A Good Year For The Roses

Now I’ve never been a great fan of roses – in fact I had them growing in my garden back in England when we first moved into our last house and I actually dug them out.  Too much hard work – all that deadheading and pruning; too high maintenance for what was going to be my low maintenance (although I don’t actually think there is such a thing) natural, native woodland garden.  Roses are labour intensive, and in England, it’s a lot of effort for not much flower – a couple of months if you are lucky then they are finished.  On top of that you have to control all the blackfly, whitefly, black spot, rust, powdery mildew, mould etc …and of course you have all those thorns to contend with too.  Not a good thing.

Anyway, roses.  So now of course I am a volunteer in a Rose Garden.  I didn’t choose the rose garden – a bit like the sorting hat in Harry Potter, it chose me.  I wanted to volunteer and I wanted to work outside and get my hands dirty, so they offered me a job in the Rose Garden.  I presume this was because I was English and they thought I’d be an expert – all these misconceptions we have about each other’s nationalities!

So anyway, roses. Well roses are big out here in California. Every garden will have them – beautiful, healthy roses with endless bountiful flowers that bloom all year round.  At our Rose Garden at the arboretum every “winter” (what winter?!!) these poor plants have to be lulled into believing  it’s time to catch their breath, have a rest and re-charge their batteries, because if you don’t kid them into thinking it’s time to stop flowering, they just keep on going, and of course as every gardener knows, if a plant just keeps on going, producing flower after flower after flower, it will eventually get weaker and weaker. 

So the roses have to be severely pruned and forced to take a nap. Back home they would have naturally  stopped flowering by now and shed their leaves so they’d already be looking like a couple of dead sticks and you know when you cut back you’re doing them a kindness.  Here it’s different.   Now I don’t mind pruning anything – give me a pair of secateurs and I’ll snap away to my heart’s content, but when you have snip off healthy buds, blossoming flowers, and lush green leaves, it’s actually quite sad, it almost feels like a form of abuse or criminal damage.

So at the moment the rose gardens are bare – an array of stick like woody stems lulled into a false state of hibernation.  It looks very formal, neat and tidy but not particularly attractive.  I know we're being cruel to be kind but I'd much prefer to see a plant in flower  – and I realize I’m not alone in this philosophy.  I pass gardens on my morning walk and see rose bushes still flourishing and whilst  I want to stop, knock on the door and advise the homeowner to get pruning because he’ll thank me later, there is something very romantic about seeing a house surrounded by so much scent and colour at this time of year.  

Still, leaf buds are already re-appearing on those stunted woody bushes that were cut back in their prime;  it wont be long before fresh leaves will  be emerging and unfolding; a "revitalized rose" will start blossoming.   

New Year, New Blog, New Me, A Revitatlized Rose..... is that symbolism or what? Wow next I’ll be telling you how much I love this country!!!