tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5245991165104605842024-03-13T10:43:21.357-07:00Naked in the RosesA blog on Old Roses, gardening, rose gardeners & their gardens around the world.Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-81341120191221858692014-02-09T21:15:00.000-08:002014-02-09T21:15:11.091-08:00A World Where Roses Bloom<br />
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Please check out my new blog as curator for The Friends of Vintage Roses!<br />
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go to aworldwhererosesbloom.blogspot.com<br />
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and have fun!Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-204101202678699882012-02-11T21:51:00.000-08:002012-02-11T21:51:24.842-08:00It All Comes Down to YouOverheard conversations in the garden, on Dirt Day today, steered clear of politics but touched on all else in life. Laughter, discord, revelations of the power of weeds, admiration of the Hori-Hori, howls of pain at the piercing thorns of blackberries clattered in through the windows of my house filling it with the joyous noise of people who love to garden. The sad spell of doom, the stuffy smell of closed doors thinned like a vanishing fog, and sunlight entered the rose cottage again. It was dirt day and lunch awaited us, our reward for the caring of the roses. An ominous threat of the loss of all this fizzled in a heap of weeds thrust on the pathway. The garden is saved, and we must all now do our parts.<br />
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The grand thing about Dirt Days---you are never sure if the great reward is smoked salmon and fried polenta, or the rush of serotonin in your brain caused by the microbes you inhale in three hours of weeding. Probably both. The grand thing about Dirt Days is the people and how happy it makes them to know they are saving these roses. If you haven't tried it, you really must.<br />
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Next Dirt Day: February 25th, 10 am to 3 pm.<br />
Join us!Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-22737996211008784652012-02-07T16:27:00.000-08:002012-02-07T16:34:35.785-08:00A Thankyou to the Heritage Rose Foundation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Fq48FwEpfHI/TzGpED7D4QI/AAAAAAAAALw/omRJMn-g6kA/s1600/Friends+fundraising+Thermometer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Fq48FwEpfHI/TzGpED7D4QI/AAAAAAAAALw/omRJMn-g6kA/s640/Friends+fundraising+Thermometer.jpg" width="144" /></a>In December the <a href="http://www.heritagerosefoundation.org/">Heritage Rose Foundation</a> offered its assistance to the new custodians of my rose collection, the Friends of Vintage Roses. This forming non-profit has set as its goal to preserve this collection of roses so that others, many years from now, may continue to experience the beauty, history and art of the old roses. While we undertake to steer our way through the maze of forms and filings, we have begun the earnest work of protecting the roses, and providing the maintenance they require. The HRF is now accepting donations on behalf of our effort so that friends may donate to an established non-profit whose mission includes the establishment of gardens that preserve old roses.<br />
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The passion and generosity of many people have already contributed much needed funding in the name of the Friends of Vintage Roses. It's been overwhelming in fact, and I thank all of you for your support. We work now toward an open garden this May, and invite all of you to join us to celebrate the saving of a collection of antique roses.<br />
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There is much to be done. Many of you will recall my earlier blog on pruning the rose garden in 2010. The garden and collection have received minimal care over the past three years, principally the time I have been able to devote to it, plus some labor in weeding and mulching. Gophers have increased in number, and sections of the plantings are heavily damaged. Many varieties are gone, perhaps lost---their retrieval from all of you, a goal for the future.<br />
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So, our initial mission is to stabilize the collection of roses, improve the health of the plants, decrease the encroachment of weeds and vermin, and make the garden presentable so that you may enjoy and learn from the roses at our open garden this spring. With that we include our fundamental goal, which is to preserve the collection. And to that purpose we intend to propagate as many of the varieties in the collection as we can this summer. We feel that making the collection fully mobile, in containers, is the only way we can be certain to preserve the whole collection. Some of these may be passed on to other public gardens so that duplicates exist elsewhere.<br />
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Over the next weeks leading to May this blog will share more of our story as it unfolds, and more about the roses---the thing that drives our passions.<br />
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To the right is our fund-raising marker. The goal that we have set for the coming year is $40,000. This should provide us with the needed materials and labor (along with the wondrous voluteers at Dirt Days), to do the needed restoration work to our collection, propagate about 60% of the collection, and complete our processes involved in the incorporation and non-profit IRS filings for the Friends of Vintage Gardens. And to the far, far right, don't miss the upcoming Dirt Day on Saturday, February 11th at the garden. We anticipate beautiful weather, and the camaraderie is out of this world. So is the food at our afternoon pot luck lunch. Come join us! Bring a dish, a spade and a pair of pruners for Dirt Days kickoff for 2012, a year that promises a rosier world! <br />
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-GreggGregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-44108373156509740392010-03-14T22:57:00.000-07:002010-03-14T22:57:20.738-07:00Life After Pruning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S52tUUNuRmI/AAAAAAAAAF8/0aFO_r9S9Vg/s1600-h/White+Maman+Cochet+Cl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S52tUUNuRmI/AAAAAAAAAF8/0aFO_r9S9Vg/s200/White+Maman+Cochet+Cl.jpg" width="143" /></a></div>What treasures are roses. When we lose one we understand.<br />
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Two of my great loves have died; the climbers Maman Cochet and White Maman Cochet. I planted them 22 years ago. Their massive trunks look a hundred years old. I'm not certain what did them in—gophers are always suspects, but with such immense plants, it seems unlikely the gophers could have harmed them, and there are no telltale gopher signs at the roots.<br />
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Both roses graced an arbor that I have often photographed. Dripping their great egg-shaped blooms down from on high, they've offered me great solace as I sat on the bench under the arbor. They will return to my garden, not there, but somewhere in my garden, one day. For now I will search out others that have not had the chance to lift their beauty above me, though it will take a few years.<br />
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No job is more thankless in the realm of rose pruning than clearing away the old dead hulk of a once-glorious rose. These two completely covered the top of a 12' x 12' structure, and the hours it took to remove them gave me time to mourn their loss and to remember the years they have kept me company. When you visit my garden this May, you'll know where they were; there, on the empty arbor.<br />
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Today I completed the pruning of arbors and walls of climbers. All were in full growth, and I remembered again the value of pruning at this time of year. Climbers are tapestries, Maypoles, ziggurats; their forms in the garden are triumphant. They can be clean and hug their structures like flowered chintz. They can be wild and tumbling, full of passion and abandon. They are shapes, and offer the pruner rough clay to mold and form into a living sculpture of color and fragrance. And in full growth they are so very alive, and just as alive after pruning.<br />
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Four days to go, and the goal of 4000 will elude me. Perhaps I'll make that mark of 3001. But whatever the outcome, I will continue pruning and cleaning and shaping the garden, with the hope that when May arrives, each corner of the garden will have been tended, spruced and at its best for the visitors...Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-41530150635080692262010-03-07T21:47:00.000-08:002010-03-07T21:47:38.852-08:00Playing HookeyThe precious and dwindling days of pruning are coming to a close. I should have spent the past week in furious catch-up, completing the pruning of Teas and Chinas and climbing roses, but instead I kept my promise to travel to Bermuda to speak to the Bermuda Rose Society.<br />
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Now before you summon up a picture of me sifting sand through my toes on the beach, let me paint a picture of gale force winds, fierce thunderstorms and rather chilly temperatures—not much different than Northern California at the moment. Roses were leafless, yet blooming. My hosts, Peter and Felicity Holmes took such good care of me that I really wasn't ready to return home today... They kept me stocked with coffee and sandwiches, cold beer and 'Dark and Stormys'—dark Bermuda rum and ginger beer—and all manner of lovely feasts. And the whole community of old rose lovers in the Bermuda Society saw to it that I visited dozens of gardens, nurseries, and the wonderful propagation facility at Tulla Valley. Dinner parties are a splendid respite from pruning!<br />
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The roses of Bermuda are a very special thing; and while we often think in America that we invented the idea of collecting old roses and passing them around, the Bermudians have been at it a good deal longer than we have, starting in the early 1950s. They take special pride in having preserved all of the roses that have been found on the islands there, and passing them around so that Bermuda is full of roses, peaking out from every hedgerow of hibiscus, and spilling over the old limestone walls, and climbing up to the glistening white roofs that make Bermuda such a beautiful place.<br />
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Over these years the Bermudians have taught us a lot about preservation, and I tried to share with them just how important their efforts have been to the old rose community. Such a dedicated group of people, and they haven't let up in more than half a century.<br />
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Home now and back to pruning, with just over a week to prune; I'm hopeful we'll have less than 1000 roses left unpruned by the deadline. That will be a feat worth striving for!Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-78538514218007772182010-02-23T08:07:00.000-08:002010-02-23T08:07:10.155-08:00Sun, showers and a cloud of green—Spring pruning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S4P83DjTamI/AAAAAAAAAFc/zir21y8Sih8/s1600-h/Adelaide+d%27Orleans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S4P83DjTamI/AAAAAAAAAFc/zir21y8Sih8/s320/Adelaide+d%27Orleans.jpg" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S4P0WHh-PVI/AAAAAAAAAFU/X1GvN1w3Xyw/s1600-h/CramoisiSuperieurCli:GL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="184" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S4P0WHh-PVI/AAAAAAAAAFU/X1GvN1w3Xyw/s200/CramoisiSuperieurCli:GL.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The inevitable time is upon us—when growth buds fatten on the bare stems and stretch into little darts, unfurling the first leaves of spring. The Teas and the China roses always have a head start. All they require is a week of sunshine and moderate temperatures, and they're off!<br />
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Still pruning? So am I. But now I must turn my attention to the climbers. They aren't growing any faster than the shrub roses, but the manipulation we put them through, unwinding their new long canes and thrashing them about to be repositioned on arbor, wall, arch and pillar, wrecks injury on all that soft new growth. If you haven't tackled them yet, get started now!<br />
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In my garden there are 18 rose pillars, six pergolas and two long, 9-foot-high walls of climbing roses, trained on welded wire fencing so that they can be admired from two perspectives in the garden. Soon will be added another 24 pillars and a curved pergola. At our nursery over 100 climbers are trained on 7 foot tall wooden fences, just short enough that they can be managed without the aid of a ladder.<br />
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Climbing roses are the apex of art in the rose garden, supassing even tree roses in their demand for careful management. Sure, I sometimes leave the pergolas unpruned, but I've never been pleased for long with the effect that creates. From the tops of the pergolas new canes rise upwards, stretching toward the sun, sometimes creating a bad-hair effect about as silly as a mohawk. Of course these new canes all appear just at the time of first rose bloom, obscuring most of the bloom in their forest of growth. Later in the summer these calm down, arching with their own weight, and if I'm lucky they explode in midsummer with lateral bloom, laden with flowers—a romantic effect to be sure, when it works.<br />
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The issue at hand is when to stop pruning, and as you can see, I can't stop quite yet. Once the new foliage unfurls, does it hurt the roses to prune them? Not a whit! The cut ends of canes and branches will quickly heal with the surge of sap in the stems, and new growth will emerger lower down, filling in and softening the effects of pruning before you know it. Teas and Chinas, as I mentioned in an earlier posting, will simply bloom later, and over a longer period of time for their first flowering. This enables me to share the glory of the Teas and Chinas with those who come to visit the garden in May. Left unpruned they will bloom much earlier, often peaking at the end of April. Of course these dates vary by climate, but the basic concept is the same, whether your roses peak in April, May or June.<br />
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But, I'll pause now in my pursuit of the Teas and Chinas, to tame the unruly whips and snakes of the climbers in the garden. How lovely a pillar is when it is a pillar and not a whirlygig!<br />
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In a few days, I must pause at this critical point in shaping the garden and the roses, with a week-long trip to Bermuda to address the Bermuda Rose Society with three presentations; about the Bermuda mystery roses and how their preservation has changed worldwide attitudes toward old roses, and about found roses and their preservation around the world. I'll also share a bit of my experience and expertise in propagating roses, to help with the Bermudians' efforts to proliferate their roses over the islands. Rumblings of concern have reached me that I may not be able to extricate myself from all the pruning left to do and that I might not show up! Rest assured, my island friends; I will be there! And ready for a 'Dark and Stormy'!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S4P83DjTamI/AAAAAAAAAFc/zir21y8Sih8/s1600-h/Adelaide+d%27Orleans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S4P83DjTamI/AAAAAAAAAFc/zir21y8Sih8/s320/Adelaide+d%27Orleans.jpg" /></a></div>Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-35804233680725109652010-02-18T07:36:00.000-08:002010-02-18T07:36:58.460-08:0040,000 Thorns & a Million Prickles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S31YDsg-ZwI/AAAAAAAAAE8/p6UG0ifM7xk/s1600-h/Tillier-Gravereaux-Silene.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S31YDsg-ZwI/AAAAAAAAAE8/p6UG0ifM7xk/s400/Tillier-Gravereaux-Silene.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Yesterday a dozen volunteers from the 'Deadheaders' of the Morcom Rose Garden in Oakland arrived to help in the garden. We started with a group of Tea roses that have not been pruned for 3 years; Monsieur Tillier, Rhodologue Jules Gravereaux and Bon Silene. Above is that group in May of 2007, with Bon Silene the tallest in the center back, M. Tillier the large, double pink on the right. This is how they looked on their first bloom after being pruned back to about 6 to 7 feet that winter. Bon Silene yesterday was about 10 to 12 feet tall, and all three were crowded with tiny branches, elbowing one another to see who would be the survivor.<br />
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As I shared my thoughts about pruning the group asked politely if they would get a chance to pull out their secaturs and have a go! We all launched in. Answering many questions I moved from plant to plant trying to guide the process, so that all 13 of us might together act as one mind with a single mission, and end up with some grace, some consistancy.<br />
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Now you'd think that 13 pruners would have polished off this job on three plants in 15 or 20 minutes, but we took more than an hour. An hour of snip, snip, snip...I was run ragged, and later had to extricate quite a few thorns from various parts of my body. I would never have allowed myself an hour for these three roses on my own. At that rate, I'd still be working on my first hundred roses... But pruning these great glories, the Tea roses, isn't fast, or easy. Perhaps that's why I've convinced myself that roses don't really require pruning?<br />
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After, we mulched the lower Hybrid Tea beds with Pamela and Michael's delicous Rice Straw, and nearly finished all eight beds, all 850 roses! Deadheaders ROCK!<br />
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Joanie Helgeson, who writes the Old Roser's Digest now, spent the day in focussed attack on the weeds swamping our climbing roses! What pearls are people. <br />
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Thorns come big and small. The really big ones can strike bone when they go in. But the smaller ones are the dangerous ones. The pop in right under the skin, and the wide wedge at the base of each thorn, once under the skin, prevents the thorn from popping back out (or being coaxed out, for that matter.) In my hands at the moment about 30 thorns are currently embedded, in various stages of emerging. Mostly they only hurt when you put pressure on that point, but once in a while one goes deep, and strikes a nerve, and just sits there, making you wonder if you should bother those lovely people at the emergency room... One such culprit sits lodged between my index and second fingers on my right hand, just at the knuckles.<br />
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Ah what martyrs we are to the rose!<br />
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Gallicas are the worst. Their tiny, needle-like prickles are short and closely spaced on the stems, allowing you to hold a stem in your bare fingers without even piercing the skin. You work blithely along thinking this isn't so bad. But after half an hour you realise that, even with gloves on, dozens of those little tikes have stuck to your skin and won't let go. Then you bear down on your pruners for another snip, and ten little prickles inject themselves. Tweezers aren't made small enough to extricate the prickles of Gallicas...<br />
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Lesson: keep your tetenus shots up to date.Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-75048061237612212602010-02-15T09:34:00.000-08:002010-02-15T09:43:15.502-08:00The Generosity of Strangers...and friends!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S3mFhUO-tLI/AAAAAAAAAEs/GIymT7vvtJc/s1600-h/DP+Garden+5:07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S3mFhUO-tLI/AAAAAAAAAEs/GIymT7vvtJc/s320/DP+Garden+5:07.jpg" /></a></div><br />
I often think I'm quite crazy with my Polyanna notions of pruning 4000 roses. I never worked this hard when I was 30, and now, and nearly 60, my body just says 'no' every day.<br />
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But thanks to the generosity of strangers and friends, somehow the progress of preparing the garden for May continues along. Yesterday one new friend, Polly, and two old friends, Sarah and Carolyn, came to work for the day, weeding the Damask Perpetual borders. This is the section of the garden east of the house, which Teresa and I call the 'pretty garden'. The two of us spent days last year cleaning and pruning it and then filling it with companion plants, so that at least one corner of the garden was full to over-flowing. Our theme was 'blue companions' and included violas, salvias, agapanthus, fuschias (in lavender-blue tones), lavenders, dahlias, sweet peas, giant forget-me-nots and tall asters. It was magnificent all summer long, the blue companions spilling across the pinks and crimsons of the reblooming Damasks and Hybrid Perpetuals.<br />
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Yesterday we faced the devastation of the late summer weeds that had escaped my attention, mostly grass weeds that surged up above the roses and perennials and draped everything with golden threads—so impossible to comb out from the thorny branches. Polly and Sarah weeded all day long and Carolyn soon arrived and worked alongside me—Carolyn who can scarcely walk thanks to failing knees that aren't scheduled for replacement until May!<br />
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We managed to clear out more than half of the garden—enough to leave me confident that the rest will soon follow, along with the pruning and then the mulching!<br />
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This week Tora Rocha of the Morecomb garden of roses in Oakland is bringing a small army of her dead-header volunteers to learn a bit about pruning various types of old roses, and then to help with the mulching, and perhaps a bit more weeding, in the lower Hybrid Teas, where we first began this misguided process.<br />
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It's clear that this garden of three acres is beyond me, and now beyond the manpower that Vintage Gardens can supply. But this year, thanks to the generosity of so many who love old roses, we have May to look forward to, and a garden of scents and colors that will give joy to the many who visit. I hope you can be among our visitors!Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-84790956438024738712010-02-09T23:34:00.000-08:002010-02-09T23:34:37.371-08:00The Smile Bed <i>Mignonette, Polyantha 1880 The two-room cottage</i><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S3JUmYbZLgI/AAAAAAAAAEc/gyXVS-9POnw/s1600-h/WaltersCottage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S3JUmYbZLgI/AAAAAAAAAEc/gyXVS-9POnw/s320/WaltersCottage.jpg" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S3JUameMFFI/AAAAAAAAAEU/Ap1A9f6u9dc/s1600-h/PaqueretteWalters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S3JUameMFFI/AAAAAAAAAEU/Ap1A9f6u9dc/s320/PaqueretteWalters.jpg" /></a></div><br />
When I began sharing my thoughts on roses, gardening, and gardeners, I promised to share some of my experiences of people and the roses that inhabit their gardens. Few things in my life have given me so much joy as the garden with the 'Smile Bed'. Its story began in the early 1980s when Jim and Dotty Walters fell in love with a Queen Anne Victorian house just outside of Healdsburg, California. They spent many years restoring the house and its two-room cottage to their former glory, with great patience and a dream that one day they might live there, in the grey lady they had so much respect for.<br />
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By some great stroke of fortune they found me, and asked me to help to make a garden—one that embraced and honored the old houses. We chipped away at it, Dotty and I, with Jim always at the ready to manage the clearing and hauling, always cheering us on. To the music of Pavarotti and Callas, ringing from a portable boom box, and the devoted encouragement of my Bassett hound Nigel, we cleared a space in the woods, carved out a laughing patio of brick, shifted ancient camellias and towering fuschias, planted and then dug and divided and planted again the offspring of our favorite perennials and ground covers, until one day we stood back and knew that the garden was right. The old grey lady was smiling.<br />
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The remnant of an old lawn set with a noble flagpole became our anchor. And in the lawn we set three circles for planting; one around the pole, and two more for company (and because we liked the notion of planting in threes.) In the lower two circles I chose as a centerpiece a Polyantha rose, Mignonette. This old French variety was introduced just at the time that our grey lady was built. Its tiny flowers of snowy white bloom in clusters and scent the air.<br />
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A garden evolves over the years. Mistakes are corrected, sometimes several times. New perspectives offer fresh ideas that sometimes transform a thing you've done well, but not quite well enough. Twenty years after our three circle beds were made Dotty invited me to take another look—was there anything we were missing? Below these two beds a long shady border had been planted in the lee of a cypress hedge. It had always seemed a bit narrow, and lacking in drama. I suggested that perhaps the long bed should be expanded upwards to connect with our Mignonette circles, and Dotty and Jim agreed. It was a small expansion, but one that brought perfection. We made a curving line that swept upward from both ends of the long border, skirted round the circles and curved back downward again. Dotty looked at it when we finished and declared, 'it's the "smile bed"!'<br />
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We could all use a smile bed with our roses. Dotty and Jim have kept me smiling now for 25 years with the joys of sharing roses and wines, families and friends. Santiago, who tends the garden now, and helped with its creation from the start, makes me smile with the loving care he gives the roses, and the masterful pruning he does of all the smiling, rosy inhabitants.Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-28993362066053940212010-02-06T21:42:00.000-08:002010-02-06T21:42:24.428-08:00The Itsy Bitsy Spider...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S25Q1icjSvI/AAAAAAAAAD8/nT3-pWinSos/s1600-h/Garden+Map+for+Blog+2:6:10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S25Q1icjSvI/AAAAAAAAAD8/nT3-pWinSos/s320/Garden+Map+for+Blog+2:6:10.jpg" width="292" /></a></div>This pruning business, year after year, is a bit like the labor of Sisyphus, rolling a ball up the mountain, only to watch it roll back down again, and begin again. But today, despite rain which helped to cancel plans of the Friends of Vintage Gardens to help to mulch, we did accomplish minor miracles. Our rice straw mulch was spread over about 3/4 of an acre by me, Michael and Pamela Temple, Juan and Mario who helps out from time to time. It was a wet and exhausting day, but worth the suffering, at least until the weeds show up again, and we begin again...Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-51364089668961010522010-02-02T21:36:00.000-08:002010-02-02T21:36:24.550-08:00Climbing Roses & What Comes First<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S2j-E83sdGI/AAAAAAAAADs/UopYHmxdAyI/s1600-h/pcla005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S2j-E83sdGI/AAAAAAAAADs/UopYHmxdAyI/s400/pcla005.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Climbers...what can I say? Clearly most of you out there agree with my thought that climbers are hard. I'll share a few experiences and observations, but first I'd like to address a few questions about when you prune different roses. What's the best time to prune the Teas and Chinas, for instance, given that in climates where they thrive, they are likely to grow and bloom year round.<br />
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<b style="color: purple;">The Evergreen Roses—Teas and Chinas</b> <br />
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Teas and Chinas have been very happy in my garden. Winter temperatures often drop to below freezing, and sometimes dip into the mid twenties for several days. Not a very cold climate, but near the breaking point on occasion for this group of nearly evergreen roses. In the early 1990s we experienced 100-year lows. The ground froze an inch or so down, and temperatures remained below freezing for several days. At the end, the Teas had no damaged tip growth, except for very soft new shoots. But after a week or so I noticed that the middle growth, canes that were more than a year old, but not gray and barky, had turned black. I've never been able to explain this, but it resulted in die-back of about half of the growth on the Teas. The Chinas were much tougher, perhaps because they were lower to the ground, and the Teas much taller. After cutting out all of the damaged wood, the Teas rebounded and never looked back.<br />
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What I do find about the Teas is that because they try to grow, even in the colder part of the winter, and do not lose their foliage completely, they seem to resent being pruned too early in the winter. Once cold sets in, they don't put on new growth until the air warms up somewhat in February. I have pruned them in December and early January, and those years I do experience more susceptibility to bacterial disease, particularly water-mold bacteria which can affect the roots.<br />
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I've found that waiting until the weather begins to warm, and pruning the Teas then, or even after they begin to leaf out seems to yield better results. This exact timing will vary by climate; the warmer your winter, the earlier you might time the pruning for. What I look for is to leave the canopy of foliage and slowed or halted growth through mid winter. The Teas can photosynthesize better through the winter, store energy, fend off disease, and tap their feet waiting for spring. Then, when I begin to prune the Teas and Chinas are ready to begin growing, so they don't sit a long time in a completely dormant state.<br />
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I have pruned the Teas sometimes after they have already put on 3 to 4 inches of new growth, in late March, and they seem quite happy, and respond by simply putting on more new shoots lower down on the canes that are now exposed to more sunlight. I suspect that in very mild winter climates this is what folks are doing anyway as the Teas will have bloomed right through the winter. Because I time my open garden for the month of May, this very late pruning has the distinct advantage of shifting the first full bloom of the Teas into early May. Unpruned Teas, or those pruned earlier in the winter, would tend to peak for me normally in late April.<br />
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<div style="color: purple;"><b>Old Roses</b></div><br />
As you follow my progress on the map of my garden, you'll notice that I will arrive at the end with the garden of Old European Roses left to the end of the pruning season. This is in part because they take such a long time to prune, when I do prune them. It is also because many of the old classes, Gallicas, Mosses, Albas, Hybrid Chinas and Hybrid Bourbons, experience a real dormancy from which they are slow to break, even in a milder climate. Damasks and Centifolias actually begin to grow quite early in the season, though they may not reach full bloom much sooner than the others.<br />
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This late start to growth allows me to get in to prune the bushes later than I might be able to prune a Hybrid Tea or a Tea. Even when they begin to leaf out it is a slower process, so I am able to see into the plants that are not yet completely obscured by their new foliage. Similarly the repeat blooming old classes, Bourbons, Portlands and Hybrid Perpetuals are slower to break into leaf that Teas and HTs. Hybrid Teas, oddly enough are the first to break into new growth in my garden, beating out the Teas by a couple of weeks. Hence, I begin with HTs and Floribundas, move on to the Teas and Chinas, continue with the reblooming old roses, and finish with the old Europeans.<br />
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<div style="color: purple;"><b>Climbers</b></div><br />
One troublesome element in this handy rule of thumb are climbing roses. While they do vary in when they start to grow by type, Climbing Teas & Hybrid Teas first, Ramblers later, once they have begun to grow, it is almost too late to prune them without causing lots of damage. Canes that must be untangled and re-arranged may lose most of these tender new shoots with all the jostling about. I keep a close eye on them, and when I see buds beginning to swell, I'll drop all of the bush rose pruning and just concentrate on them.<br />
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Climbers don't need to be pruned every year, or at least not so completely. And, of course, recalling our first rule, that we only prune for our sakes, not for the roses, the need is an aesthetic stricture. When my arbors produce 6 to 8 feet of new growth over the tops of their roofs, I'm not pleased with the outcome; squashing their structures and reversing the proportions that I find attractive.<br />
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In the photo above, Juan and I are working on a 10' x 10' x 10' arbor, an entrance to the old rose garden. The rose is Long John Silver (which may in fact be Iceland Queen), a hybrid of <i>Rosa setigera</i>. It's a very vigorous grower that sends out 15 foot long canes in all directions during the summer. It would quickly knock the arbor right over if we did not diminish the growth each winter. This and other rambers pose the very simplest of pruning tasks. We can simply cut out all of the older shoots, or most of them, and train in the new long canes onto the structure. These newer, unbranched shoots will make thousands of flowers. Smaller climbing roses, especially those that rebloom like climbing Floribundas and Tea-Noisettes produce long canes that will settle into years of productivity, so I keep much of the old growth, but remove the very oldest each year to make way for new canes. Trying to extricate older canes that are embedded in the mass of the plant is much more challenging.<br />
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I'll talk more about climbers, and hope to offer a little slide-show of a climbing rose or two, from start to finish in the process. Keep pruning!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S2kKz_1ikAI/AAAAAAAAAD0/c37C5aRVQcw/s1600-h/Long+John+Silver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S2kKz_1ikAI/AAAAAAAAAD0/c37C5aRVQcw/s320/Long+John+Silver.jpg" /></a></div>Long John Silver (or maybe Iceland Queen?)Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-34518814028308124972010-01-29T22:09:00.000-08:002010-01-29T22:09:18.597-08:00Tick, Tick, Tick...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S2PKB7eOfQI/AAAAAAAAADk/ausUYysGcKw/s1600-h/Garden+Map+Master+for+Blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S2PKB7eOfQI/AAAAAAAAADk/ausUYysGcKw/s400/Garden+Map+Master+for+Blog.jpg" width="365" /><span style="background-color: #ffd966;"></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: purple; text-align: left;">The clock is ticking, and the rain is falling... </div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: purple; text-align: left;">Chris Pederson worked all day with me and we made excellent progress on the upper section of old Hybrid Teas and Floribundas. These are the decade beds which run from the 1930s through the 1960s.</div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: purple; text-align: left;">We pruned and trained a climber, which brings up an issue that I must address. How to prune climbers. Our poll indicates that many of you find this to be the most challenging group to prune.</div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: purple; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: purple; text-align: left;">I've also had several requests to discuss which roses need to be pruned first. And, some specifics, like when do you prune the Tea Roses? I will set myself on a straight path for the next week to try to talk about these specific questions and a few others. Just let me get in gear, finish my work for Rosa Mundi (Journal of the Heritage Rose Foundation), and complete an article that is several days overdue for the Heritage Roses Group in England. Keep checking; I'll have things to say over the next few days! </div>Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-41766927864303653582010-01-26T22:45:00.000-08:002010-01-26T22:47:54.588-08:00Pruning and Transplanting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S1_bwOM5n1I/AAAAAAAAADU/3rJ_zjHcFY0/s1600-h/IMG_5953.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S1_bwOM5n1I/AAAAAAAAADU/3rJ_zjHcFY0/s400/IMG_5953.jpg" width="400" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S1_b50Dq25I/AAAAAAAAADc/jKCBeJh-_lE/s1600-h/IMG_5973.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S1_b50Dq25I/AAAAAAAAADc/jKCBeJh-_lE/s400/IMG_5973.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
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By now you may be thinking that I'm reading a book, painting another picture, or just anything to avoid the roses.... Though the rain in Northern California has kept most folks indoors, I've been muddying my knees at the temple of the roses....<br />
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Yes, progress on the pruning is slow, and time is passing very quickly. At least I have a few excuses, including the scenes above which were photographed two weeks ago on a friday, when Chris Pederson and I went to the Sacramento Historic Rose Garden in the Old City Cemetery. We'd been offered four plants of Perle d'Or, the beautiful old Polyantha rose, a sort of buff-yellow colored Cecile Brunner. In the early days of the planting of this exquisite rose garden in a mid-nineteenth century cemetery, lots of unknown roses were brought in from old historic sites in California's Gold Country. Quite a few turned out to be Perle d'Or. So, the volunteers, who maintain the garden, needed to get rid of a few of these to make way for other found roses that need to be preserved.<br />
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Chris is the head gardener at Mableton, an 1870s mansion in Santa Rosa, and I have been working with him for the past few years to redesign and replant many sections of that old garden. We planned out the new front entry garden two years ago, and I suggested Perle d'Or as one of the most generous old roses I know, in just the right color for the newly painted, newly restored old house. A young own-root plant of Perle d'Or can take 10 years to reach 5 or 6 feet in height, which is just the size I envisaged for the walkway borders. The 15 year old specimens at the Sacramento garden were immense; certainly the largest plants I've ever seen of this great rose. We measured one just before pruning and digging it; it registered 14 feet across and 8 feet tall! These four beauties will provide a look of maturity to the entrance to this grand old house.<br />
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It has been years since I've moved very large old plants, and though it went as I expected, it took much longer...perhaps my age has made a difference. Each plant took an hour for the two of us to prune back and dig out. We began by sizing up the plants, looking for the youngest of the major canes which would form the new branch basis for the roses. About 2/3 of each plant was removed, and the remaining canes pruned down to about 3 feet tall. Then began the process of digging and digging. Starting at the drip line of the plants we worked down looking for roots. Some plants had few large roots above about 2 feet deep in the soil. Once we uncovered those main roots, we excavated beneath them, followed them out to the drip line, and cut. This allowed the plants to rock more freely, and for us to work digging bars beneath the crowns in search of yet larger roots. Each main root was retained, though some were shortened to just a few feet in length. Once the plants came free, what remained was a healthy balance between root mass and branches.<br />
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Volunteers at the rose garden, including Anita Clevenger and Barbara Oliva cheered us on and took lots of photos. Anita's are posted on her Facebook site for all to see. It was quite a process, and if you are considering moving a large rose plant, you may want to take a look!<br />
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Above are the four Perle d'Ors newly planted by Chris the following day (I was in too great an agony of muscle fatigue to help him!) And perhaps when spring arrives and the borders are completed, and the Perle d'Ors are in glorious bloom, I'll share another photo on the blog.<br />
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Do you think I'll have the pruning done by May?.....Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-14118121877102509662010-01-18T13:43:00.000-08:002010-01-18T13:43:23.410-08:00Progess on the Map<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S1TVK9tOWtI/AAAAAAAAAC8/DKTusFCXlhk/s1600-h/Garden+Map+Pruning+1-18-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S1TVK9tOWtI/AAAAAAAAAC8/DKTusFCXlhk/s320/Garden+Map+Pruning+1-18-10.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>Just a brief note to keep you up to date on what's been pruned. We've nearly finished with the modern HT and Floribunda beds in the lower corner. Progress has been slow as we've weeded this section as we prune.<br />
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The rain today is fierce, and beyond what I can tolerate and still see what I'm doing. More tomorrow. Once this section is completed we'll prune some of the collection pots and then move to the opposite upper corner, proceeding on the old Hybrid Teas and Floribundas, and continuing right down that side of the garden through the old repeat-flowering roses.Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-46505164079060733702010-01-18T12:26:00.000-08:002010-01-18T12:26:27.795-08:00Ever Green<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S1Sy7lrirFI/AAAAAAAAACQ/gH-qWhK8lPY/s1600-h/Aloe:KingsPark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S1Sy7lrirFI/AAAAAAAAACQ/gH-qWhK8lPY/s320/Aloe:KingsPark.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><b>Time's a wastin'</b> <br />
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A critical date has passed in the pruning of my garden; one quarter of the time has elapsed, and only one eighth of the plants are now completed. Despite a push this week to reach the goal of 1000 pruned roses, just over 500 are finished.<br />
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Darrell spent a day with us on Thursday, and we made progress. As Darrell put it, 'I didn't realize that weeding would be involved as well.' The only thing I could think to say was that if I told everyone the naked truth, no one would come to help!<br />
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Teresa spent three days here this week, and worked with me yesterday all afternoon in the rain. An intense experience, as she put it! The Hybrid Teas and Floribundas are at least fairly easy to prune, but weeding as we go along has slowed the process. Soon we finish the modern HT beds and move to the old HTs where all of the weeding has been done, thanks to the Friends of Vintage Gardens. Most of those beds are now mulched with rice straw, as well.<br />
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True, we've begun with a very difficult section, the modern HT beds which were not pruned last year. And, that section, thanks to three years of heaping rich compost on the beds has become a haven for weeds, despite the three thorough weedings we did last year. Time for a less fertile mulch, for which I will forever be grateful to Michael and Pamela Temple who brought me 80 bales of rice straw. It turns to glue in the rain and seizes up like vegetable concrete when dry, so the weeds have little chance.<br />
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<b>Rose Garden Cleanup</b> <br />
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I've had some questions about other aspects of the winter cleanup process that need to be addressed. Perhaps the most critical is whether or not to do a dormant spray, and what to use. What we know about rose diseases and how they start up has improved in recent years through research at the University of California at Berkeley. It has long been believed that the spores of the fungi that afflict roses, Blackspot, Powdery Mildew, Rust and Downy Mildew, remain alive on the leaves that drop to the ground over the winter. Rose gardeners have long believed that even a fragment of a leaf can harbor these spores which, in proximity to the plants, cause rapid re-infection in the spring. NOT SO! The UC studies showed that leaves that are dead, no longer green, will carry few or no live fungal spores. This is excellent news, since it means that we can leave rose foliage on the ground to become a part of the soil, and feed soil organisms as they break down. Green foliage can still host live spores, but those leaves will die within some days of becoming detatched from the plants. A good way to insure their demise, and to keep the garden looking tidy after pruning, is to cover the ground with mulch of some sort, which will smother and kill of the remaining living cells in the leaves.<br />
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Spores will remain viable on leaves that are green and not stripped from the plant. This is why stripping off last year's leaves is so important to keeping the plants healthy. It's a tedious process, but one that is made less onerous by doing a light pruning. Cutting the plants back by 1/4 or so all over will remove the outer canopy which is where most foliage is found. Now here finally is a reason why pruning may make the plants healthier.<br />
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Some spores will also continue to live on the green stems of the plant. But fungal spores are everywhere in the air during the growing season, drifting onto rose plants and waiting for the ideal conditions of warmth, humidity and moderate night time temperatures. Dormant sprays may help to destroy hangers on, but will have little affect on spores that drift in during the growing season.<br />
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<b>To Spray or Not to Spray...</b><br />
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I have practiced dormant spraying for many years, particularly on the crops of roses we sell at Vintage Gardens; these plants need to be completely free of disease as they ship out to customers. But, in recent years I have given up dormant spraying in my garden, as I find that the really critical time to prevent disease is after the growing season begins. That's when lots more fungal spores begin to drift in on the air.<br />
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Copper has been my preferred choice for a fungicide. It is widely used in the fruit tree industry, and like the other effective metallic sprays, Manganese and Zinc, can be applied in forms that are acceptable for organic farmers and gardeners. Liquid forms of copper for fruit tree application are widely available, but oddly enough, most garden centers and nurseries have never heard of using them on roses, and will often steer you away from them and toward the non-organic fungicides which are more toxic. All three of these metals have been used in various fomulations of fungicides, and I have employed them all.<br />
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<b>What Works?</b><br />
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Blackspot and Powdery Mildew are easy to prevent with copper sprays. Downy Mildew can be controlled as well, but in Coastal California, where conditions can be ideal for the spread of this sometimes virulent disease, repeated applications may be necessary, particularly during the growing period in the spring in advance of the bloom.<br />
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Rust is another matter. I have found Zinc and Manganese to be tolerable successful if used before signs of the disease appear. But these are not easy to obtain, and not 100% effective. In our coastal climate Rust is a big problem. It can be best controlled in my opinion by stripping affected leaves during the bloom season. However, one easy way to avoid it altogether is to be ruthless in removing varieties of roses that seem particularly susceptible. Peace is an excellent example of a Rust lover. In general, Hybrid Teas are much more prone to rust, along with their 19th century parents, the Hybrid Perpetuals. Bourbon roses get it as well, though not all. It is in the Teas and Chinas that we find prolific, year-round bloomers that seem not at all sensitive to Rust. If you're faced with a plague of Rust, rethink your garden, and start growing these delightful groups of roses that may solve the problem. I once believed, as many do, that Rugosa roses were completely disease free, and indeed they may be. However I've found that they can be completely defoilated by Rust near the coast. I continue to grow and love them, but understand that some years I may be in for a clash of orange and magenta where I have them planted!<br />
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<b>What to Use and How Much?</b><br />
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Inevitably I am asked which sprays to use and how much. Beyond my favoring the metallic sprays, I give no advice. What is available to you, where you live, what diseases tend to be your bugaboos, which product you are using, involved variables that to advise with good judgement would take research and consultation that I have not enough time to pursue. Vendors of dormant sprays should be able to advise you, or they should not be selling the stuff. Sadly, there is too little knowledge to be found in most markets that sell chemicals. And, much of it is out of date or too limited. One thing to keep in mind is that copper can be used throughout the growing season. Sales people will contradict this, but you need only read the instructions on a bottle of liquid copper to see that it can be used during the growing season even on delicate leafy vegetables. The key thing to look at is concentrations that are given for various stages in the growing year.<br />
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<b>Don't Spray</b><br />
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If you want my real opinion, that's it. Get rid of roses that are prone to disease in your climate; replace them with types that will be less disease prone. Strip the leaves from the plants in the winter. Strip diseased leaves during the growing season.<br />
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<b>Ever Green—What This Blog's All About<br />
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I'm often asked for reccommendations for roses that are evergreen. Knowing how prone hybrid roses are to various diseases, I wonder why this is desirable? There are plenty of good evergreen plants for every climate that are tough and disease free, and roses don't need to be among them. However Teas and Chinas will tend to be evergreen in mild-winter climates, and these may indeed be worthy of trying. In California, where Rust can be problematic, the Teas and Chinas may afford the best choices. In my own climate, where frost and even freezing occurs every year, the Teas and Chinas shed their leaves to a great extent; usually leaving only a light outer canopy of new foliage which can be quickly sheered off to eliminate the chance of the spread of fungi from one year to the next.Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-67147859522692573692010-01-11T22:07:00.000-08:002010-01-11T22:07:32.737-08:00Getting Ahead of Myself<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S0wNFGAYhiI/AAAAAAAAACI/1eIfAcZg_KE/s1600-h/Viscountess+of+Kern.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S0wNFGAYhiI/AAAAAAAAACI/1eIfAcZg_KE/s400/Viscountess+of+Kern.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">"Viscountess of Kern"<br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">early Hybrid Tea<br />
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Back from the tender breezes of Southern California where I shared my outlandish notions of pruning, or not pruning, with a wonderful crowd of folks from the Ventura County Rose Society and the Gold Coast Heritage Roses Group, I find myself looking at the garden and thinking of this—roses in the full first flush of May. I know I'm getting ahead of myself, all the while I am getting behind. But, it is the fresh blush of such perfect roses as this old Hybrid Tea, this mystery rose once distributed by the Joseph Kern Nursery of Ohio, that fuels my energy for winter work. The Kern nursery had labeled it Viscountess Folkestone which we have subsequently found to be the name of another, very lovely old rose. But this gem, foundling that it is, remains a neglected mystery that I have convinced few rose lovers to grow. One of the earliest HTs, by my guess, it has the subtlety and crispness of the Ophelia group, and that perfect blending of Tea rose and Hybrid Perpetual. I can't resist it.<br />
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Tomorrow I will remove our first survey, 'How Many Roses Do You Have to Prune?', and replace it with a new survey...stay tuned. Meanwhile, if you haven't chimed in, let us know what your challenge is. And this week I have scheduled myself for the earnest work of completing the first thousand roses. On day 60 I'll need to make that mark, or fall perilously behind.<br />
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Hand is working again, knee is bending, and I've made some beginning swipes at the chalkboard. Let me know how you are doing with your pruning; just post a comment after this log entry. There are others out there who want to know they're not alone. And, if you're one of those who have thousands of roses to prune, let me know. I'm dying of curiosity, and misery loves company!Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-25604608540911444382010-01-07T01:02:00.000-08:002010-01-07T01:02:04.726-08:00Relativity<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S0WT2sWOcWI/AAAAAAAAAB4/4W587IOdTtE/s1600/A+Tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S0WT2sWOcWI/AAAAAAAAAB4/4W587IOdTtE/s640/A+Tree.jpg" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S0WbD3xxqcI/AAAAAAAAACA/2JUH82lfe_U/s1600-h/Old+Roses+for+Blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S0WbD3xxqcI/AAAAAAAAACA/2JUH82lfe_U/s640/Old+Roses+for+Blog.jpg" /> </a><br />
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Size is relative. Who would ever think that a redwood tree should be kept to 5 feet tall? Yet we have no qualms about whacking back shrubs on a regular basis in order to dwarf them to fit under the front window.<br />
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On the other hand who would deny the beauty of a an old apple espaliered against a stone wall, expressing the close relationship between elements of the earth; animate and inanimate carbon, carved and piled stone beside clipped and tiered branches.<br />
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The very pragmatic business of keeping plants in check in the garden has been at the heart of gardening for as long as humans have worked at it. Apples get too big for the tiny courtyard that shelters them from marauding animals; espalier makes them fit. Roses grow and grow eating up precious space needed for vegetables and fruit. Tie them up the walls, clip them to the ground.<br />
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This is how we arrived at pruning roses, a very long time ago. This is what we need to remember. We prune in order to control their size. We build lattice work in order to keep them in two dimensions—and isn't the result lovely? The word arbor descends from the old Medieval 'herber', a fence-like structure sited in an enclosed garden. Herbers were twined with roses and rosemary and all sorts of plants, bringing them up to the noses of those who wandered through, and containing all of that rambunctious life in a narrow, elevated hedge. The old European hedgerows must certainly have served as models of this garden artifice.<br />
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Roses ultimately found their place in another ancient garden ornament, the parterre. This flat design of gemetrically shaped beds, bordered in evergreen to articulate the shapes, was filled with flowers of all sorts over many centuries. Annuals, bulbs and perennial flowers filled the interiors of these spaces to brighten them up with color. Some plants fit the bill, others flopped and flailed. In the end roses took their turn and by the start of the 20th century they had pretty much been taken for granted as the ideal bedding plants for the long haul. Elegant examples of this survive in such roseries as Jules Gravereaux's l'Hay-les-Roses, near Paris. But a hundred years on we've nearly forgotten that roses are plants, with real growth habits, capable of power and grace, and not always in need of a haircut.Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-88580764070478771932010-01-05T21:39:00.000-08:002010-01-05T21:43:16.851-08:00Laying Low<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S0QhMuzDpXI/AAAAAAAAABw/N0LKMCyCT5c/s1600-h/Garden+Map:Pruning1:5:09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/S0QhMuzDpXI/AAAAAAAAABw/N0LKMCyCT5c/s640/Garden+Map:Pruning1:5:09.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>As the days tick away, my lack of progress becomes worrisome. I thought it might be instructive to see this process through a map of the garden; in green are the bed areas that are now pruned. I'll update this once a week.<br />
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Our first ship date of the year at the nursery has kept me very busy since Thursday. Our first roses to Taiwan shipped today, and the red tape was excessive. But, I managed to get everything wrapped up and ready to go yesterday. Then, I walked out of the shipping room, stepped on a wet leaf and flew off the loading dock and down to the ground, mashing my knee and ankle.<br />
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Today was spent largely in bed trying to recuperate and get the swelling to go down. Right hand, right knee; they really are very necessary to the pruning process. So, it looks like I won't get right back to pruning. I was forced to cancel my presentation to the Pleasant Hill Garden Club tonight, but I am hoping that I will still be able to go to Ventura on Friday to do a Saturday morning demonstration/talk on pruning for the Gold Coast Heritage Roses Group.<br />
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Meanwhile, I've been thinking about your responses to my postings. I've had several lovely emails, a mixture of astonishment and gratitude over what I've been trying to do. Our poll is fascinating. Nearly half of you have nearly one hundred roses to prune. A nice average, but do you realize that between you that's about 9000 roses? Wow!<br />
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I'm shocked that nine readers have indicated that they each have thousands of roses to prune. What I'd really like to do for the next two days is sit back and read what they have to share about their challenges! I can't help wondering where their gardens are, and what they grow. I can guess who some of them may be; I've been an enabler for rose collectors for years now and have turned a few friends into fanatical rose lovers.<br />
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I do promise that tomorrow I'll get back to the nuts and bolts on this blog, and continue to share some thoughts on pruning roses—some thoughts that will make you think!Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-31560941783963335542010-01-01T21:51:00.000-08:002010-01-01T21:51:43.079-08:00Breathing in the New Year<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/Sz7ee7DIsbI/AAAAAAAAABo/dXca2uqCl5E/s1600-h/Tea+Roses+and+View.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/Sz7ee7DIsbI/AAAAAAAAABo/dXca2uqCl5E/s640/Tea+Roses+and+View.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>Today I took a break. Keeping up with the process has already told its tale.<br />
My pruning hand had swollen up like a soufflé last night, so I gave it a rest.<br />
I spent the day painting, trying to capture rain and fog on the gentle hills of Sebastopol. It did me good, and my hand has deflated to something like normal.<br />
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We gardeners push ourselves sometimes. Like the artists we are, enveloped by our canvases, we suffer the skin tears and puncture wounds without flinching. Painting a landscape is not unlike pruning. Clip, clip, clip; daube, daube, daube. It takes a lot of the same thing, again and again, to get to the end. And, like painters, while we may work toward a goal, it is the process that contains much of the meaning.<br />
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While I prune in January, I'm often sketching May in my mind. Imagining how this corner will be improved, dreaming about new planting combinations, I see the garden more perfectly at these times than I ever perceive it to be when May finally comes. We are dreamers, visionaries, artists, ever anticipating the work, always painting the perfect garden of our minds.Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-19914718263419370282009-12-31T17:58:00.000-08:002009-12-31T17:58:54.054-08:00New Beginnings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/Sz1R9M2uNUI/AAAAAAAAABg/dsyWaz3nOxE/s1600-h/Cutting+with+Heel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/Sz1R9M2uNUI/AAAAAAAAABg/dsyWaz3nOxE/s200/Cutting+with+Heel.jpg" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/Sz1R3pVQskI/AAAAAAAAABY/pz7Y0Rbp6_I/s1600-h/Virgil1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/Sz1R3pVQskI/AAAAAAAAABY/pz7Y0Rbp6_I/s200/Virgil1.jpg" /></a><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> With the new year approaching I'm reminded of my favorite side of the pruning season; beginning new plants from cuttings. What seems like a mountain of useless debris, the pile of pruned branches, has always held so much promise of new life for me. Dozens of new plants can be had from the prunings, and perhaps you should keep this in mind. If you'd like a simple primer, turn to the Vintage Gardens website and go to our Plant Care page in the green menu bar. Select Rose Care, and you'll find our photo essays of pruning, which take you through several very different rose shrubs and how we prune them. The second series is Pruning a Medium Sized Shrub Rose and Making Hardwood Cuttings. This will get you started. The old gardener's method is to stick those prepared heel cuttings directly into the ground under the mother plant. A year from now you can dig up those new babies and give them a home!<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This year I lost my dearest companion, a Rat Terrier named Tyccho. He was an indomitable trapper of gophers, the sourge of my garden, subterrannean vegetarians that delight in the succulent roots of roses. I lose about 50 to 100 plants each year to gophers, but Tyccho managed to catch more than 100 gophers each year. When I lost him, I wondered how I could ever replace him in the garden. A few months later I adopted a new Rat Terrier, Virgil. He is just six months old today, but two days ago he caught his first gopher, and yesterday a young roof rat. There's more than a promise of roses for the coming year, on this last, cold night of December.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Happy New Year to all of you!<br />
</div>Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-26717847145427928532009-12-31T09:18:00.000-08:002009-12-31T09:18:04.176-08:00On Distractions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/SzzPDi-7V8I/AAAAAAAAABI/UfBhDuHaEkg/s1600-h/IMG_4238.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/SzzPDi-7V8I/AAAAAAAAABI/UfBhDuHaEkg/s400/IMG_4238.JPG" /></a><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It can be difficult to focus on the task at hand in a garden. Just walking from the back door to the bed you're working on leads through an obstacle course of weeds that need attending to, gopher holes dangerously close to healthy plants, neglected tools, half-mulched borders, blank spots in the garden crying out for a new rose bush or perennial, piles of fallen oak leaves just ripe for scooping up to cover some bare patch with good mulch... And before I get out the door my mind is ringing with other tasks indoors; the editing of my assigned section in Rosa Mundi, the orders that need to be pulled at the nursery, my mother's leaky tap, the three articles I've promised to write for journals around the world, the appointment I haven't scheduled for Flora's rabies vaccination.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Thank heavens for pruning. If you can get there, and stay in place, your quiet meditation somehow wipes it all away for a few hours.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But rose pruning, thanks to the generations that have come before us, who've set down the rules and regulations we're supposed to follow, can become a series of further distractions rather than a meditation. What was that rule about the angled pruning cut? Are my branches crossing? Did I remember to prune to an outside facing bud? Do I really have to reduce this plant to just 3 to 5 canes? Did I clean up all of the dead leaves? If I open up the center I'll have to take away the only good cane that remains! Aargh! No wonder gardeners are terrified by rose pruning.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Let me offer just a few observations that can serve to free you from the distractions of the mine-field of rose pruning lore, and hopefully lead you to a more tranquil approach to pruning.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">1. Why do we prune?<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">—We're told that it's for the good of the plant. Yet, a study in the 1990s in Britain showed that moderate pruning, compared with harder pruning, results in plants that produce more flowers and are healthier. In reality we prune simply to size down the plants. All plants grow, and year after year they get larger. When we design our plantings we have in mind that each plant will ultimately reach a certain size; beyond that, it's out of control; it begins to crowd and compete with neighboring plants, or, more likely with the front walkway! The only way we can maintain the expected size for a plant, is to prune it when it gets too large. (We'd like to hope that when we're through whacking at that rose bush, it looks nice, not butchered. But the old rules don't lead us easily to an artful result.)<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">2. Rules of Pruning—angled cuts, crossing branches, outside-facing buds, opening up the center, etc.<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">—The angled pruning cut is the most difficult thing to do well. I'll demonstrate this in an upcoming post, but suffice to say, if you simply cut straight across the stem, just above a growth bud (at a right angle to the stem), you'll find the cut easy to execute from any angle. And, it's better for the plant, a smaller cut which heals quicker.<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">—Crossing branches are meaningless. Plants grow according to their nature, and some varieties grow at angles, with many branches crossing in the center. Second guessing the very nature of a plant implies that we know better than the plant how it ought to grow. And the danger of branches rubbing and damaging one another is silly. If you observe how this happens, you'll see that any such rubbing wounds occur slowly and are healed over by the plant itself.<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">—Prune to an outside-facing bud. Don't bother. Below that outside-facing bud is another growth bud which will probably grow as well, and frequently that second bud down produces a larger, more enduring new stem than the one we prune to. Since buds alternate from side to side on a branch, the next one down to the outside facing bud, will face into the bush. Once again, the hubris of thinking we know better than the plant how it should grow is at work here. Just prune to a bud, and stop worrying which way it faces!<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">—Open up the center of the plant. Now why would we do that? To bring sunlight into the base of the plant, to stimulate new canes to grow up from the center of the plant. If we want canes in the center of the plant, why are we removing them to open up the center? This is circular logic. Again, fall back on the notion that the plant probably knows better than we do.<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">—Clean up all dead and fallen leaves. We can thank science for clearing up this misconception. UC Berkeley did a study on this and showed that any leaves that are dead do not carry live fungi or spores. Leave the foliage on the ground to decompose and benefit the soil. That is nature's way. Green leaves may harbor live fungi, but once removed from the plant they too will die, and with them the fungi. A good bit of insurance to make sure this happens is simply to mulch the ground after pruning, to cover up and hasten the death of green rose leaves.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A simple alternative to the rules.<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Observation is our most valuable tool. Once you've cleared away all of the old rules of pruning, try simply taking stock of how each plant is growing. Spend a few minutes at this, just observing. You'll find new, green, smooth shoots that have not branched; these are where the plant has channeled its energy over the past season, and these are the branches that we ought to try to keep. You'll find dead wood from which the plant has reabsorbed all of the nutrients to put them to work at creating new growth elsewhere. This process of observation is the greatest tool we have for learning, and pruning a rose bush is a process of learning about each plant, and trying to do the least damage!<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Much more soon on how much to prune off, and why any final size is correct!<br />
</div>Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-88730201582856431482009-12-29T21:07:00.001-08:002009-12-29T21:45:38.944-08:00A rambling beginning...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/Szrlxsni_1I/AAAAAAAAABA/pETPOqMtvUU/s1600-h/VintageLongE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__MGCK5Blfx0/Szrlxsni_1I/AAAAAAAAABA/pETPOqMtvUU/s640/VintageLongE.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>The first phase of pruning this year will be the lower Hybrid Tea and Floribunda beds. These arching borders form an amphitheater at the bottom of the garden. They are planted four roses across; the eight beds containing a total of about 750 plants. It's a good place to start, because roses planted out in close grids like these generally outgrow their neighbors rather quickly. The point of all pruning is simply to size down plants to fit the spaces we have allotted them. There is no other purpose for pruning except this one; it's both practical and aesthetic—we have to do it to maintain a balance of plant sizes, and we delight in the finished, orderly result.<br />
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This section of the garden was largely replanted a year and a half ago, and I allowed it to grow unpruned through last winter. Many of the new roses were young still, and young roses suffer more than older ones from being pruned. Every shred of their built-up, stored energy serves them to grow more robustly the following season. But now the older plants have grown up rather massively and their shade will set back the younger plants if we don't even out the whole garden.<br />
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Teresa and Juan both worked on this section with me. Juan had a more specific task; cuttings to take from a number of roses that we have had special requests for. There was a time when we did large numbers of cuttings in the winter, but this process slows down the pruning to a crawl, and our take on winter cuttings is not very high. All told, after about 8 hours of labor we got through less than 70 plants. Not enough. But, Teresa and I had first to weed the bed where we began, and it was rather full of grasses and mallows. This bed, one of the two very long top beds, is now about half done. The soil is lovely, as we have mulched with a good organic compost (Grab n Grow's Allgreen Compost) for two years now. No wonder the weeds were so lush! This year a top-dressing of rice straw to supress the weeds.<br />
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Rain tonight, and much work to do in the nursery tomorrow. But, I'll be at it again very soon!Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-85812539330443805292009-12-28T16:09:00.000-08:002009-12-28T16:09:19.693-08:00A beginning at long last...Seven months ago I set out to share my experiences as a rose gardener, but the garden is an unforgiving taskmaster, and has kept me occupied. As I began my winter cleanup and pruning in the garden, I returned finally to the notion of sharing the experience of a rose garden with you.<br />
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Rose pruning holds a mystique that for many is daunting. I hope to help demystify this process for you, to give you confidence that you can do it—that anyone can prune. More importantly I hope to explain to you why pruning is not a requirement, and how it may in fact do less good than bad for the plants.<br />
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My challenge (a challenge I put to myself every year—so far without completing the task) is to prune 4000 rose plants in the next 80 days. I'll have a bit of help; some days with Juan who works with me at Vintage Gardens; some days with Teresa, and others in the Friends of Vintage Gardens, who will come to give me a hand. I won't prune every day, as the demands of running Vintage Gardens nursery will occupy much of my time. I'll travel a bit as well, to talk about roses, old and new, and to teach my ideas about rose pruning to others around the country. Perhaps one of you out there may want to join in and help prune some of the 4000 one day as well. Just let me know. Can I do it this year? We'll see...Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-524599116510460584.post-67259375985208208292009-05-05T09:13:00.000-07:002009-05-05T09:20:37.246-07:00Coming Soon — Naked in the RosesComing shortly, Gregg's blog, 'Naked in the Roses', begins here.<br />Stay tuned!<br /><br />—Gregg Lowery<br />Gregg Loweryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08939271888074138106noreply@blogger.com1