Chase, Winchester Cathedral, Handel and many others well-known to the world have roses named for them. But the Sari Hou may be the first named for a professor of computer science at a small Maine college.

Sari Hou and Sari Hou, one a Unity College professor, the other a rose named after her. (Photos by Jay Davis)

The plant, which just recently arrived in Unity, was registered with the International Cultivar Registration Authority for Roses last year. It was hybridized by master gardener Steve Law of Dover-Foxcroft from a Morden Centennial parent. In a note on her website, Hou said the new rose "far exceeds" the qualities of the parent.

On a perfect day last week, with bright sunshine and cool morning temperatures, Hou and Cinnamon gave an impromptu tour of the gardens they have reclaimed from the forest that was scraping against their back door when they moved in eight years ago.

Cinnamon, president of the Maine Rose Society, keeps adding terraces, filling them with soil from a local contractor and compost from the nearby Hawk Ridge facility, and flowers, of course.

Jerry Cinnamon and Sari Hou in their garden by the shore of Unity Pond.

The gardens are far from formal. And following the harsh winter, many of the roses are leggier than normal. But there is color everywhere, from the deepest red to the faintest pink, from glaring yellow to the softest lavender.

The plants are grouped in rough categories -- old garden roses, their blooms thick with petals and heady with fragrance; hybrid tea roses, which are just now in flower; and a row of Knockout roses, the latest people's choice award winner in the American Rose Society search for new strains.

But among the roses are climbing clematis, deep purple delphiniums, self-seeded arctic poppies, and asiatic lilies that will bloom shortly.

Last year, Cinnamon crafted a Zen garden for his wife's birthday. It is small, built around a wooden structure, with a stone bowl half-full of water resting on a triangle of small stones.

Inside a small greenhouse, a flowering cactus supports a neon pink bloom that looks almost carnivorous; behind it is a passion vine with a complex flower peering out from the leaves.

A bright pink flowering cactus makes the passion vine flower behind it seem tame.

Hou said she often digs up plants for friends and neighbors, and in the greenhouse she makes new plants from cuttings.

Her enthusiasm is contagious. "Come see my blue poppy," she said, and stepped nimbly through the gardens and pointed at two delicate blooms the color of the sky. And then it was off to see a Moss rose.

Her kitchen window looks out on the garden, and she said, "I have to be careful when I'm chopping vegetables that I'm not distracted."

Hou apologized for the appearance of some of the plants and pointed to normally hardy roses that died back to ground level and are just now sending up bud-laden shoots. But the setbacks are nothing compared to the riot of colors all around.

When Cinnamon plants the roses, he digs a large hole -- he said it's like growing them in a large pot -- and fills it with compost and an organic mixture of peat and loam called ProMix. If the rose is grafted, he plants the union several inches below ground level to protect it from freezing and thawing in spring. He mounds compost around all the roses to a height of 8 inches and leaves it there year-round.

Over time, he said, the plants will grow beyond the contours of their in-ground pots and the gardens will become thick with flowers.

Both Hou and Cinnamon are active in the Maine Rose Society, and photographs of their garden are highlights of the society's website. They are also both faculty members at nearby Unity College.

Though flowers are the focus of their current gardens, Cinnamon has a new project under way. He wants to grow the biggest pumpkin in the world.

Four yellow-green leaves of a pumpkin plant already shade a mound of compost and fertilizer, and a pumpkin as tiny as a pea and pale yellow in color has appeared. It is a far cry from the current world record, which is near 1,400 pounds, he said, but the big gourds can gain 30 to 40 pounds a day.

Might they then have the Jerry Cinnamon pumpkin and the Sari Hou rose vying for attention in the same garden? Stay tuned.