Clouds of them, in graduated layers one in front of the other: that is how we see our morning roses glowing in the sunshine. Actually, rosarians would call them drifts of roses in mixed borders; technically, a more accurate description. Not many of us know that the breeding and cultivation of roses is an occupation. Here in Pakistan, not just in England, they are part of the language, culture and lore and also the profession.

Rosarians, the few that I have met, are a special breed of people. Focused on a world of colour, texture, leaf, shape and of course, perfume, they are artists and botanists combined. Painting our days with living things of joy and aesthetic pleasure, my favorite rosarian is Haji Ibrahim from Pattoki, a flower-producing town some 80 kilometres from Lahore.

Introduced by my friend Zahrah, I met Haji Ibrahim about a decade ago at his nursery across the railway tracks in Pattoki, on Multan Road. I almost missed the gentleman, a collector of the finest English roses available in Lahore, but also a rose breeder himself, as I crossed the railway track to reach the back end of his business. He was dressed in a lungi topped with a pagri, and in thick Punjabi, commanding farmhands while loading plants for transport all over Pakistan. Once a mali himself, Haji Ibrahim grew a thriving plant business over a lifetime.

We share an enduring passion for roses. “The English rose is a specific style, once you cleave to it, other roses don’t impress you so much” he warns me. Of course, I was hooked for life after the first hour of the generous and gratis tuition in his growing fields.

He introduces me to names, so English, that I have to read them in the roman text to make sense of his Punjabi pronunciation. Imagine how the name L D Braithwaite or Tess of the D’urbevilles sound in thick Punjabi, or penciled onto plant labels in his neat nastaliq script. Knowing that I was in the presence of an expert, there really was no scope for being haughty. I must learn all I can from a very busy man for the long journey ahead that I had planned for my own rose growing adventures.

Old roses, musk, albas, leanders, polyanthas, hybrid teas, floribundas, gallicas have to be understood and identified. Then there are colours of uncommon tonality: blush pink, apricot pink, crimsons, lilac, yellow, copper, whites and creams. Not to mention the leaf and bush shape. Learning, that specifics like “almost thornless, with grey, green leaves forming lower down on the plant with tall, dark stems gracefully arching” as quite distinct features of choice takes time.

But predominantly, the world of fragrance carries one away into a lifelong commitment to the rose. Delicious perfumes, described and then daily experienced as fruity, musk, myrrh, grape, blackberry, apple, cucumber, violet, honey, almond blossom – the list is almost endless.

Couple this with the variety of possible shapes and you will get the picture. Rosette shapes can be quartered, incurved or re-curved. There are single cups, semi-double, shallow and deep cup roses not to mention pompom and button eye.

Some of my roses each have over one hundred petals in a single bloom to open from a tight bud to a full-blown cup as large as a saucer. The overblown rose then drops its petals on the ground in a graceful heap, still held together in clusters of delicate, faded beauty like a pink, ballerina tutu. Other roses glow like light bulbs in the darkness of the nighttime garden, showing off the secret beauty of the white rose that reflects light and has been the subject of nocturnal poetry and literature through the ages.

Our mothers’ youths of the 1960s were swept away by the modern floribunda and tea roses that had been newly bred for intense colour and a shapely, stiff perfection in an upright growth. We will all remember the red, yellow, purple and white roses of our childhood, poking out like lollipops in striking colours, including near black roses. Another novelty of those modern roses was their ability to flower repeatedly through a season.

But creeping onto the market from the 1980s were roses of another kind. These so-called old English roses seemed to reflect a changed understanding of naturalness. They transformed the character of roses throughout the world with softness, fluidity and delicate perfume. They combined the fragrance and grace of old roses with the wider colour range and repeat-flowering of modern roses.

With all this array of rose choices, Haji Ibrahim has his preferences, as I have mine. The difference is that he breeds his own roses and registers them with the Pakistan Rose Growers’ Association. Mrs Zafar Iqbal, named after an Urdu poet from Okara, is a bright orange rose. Ghulam Haider Wateen, named after an Urdu music composer, is a striped pink rose. But Haji Ibrahim’s most recent rose was a spontaneous naming in my presence. Crowning glory for me, his new rose is named Dr Mehjabeen. I was gifted half a dozen plants that now thrive in our garden. They are a deep, velvety crimson maroon, the size of a woman’s hand, semi-double, with rich yellow centers, like hearts on fire.