Pruning a climbing Tea

I’ll start out by saying that she used to be bigger than this and much prettier. 2012 was a bad year for ‘Maman Cochet, Climbing’. I used to only blame the squirrels, but as of today I blame the gardener, too, and I’ll be frank. This rose scared me. Tending to her even in my timid way meant getting shredded, and I was afraid if I cut her too much she would die. “Teas don’t like pruning!” is a constant refrain out there on the rose internet, and the only reason I took pruner in hand today was that I know a real, live person who grows MC, Climbing who prunes her side shoots the same way as other climbers - and does it twice a year to keep her in check even in Zone 7B North Carolina. She says she's no expert, but she's smarter than me! Thanks, Meredith.

She was thin, rangy and had had a lot of dead wood cut out of her at summer's end.

Looking back from the arbor, you can see her canes were going everywhere, and it was advisable to duck when venturing through her area.

There was still lots of dead wood on top of the arbor. Timidity really prevailed after the last cutting binge when live wood looked just like dead wood. Uh-oh.

The wood trellis is 8 feet tall and 12 feet wide. Her canes flopped toward the house and seemed to be eager to devour my neighbor's house. To the right she reaches another 5 feet beyond the trellis, and to the left over the arbor she goes another 8 feet easy. And as to height, my guess would be 17 feet and waving.

Looking up into that mess, all I knew to do was try to follow the canes to the base and start cutting above the third budeye.

I saved this side for last. These canes are reaching out at me big-time. Side shoots break all along her canes and then grow 8, 10, 12 feet long... and then they do the same.

At one time the growth over this arbor was a thing of beauty. I knew in my head that the old wood of climbers needed to be cut out regularly, but my head was good at ignoring what she couldn't figure out how to deal with.

There are half a dozen really long canes from the arbor hanging over the A/C unit.

More long canes reaching to the back and over both sides of the fence.

There are a bunch of side shoots up there.

You literally cannot touch her without getting stuck. More accurately, hooked and sharply.

Amazingly, the thought never crossed my mind to apply the loppers to her base.

My head and shoulders had to go up in there, step by step on the ladder. Gives multi-tasking a whole new meaning.

Mommy, what did you do?

I think your scrolling finger is going to cramp up. Sorry.

Oh, that looks painful. Poor baby.

This was my questionable area. The rules say don't shorten the main cane, only the laterals, but those canes to the left hang out five feet past the trellis over the grill and in a few months will have long laterals hanging off them. I tried sending them in a u-turn but already knew her stiff canes wouldn't do that. So I nipped one at a sprouted budeye and told it that it was now officially the new main cane. The others I'm still thinking about.

The bird netting did a decent job of dissuading the squirrels from making her the fast-food stop on their fence-highway. I found one dangling by his toenails (literally) but was too lily-livered to finish the execution. Turns out he got away, but he must have warned his buddies. After that, I didn't see many squirrels on Mama's trellis.

There are many, many swollen budeyes on those short laterals, so I'm hoping she will bush out like all the other pruned roses.

Her center portion over the base took a real hit last year. I'm hoping it wasn't because a clematis vine was growing up into her canopy. It wasn't a monster clem, only six to eight feet tall.

I just plain had to chop her long main canes over the arbor. What else could I do? They don't do well hanging down toward the ground, and the roof is not an option.

The bungee is temporary :)) She still wants to eat the orange house. I should let her.

The white rope is my version of a pulley system to hoist her heavy, prickled canes up high enough to walk under. I know someone who leases big cranes. I'll have to give her a call.

She doesn't look too bad, ya think?

When I was shortening laterals at the right side of this photo, I was finding perfectly live, long canes already cut off, and I was ticked that I had cut something that was alive, thinking it was dead. Then it hit me. They were the cut laterals from over the arbor! Still sad but definitely necessary. I was pulling canes out by the yard.

All neat and tidy. And no torn flesh on my body. I was so smart this time. Of course, I wore the gauntlets but also long sleeves - a first! The shirt got hooked lots of times by prickles that wouldn't let go. So glad it wasn't my arms. Gosh, that's so painful.

Oops. Looks like I missed one.

I'll keep you posted as the laterals grow out. I'm thinking she'll need a comb-over for a rather big bare spot.

This one pile is about the size of a twin bed. I know absolutely that I cut off 40  really long canes, probably more than that, but stop and think about it. She must been struggling to find enough energy to support all that growth. And not succeeding. Which was evident in her sad condition.

So I have a strong feeling that Mama Cochet does not hate me now. I feel like she’s glad I showed her the tough love that she’s been needing and suffering without. Here's to a glorious spring! after the forecast of below-freezing temps this weekend. The groundhog was flat wrong, but I'm praying he was right.

A pruning party in San Jose

It occurs to me that there should be more city rose gardens in our country. Can I get an Amen! to that? Public gardens that put hundreds and even thousands of beautiful, blooming roses on display are a source of pride for the citizens of the town and an attraction for tourists. Unfortunately, great ideas are often followed by skeptical thoughts. Who will pay for it, who will do the work, who will follow through on maintenance? I suppose the answer to those questions is the citizens, you and me. Well, gee, how can two people do all the work that a public garden requires? Just take a look at how the citizens of San Jose, California do it. I think they can put to rest all of our skepticism. Anyone game for taking the plunge in your town?

Thank you, Terry Reilly, Co-Founder of the Friends of the San Jose Rose Garden, for sending me the link to this pruning video after my original post of the aerial garden tour video. Now I am excited to be able to edit this post, because you have followed up with another email with this kind message:

 Hi Sherry,

People often wonder how we were able to set up a vibrant organization like the Friends of the San Jose Rose Garden.  Well, the All-America Rose Selections wrote a case study on us.  It reveals all of our secrets! You might want to share it with your friends.

Click HERE to view the case study.

Terry went on to say: 

In addition, people may be interested in a great volunteer tracking software that was developed on our original tracking concept.  It's free and is great to keep the volunteers engaged.

You can see it HERE.

You can also check out the website of Friends of the San Jose Rose Garden by going HERE.

I am incredibly thrilled that this post has become a conduit of this valuable information. Once again, rosarians - and that means you, Terry - have proven themselves to be the definition of generosity.

‘Blush Noisette’ in winter

I have seen some beautiful photos of mature ‘Blush Noisette’, but unfortunately they were not taken in my garden.  My bush has been in the ground now almost three years which means it is still immature, but I always have doubts that his less than debonair looks are due to bad soil or insufficient feeding or any number of issues about which I am insecure.  I don’t mean to whine, but I find it difficult to be confident and self-assured growing these large, slow-growing, blooming bushes that don’t start looking like what they’re supposed to look like for four or five or more years. Remember that old TV commercial?  “What’s a mother to do?”

So I don’t have a lovely photo of this guy, only hard-to-see shots of this immature, awkwardly shaped bush that’s fairly unleafy.  So this shot that I took on January 27th is it.  In the fall and early winter he started throwing some six-foot laterals, and he gained some size (at least in one direction), getting to be a good eight feet wide.  If I had the luxury of ample space, I would have let him be, but my roses are planted cheek by jowl, so this was not acceptable.  I had to “prune for size” and hopefully arrive at a shape that is good for ‘Blush Noisette’ and good for me.  Below is my gawky teenage ‘Blush Noisette’.

And here is a borrowed photo from Ronda in North Carolina’s garden.  ‘Blush Noisette’ can be a billowing mass of shrub or a climber.  Either way, it carries clusters of sweetly fragrant light pink blooms repeatedly through the season, but you can see that mine has a lot of maturing to do.

I took the following photos to post on the Antique Roses Forum with my question on how to properly prune it.

The responses I received were helpful though a tad confusing for this first-time pruner of an arching rose bush.  I will post them here just as my rosey friends wrote them.  Maybe they will be helpful to others. They helped me.

• Sherry, prune her like you would an arching bush. Those long, climbing canes can be trimmed back a bit lower than the rest of the plant to encourage them to throw laterals. When you've seen bush training of this rose, it's required regular "shearing" to keep and make it bushy, full of flowering laterals. Just do the same, as you would for any shrub which wants to periodically throw "wilder shoots". Don't let it intimidate you. You CAN'T do anything wrong. BN has already shown you she wants to grow and is going to no matter what you do, unless you dry her out, fry her with nitrogen or chop her to the ground. Even after chopping, I think she'd probably thumb her nose at you and grow how she wanted, anyway! Go for it! Kim (Zone 10 SoCal)
• I'd take those huge climbing canes back by half, then generally shape the plant into the shape you want it. Cut it back up to a third smaller than you want and keep pinching back the longer, more vigorous shoots to see if she responds the way you desire. If she isn't cooperative, give her to a good home and replace her with Maggie. You can't really hurt her. As I said, she's going to do as SHE desires anyway. All you can hope to do is encourage her to cooperate with you. Kim
• Hi Sherry, Firstly, take a few deep breaths and have a real good look. Some of those arching canes are thicker, greener and healthier than others - tie a string around them. These are going to be your framework structure - you only need half a dozen. Then, follow each of these canes back to the base, cutting all the laterals back to a couple of buds - 4 - 6 inches. While you are doing this, you can cut out a lot of the little twiggy stems which are doing nothing much. Cut them off - right off. Same if there is anything which looks a bit dead, a bit brown and dry (scratch the stem with a finger nail - if it is alive, it will be green under the outer bark -Any that are brown or pale and dry, with no green, will probably even snap off. Any canes rubbing together - lose the thinnest. What you should end up with is a more see through version of what you already have. I agree with Kim, this rose is showing you very clearly how it wants to grow. Now, to make it a little more shapely, cut a couple of the outer canes which arch towards you, a third shorter than the more upright ones. You want to leave less cane to throw out the summer laterals, keeping new growth as tight in to the lower centre as possible. At the sides of the bush, there are a couple of canes which have got long laterals - chop them off. Eventually, some of the framework canes will look a bit ratty - you have a choice to keep new basal canes or to keep a lateral which is growing as near to the base as possible. You can let the new lateral form the framework structure and chop all the old basal back to where the lateral grows from the original cane. Not explaining this too well, am I? Never mind, if you just trim all the annoyingly long canes and have a good thin out, then that will suffice. There is nothing funny looking about this rose to me - it looks as though it wants to make a lovely fountain shape which, if you were inclined, you could support the bottom 3 feet with some basic supports - either stout poles with crosspieces or (what I use) half an old metal obelisk thingy with the top taken out. Or, I have even used an old umbrella stand with the bottom removed and even the metal outer cage of a municipal dustbin!. The aim being to keep the long canes from flopping on to the floor, taking up tons of room. Take charge, Sherry, you can do this without worrying - this is a tough and capable rose....as you are a tough (well maybe not that much) and capable (for sure) gardener. Courage! (Campanula in UK)
• Sherry, that is NORMAL for this rose. It, supposedly, is a hybrid between bushy, twiggy China roses and climbing musk roses. This thing is expressing the growth traits of both types...generating the elongated, climbing canes while pushing out twiggier, bushier laterals. If you shorten the long, main cane, those laterals will bulk up, lengthening and thickening and flowering profusely. You're just not used to seeing anything with this genetic combination, demonstrating these traits. Don't worry. Don't let it intimidate you. As campanula said, both you and the rose are resilient. You can't hurt it (though it can bite the heck out of you!), so reread the above, have a nice, strong glass or cup of tea or coffee or your choice of beverage to gird yourself and dive in! The earlier you do it, the more profuse the bloom you'll have. The longer you wait, the more flowering wood you'll remove and you'll have to wait for it to generate more. Kim
• How about just "prune to shape"? Make it look like you want. (Bellegallica – zone 9)

Did I follow directions very well?



I hear some chuckling out there and perhaps some gasps.  I guess I should have gone back and re-read Campanula’s directions before I took pruners in hand.  I shortened the longest canes, and I shortened the laterals on all the canes to from two to four nodes in length.  That was mostly shorter than Campanula’s four to six inches.  However, I did not thin out the canes from the base.  Of course, I can still do that, but I’m not exactly sure how.  I’ll have to put my eyeballs on it real hard.  The bush is now about four and a half feet tall and four feet wide.



My only concern is whether this is the way ‘Blush Noisette’ is happy being.  If it only wants to be a billowing pile of canes ten feet wide, then how will it respond to this shearing?  What will it do next?  Am I going to have to shear it two or three more times in the season?  Will it be happy staying twice (or three times) the size of the pruned bush?  I guess I will see the answers to some of those questions as the season goes on.  I’m pretty certain I didn’t hurt the bush, but I'm not sure if I didn't go too short.  We’ll see that, too, won’t we?  I’m eager to see how BN responds to this cutting.

My advise to other pruners is the same as I received.   Be courageous and go for it.  Roses are forgiving, resilient plants.

"I won't be outside long."

I was absolutely serious when I hollered back to DH that I was just going out to put epsom salt on the roses and I would be right back.  I was so tired that I really wanted to sack out on the sofa, but I was way late with the epsom salt since it takes 30 days to start working.  So... no excuses.  I had to!  But what is it about the garden that wakes you up and energizes you??  Instant pick-me-up.  Sleepy no more.

Two hours later...

Well, I needed to remedy the pruning that 'Clotilde Soupert' received last evening at dusk.  And then I had to pick up the trimmings that I had left where they fell.  And then I decided I had to work on the driveway bed which I had gotten my first look at in months (weeks?) while I was administering the epsom salt.

Gosh!  'White Maman Cochet' is going gangbusters!!  She's covered with red new growth and even has several big flower buds, but she also had a bunch of freeze damage.  And underneath her was a whole crop of undesirable weeds. Now since I only came outside to toss some epsom salt... no, I'm not the always-prepared type of gardener who never goes anywhere without her gloves in one pocket and her pruners in the other. Who does that??? Personally, I prefer to repeatedly go back into the house for every implement and amendment to be used in the garden that day - one at a time.  Why carry them all and strain myself?  Sunday I went back in the house four times in the span of sixty seconds!  Just so we're all on the same page, I did not have my dirt-proof, latex-coated gloves on my person.

Eeewww!!  Damp, black compost under my fingernails. Yuck, is this what gardening is?  Not in my garden!

But I got over it and then persevered until all the little weeds were gone. Is it oxalis that sort of looks like clover? Those buggers have deep, thin roots/runners that really need to be grasped deeply in the soil.  My disgust was great, but it was tempered by victory and the presence of lots of little Purple Coneflower seedlings.

I moved around the bed, and after much trimming of the 'Victoria Blue' salvia from last year I finally just pulled out its ten-pound rootball, realizing it was going to be too large growing under WMC which, after all, isn't a baby anymore.  I pulled dozens of salvia seedlings before making this decision, and I was wishing I had just one to transplant near this spot, because I loved it last year.  Even better, though, I just sprinkled some coneflower seeds from the surviving deadheads there instead. 

Then came 'Madame Antoine Rebe' who has never had more leaves in her whole life.  It's amazing what some sun will do.  She even has some of her signature long, slender, red flower buds, but she also had freeze damage that needed to be removed.  She has put on lots of growth since being relocated here, and much of it was crossing and closely parallel canes. With leaves obstructing the view of her structure I really didn't make much of an attempt at thinning her except for one sizable side-shoot grouping.  It's hard to remove something like that that's flourishing with growth, but it had to be done - and even more that didn't get done, but that's another day.  It's a good thing that this rose has never indicated any sensitivity to chopping.

Then I had fun sprinkling more echinacea seeds among the daylilies I planted near 'Mme Abel Chatenay' and between the old SDLMs and other places. I've got lots of deadheads and seed packets.

Tomorrow it's on to 'Louis Philippe' who is completely leafed out and huge.  The rope that had been holding him vertical broke recently, so he's leaning over.  He's definitely a project.  And definitely, I won't shear him too short like I did last year.  I really don't think he liked it.  I'll only trim away enough to clear the path and give a little sun to the daylilies and 'Richard's Rose' who is all of eight inches tall and directly north of Louie, meaning Louie basically eclipses the sun.  Hopefully, all will be sunnier when that golden orb rises higher in the sky.
  
Sorry about the lack of photos. Dirty fingers and cameras don't mix well... plus I forgot.  Remember, I was only going out to throw epsom salt.  Oh, well, here's an ad lib.

It's raining!!

I had to share this blissful news with everyone. The misting turned to actual rain at 5:45 this evening and fell steadily at a medium rate for more than half an hour on my garden and the surrounding Ocala area, a part of the earth that is decidedly unfamiliar with the concept of rain for, lo, these many months. A sustained rain is a wonderful thing, but the icing on this cake is the off-and-on rain for hours afterward. I can't wait to check out the rain gauge in the morning.

The daylilies and dahlias that I hurriedly planted after work are thinking they're in garden heaven right now. Maybe this portends good things for the dahlias which were the bagged kind from Walmart. What can I say? I'm a sucker for those beautiful flower photos on the package even though just about nothing on those racks - except the caladiums and elephant ears - will ever survive in this part of Florida. Oh, but the hollyhock I bought as a bagged root is, indeed, sprouting!! The photo on the bag was pink - oh, joy - hopefully, it's the beautiful baby pink that I grew once and that graces my computer desktop. Yes, folks, it's not a rose. It's a gorgeous fluffy 'Summer Carnival' hollyhock.

I also want to clarify my pruning practices. Since I mostly grow OGR's, my garden's pruning needs are not typical.

• The Teas and Chinas get cleaned up, i.e., dead stuff is removed, growth that has extended into walkways or neighbors is cut off where it sprouted from the older cane, and just a bit of trimming - a scant few inches is removed from some tips for shaping. The freeze killed the brand new growth that was there, so all of that has to be removed back to healthy cane. I also remove any low growth that is growing downward or laying on the ground, and I try to thin clumps of growth, usually leaving a "Y" at the end of the cane. I've found that usually that third or fourth shoot will die back anyway later on.
• Some Polyanthas - notably 'Clotilde Soupert' - appreciate and need a refreshing pruning. My two bushes are about 4 feet tall, and I probably don't take off a foot of that height. However, the cutting triggers the auxin, and lovely new growth follows. There is nothing more gorgeous than Clotilde covered with her tender, spring-green leaves.
• My only Hybrid Tea is an antique and does not have the typical modern HT form. You saw her in yesterday's post, and she sort of resembles a tumbleweed (before it tumbles) with at least a couple of dozen canes coming up from the base that mostly bloom singly or in small clusters of two or three flowers at the tips . This type of rose needs to be shortened some (I don't think she was damaged at all by the freeze), but I don't think I took off even a quarter of her size. Afterwards I thought perhaps I could have cut more, but I wasn't up for a second round. She'll just be bigger this year. Oh, I forgot 'Mme Joseph Bonnaire', but she's a one-cane wonder so... not a problem.
• I have two shrub roses, 'Quietness' and 'Polonaise' that are similar to HT's. They're young and spindly, and I'll probably just shorten them a bit, not even 25 percent.
• The small Bourbons, 'Souv de la Malmaison' and her kin, do not like to be pruned according to those more knowledgeable than I am, so I just removed the dead stuff. Their size is not an issue, so the roses and I were happy with that.
• I don't have a clue yet about the Austins I have. I'm trying to find out if my two candidates for pruning are among the ones that resent pruning. I'll let you know.
• Climbers are a whole post unto themselves, except 'Reve d'Or'. She responds well to a simple haircut - nothing technical about it.
• Damask Perpetuals will be pruned by ear. I only know to "prune them hard". Winging it is such a pain!

Dr. Malcolm Manners of Florida Southern College recommends removing every leaf from all rose bushes as a way of eliminating any remnants of fungal disease and of triggering new growth. I did that last year, but I don't think I will this year due to a lack of old leaves and new growth being well under way. 'Mrs B. R. Cant' may be the exception. I haven't really looked at her yet, but she is fully clothed with last year's leaves. My situation is probably different from others, because I have so few roses that are susceptible to black spot. (Winnowing works!)  Although, I'm wondering if my new baby 'Chrysler Imperial' might be a candidate for leaf stripping, but maybe I should let her get established before I strip away all her energy sources, ya think?

DH's pruning suggestion was something to the effect that I should get out the chainsaw, or maybe he was suggesting I go buy some hedge clippers. He was quite adamant about it, too. However, my deep love and respect for him notwithstanding, his non-orthodox opinions will be ignored. All pruning "doctrine" should be tested to be sure it pertains to your roses, because all roses are not the same.

By the way, I do  intend to stay out of holes for a while!

Ready or not, here I prune!

Winter? Absolutely no sign of it here.  Daytime temps are way up in the 70’s and sunny, and nights are fine for shirt-sleeves.  I did a search for a 30-day forecast, hoping to find our ‘last freeze date’, and came up with precious little. One site showed the lowest temperature would be 36 degrees in mid-February.  Not a problem, so yesterday when I heard the roses crying, “Pru-u-une me.”, I said, “I hear ya. Here I come.”  Everything is showing new growth (‘Hermosa’ is even blooming!), and I had had enough of looking at the ugly dead stuff from the freeze. Did you catch that? Freeze singular? What a winter!



Since ‘Madame Abel Chatenay’ was the instigator, I better start with her last weekend. You may remember that MAC was suffering terribly and that I had determined to lift her, amend the bed and move her a few feet. So I was back to excavating again - this time to a depth of three and a half feet. I dug out an area of 3’x6’ (thankfully, the clay was moist and diggable) right beside her toward the house and moved the five or six wheelbarrowfuls of crappy stuff to the backyard, raising the level of the swing area. I’m almost not heavy enough to push that wheelbarrow when it’s full.

Then I had an enlightened moment and decided to stick the pH tester in one of the big clumps of solid white clay. I was stunned to read 6.8. Huh? I can live with that pH, so what’s the problem?  I tested the fertility. Uh-huh, very low.  Then I tested the grainy sand/clay strata that was above the clay level - 6.0 pH (apparently my sulfur applications have worked) and very low fertility. Interesting.  Breaking up the bottom, I mixed in Milorganite, cow manure and small pine bark mulch with the clay, then filled up the hole with more compost, topsoil (by the way, I found Walmart’s topsoil to be plain old sand), a little sphagnum peat moss, pine bark mulch, Scott’s LawnSoil, and the original top 15 inches of amended soil that I had set aside. End of day one.

On Sunday I lifted ‘Mme Abel’ and set her aside on the new bed.  Time was of the essence since she was sitting in the sun, so I opted to pile the removed soil on the driveway.  By way of visuals much of my digging time was spent sitting on the ground with one leg dangling in the hole while the other pounded the shovel into the clay, then muscling the shovelful over my shoulder beside and behind me.  I found out that getting out of a three and a half foot deep hole isn’t easy when you’re an arthritic old lady, so again I returned to my butt and rolled to my knees to regain sea-level.  Don’t you wish you had a ringside seat?  Dumping on the driveway made the job much quicker, and I got her settled in with scratches on arms and legs.  She’s a very prickly lady, definitely well armed. Here she is, albeit hard to see.





She’s to the right of the label marker which used to be in front of her, so she didn’t go far. A big Variegated Liriope was moved out, too, so the vacant area will be home to about four daylilies. The rose in the white pot is a ‘Peach Drift’.  I got two the other day.  I thought their color would go great with ‘Mme Abel’, so they’re planted on both sides of her now.  FYI, I shoveled the dirt from the driveway into the truck for easy transport to the back. It filled half the bed as high as the sides. I was astonished because this hole was only 3'x3'x3' - half the size of the previous day. Highly compacted stuff.

Back to this weekend’s pruning. I did not not cut back MAC when I dug her up, and rather unbelievably her growth buds are bulging everywhere and her one flower bud only went limp overnight.  So I figured I might as well prune her…along with ‘Clotilde Soupert’, ‘Souv de Francois Gaulain’, the three ‘Hermosas’ and half of ‘Le Vesuve’.  Then darkness set in. Today I finished ‘Le Vesuve’. My goodness, what a tangled mess he is. He grows all wacky in all directions and back again. He had a lot of dead stuff on him, so as I‘ve been saying I would for months, I finally replaced the drip tubing with two 180-degree micro-sprinkler heads for his circle bed.  I’m hoping this will make him happier this year.  Then I moved on to ‘Bermuda’s Anna Olivier’.  What a bedraggled rose bush, so full of dead and dying stuff.  Her soil situation is like MAC’s was, but I’ve decided to handle hers differently.  I’m going to drive a 3/4” pole into the ground as close to three feet down as I can get, then pour a bunch of Milorganite down the zillion holes I make along with some liquid humus.  Since the soil problem looks more like a fertility issue rather than pH, I’m hoping this strategy will save me from digging and more digging again.

I vipped on to ‘Softee’ in a pot and the two ‘Souvenir de la Malmaisons’ (dead stuff only on SDLM), and then quit pruning.  I find pruning to be very exhausting, physically and mentally.  That bent over position is a pain, and examining each and every cut makes for a mentally demanding exercise in decision-making that wears me out.  When I was done with these, my brain was mush, and I barely managed to move an under-a-rose daylily and plant a lovely potted purple pansy next to MAC and a $7 ‘Chrysler Imperial’ from Lowe's next to the front sidewalk.  It’s grafted on Dr. Huey rootstock, so I figure if it lasts a couple of years, I’ll be happy to have had those gorgeous red blooms and the phenomenal fragrance again.

So once again I have found pruning to be a wonderfully satisfying experience.  The roses took a giant step closer to spring.  I on the other hand have many more to go.

Days of future past

As a gardener, I’m in limbo, because my garden is in limbo.

'Souvenir de la Malmaison' on January 3, 2012

  

I haven’t posted (huge apologies for seeming to abandon my blogging efforts) because the past has been strongly present in my garden. No blooms, roses needing rejuvenation badly, the time for pruning being agonizingly far away, crispy being far more prevalent than green, this in-between time seemed to slip this gardener out of Drive and into Neutral. Breadmaking and dear husband took my attention, and the garden couldn’t have been farther away.

However, the last two weekends I was gardening. Thirty-eight daylilies are now in the ground. Hardscaping in the form of cement block edging in the back garden is in place. A plan to revitalize ‘Mme Abel Chatenay’ and ‘Bermuda’s Anna Olivier’ in the front garden is solidified. Christmas bonus cash has been spent on manure compost, pine bark mulch, dahlia and astilbe tubers, hollyhock roots, potting soil and patio pots for veggie seeds and Yukon Gold potato starts. Seeds have arrived in the mail.

The past is beginning to fade, and the future is definitely within reach now. The days are longer now, enabling me to accomplish stuff after work. Temperatures again are Floridian in nature. The roses’ lack of foliage allows me to see how they’ll need to be trimmed and pruned. Endless googling has delivered a viable weapon against my enemy, the squirrel. (There will be a post on that.) The discovery of non-pH-adjusted sphagnum peat moss at Walmart has offered new hope for my crappy calcareous garden soil. We even had .35 inch of rain this week. Everything is moving in a positive direction, out of the winter doldrums and into the hustle and bustle of spring. The daunting task of rebuilding the garden has morphed into normal spring garden labor, transforming my outlook in the process.

Since my gardening apparently will always be a learning experience, there will be googling and posting “Help!” questions on the Antique Rose Forum about how to shape up ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ and ‘Blush Noisette’. Progress in that area and others will be halted until I know what to do, but since pruning is a month away, that’s not a problem, merely something else to occupy evening computer time. The balancing act of life continues with laundry, housekeeping, breadmaking, work, and husband who is recovering nicely from his back surgery on December 29th. Two weeks off from work (last year’s final week of vacation saved for the surgery had to be taken even though the surgery hadn’t happened yet and the first week of this year’s vacation taken to do absolutely everything that DH could not do for himself) was not spent in the garden, but that’s okay. The garden will get done. Spring will return. The future is on its way.

This and that

Here's the finished work of Le Vesuve.

My front yard isn't quite as desolate as it was before the pruning but you'd never know there are roses in this picture.

Poor Clotilde Soupert has been leafless for a few months, and her normally green canes are burgundy-colored. I really was afraid she might be in trouble since my other CS had lots of leaves. While I was pruning her, I looked at the other side of one cane. What a shock to see that it is green on the north side! The poor rose is sunburned. She's showing some new sprouts so hopefully she's OK.

Madame Abel Chatenay is so prickly, but she's sprouting new growth already. We're having some very nice warm temps.

Violas grown from seeds by me.

Last year first bloom went to 'Hermosa', and this year it's 'Hermosa' again. Sorry for the blur. We had a good bit of wind today.

This is the glamorous part of composted horse manure. It's downhill from here and leaves you with stiff muscles. I added topsoil, but the hole took every bit of the load.

Tomorrow I'll finally be planting my three new babies, moving Parade, and planting this "Purple Iris". That's all that was on the label from Lowe's. I've never grown irises before. I hope it survives in my yard, and I hope Lowe's knows what they're doing stocking it in their Ocala store. I just couldn't resist it - even at $12.98. In fact, I want to go back for another one. If anyone has a clue what kind of iris this might be, I'd really appreciate your sharing. It's about 30" tall. I hope it's not a bearded iris. I don't think they do well here.

I was just thinking today that I would be entirely happy if all I ever did was work in my garden.