Relentless 50 hour work weeks and weekends spent hiking (which you can read about here: http://santabarbarasandstone.blogspot.com/) have put me way behind in my garden cleanup.In past years I'd usually take vacation time to leisurely work my way through the garden, carefully pulling off each withered leaf, removing each tiny weed-ling from the gravel, feeding and mulching. One time it took an entire morning to 'edit' my grasses. Not this year.
Like some demented Edward Scissorhands I raced through the garden, hacking and chopping. Salvias, nepetas, fuchsias, roses - all cut to the ground. The rain softened soil yielded easily to my shovel, the sharp scent of bruised lepuchinia filled the air. Our neighborhood 'Lance Armstrong look-alike', who bikes up our steep hill every Saturday, rain or shine, barely warranted a glance.
Early rains and then an extended warm spell confused many of the roses. These were cut from 'Teasing Georgia' right before she too, fell victim to the pruners.Spared were this white geranium and an abutilon - just too lovely to chop.
6 comments:
Interesting that you cut roses to the ground - I thought you had to leave something for it to branch from. Hm. My pruning knowledge is probably sadly outdated and misguided! Great that you got out there and got all of that done.
Karen,
I'm sorry - that was a bit of poetic license. Most of the roses aren't pruned to the ground, in fact my David Austins are only lightly pruned. But I have a few 'own root' roses that I got from cuttings from my old garden. Those do get pruned right to ground level. The new growth is lovely, fresh, perfectly shaped.
Chloe M.
Ah, the Great Winter Garden cleanup! Its definitely more fun when you can do it at a leisurely pace... i just did all my icebergs and my Austen last week, but left a few more for later because they were in full bloom.
Wasn't it wonderful to get rain?
Anne,
I just jumped over to your blog and was staggered by everything that's blooming in your garden right now! Simply lovely. (Also, I loved your post on mosses)
Yes, the rain was a blessing - you could almost hear the plants sighing in relief.
Chloe M.
Chloe, my, you were industrious. I also need to prune my roses but have either been out of town or had lousy, rainy and cold weather. Maybe this weekend!
Interesting to read about your 'own root' roses and the fact that you prune those to the ground. I had never heard of that before. Were they from hybrid teas originally? Or some other kind of rose?
Jean
Hi Jean,
The roses are "Flower Girl", a delicate shrub rose. Well, actually they are tough as nails, but the total effect is delicate and ethereal.
I took cuttings from the old house - out of 80 cuttings I only got about 10 that 'struck'. The first several years I agonized over how to prune them, then decided to just hack them off at the ground - and they flourished!
Chloe M.
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