Satori Garden Design

My Rose Pruning Experiment

Joseph's Coat Climbing Roses

For years I’ve been suspicious that I could get more out of my already great climbing roses.  They are the “Joseph’s Coat” climbers and they reward us every summer with two big waves of blooms.  The roses start out a truly stunning coral/red then change to more of an orange and then to a yellow, thus the name “Joseph’s Coat”.  I was quite comfortable pruning my other roses but the climbers intimidated me.  Finally, this February I was feeling particularly empowered and did a test of sorts.  I did the pruning of the roses on the left as instructed in Fine Gardening’s Guide to Pruning Climbing Roses and let my gardener do his thing on the right.  Soon as the warm weather hit I noticed a much thicker, tighter growth on the roses I pruned.  My pruning had encouraged more blooms exactly at the height I wanted (just above my other plants in that bed).  Yippee!  When I did the pruning I had paid special attention to securing the remaining canes on the wall either horizontal or sometimes even bending down.  As mentioned in the guide, this suppresses the hormones that would normally allow the uppermost bud to become dominant, instead they all bloom.  Plants are so cool.

Is Puttering the Answer?

the little Euphorbia tirucalli now sits protected, hopefully its bad luck days are over

The answer to what you might ask. Well, yesterday was Saturday and I felt out of sorts. Not so much sick but more worn out. Everywhere I looked seemed to call out for my focus and attention and I felt I had really given it my all by the end of Friday. My backyard was calling my name too – there were things that I had both put off and acknowledged for weeks if not months. There was the citrus in a broken pot – the result of an over zealous water balloon fight. There was an Euphorbia tirucalli that must be a magnet for errant lacrosse balls because it’s always knock out of it’s (now broken) pot. And then there were those poor sweet pea seedlings that were grown as part of a science fair project just languishing without a place to anchor themselves.

I plowed straight ahead methodically moving from one area to another not really thinking what needed to be done but rather what I was doing which was enjoying a gorgeous day in the garden with my own little chatterbox to accompany me (that would be my daughter). Halfway into my tasks a nice calm set in and I realized I can’t approach my garden “tasks” with the same attitude I do with some of the household ones. First of all they aren’t things to just tick off and “get ‘er done” they are moments to savor and they are opportunities to take note of where my garden is heading and what it’s telling me. Of course what my garden had to say is “you better hurry up and get those vegetables in” and “I thought you wanted Dahlia’s this year, get a move on sister.” Okay, so maybe I haven’t reached a zen-like state yet in my garden but I did feel a huge calm when I looked out my window this morning and saw those sweet peas in a new home at last.