In songs roses often represent love and the beloved as the prize that cannot be grasped or kept. Among the popular songs of the last several decades are “La Vie en Rose,” “Ramblin’ Rose,” “My Wild Irish Rose,” “(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden,” “A Rose Is Still a Rose,” “Days of Wine and Roses.” In country singer George Jones’s gorgeously lugubrious 1970 hit “A Good Year for the Roses,” however, the rosebushes that go on blooming have proven to be more enduring than his marriage.