Pruning a Climbing Rose ... starring Zephirine Drouhin

As I mentioned yesterday, the weather was perfect for spending the whole day outside pruning.  I concentrated most of my efforts on the climbers on the arches in the center of the Rose Field.  These were the most neglected last year, and they need a LOT of work to get the canes back onto the arches in any sort of pleasing arrangement.

As I worked, I realized that what I was doing could make a very helpful post for the blog.  Keep in mind, this is much easier to show you in person, but I will do the best I can with photos and diagrams. 

My victim for this little lesson is Zephirine Drouhin, a very popular climbing Bourbon rose.

This is what Zephirine Drouhin looked like before I did anything to her.

It's hard to see in this harsh sunlight, but there are WAY too many canes in here and they're going every which way.  Here's a marked-up version of the above photo to show you what a mess I had on my hands.

When pruning climbers, the object is to remove canes that are dead, old and bloomed out, or cannot logically be encouraged to attach to your support structure ... in my case, this arch.  I always start at the bottom of the rose, cutting out anything that is dead or damaged.

My next step is to assess each cane and remove the older ones.  Zephirine Drouhin tends to produce plenty of new canes every year, and she can quickly become a haystack.  I cut them off right at the base.  By removing canes that are 3-or-more years old, you keep her young and flexible, and she produces more flowers.  After all, the object of all of this is to create a lovely display of flowers.

You can see in this photo that I have removed quite a few canes.

At this point, I step back and assess where I am in the process, and where I need to go.  There are still WAY too many canes here for what I want to accomplish, so I remove a few more ... concentrating on keeping the canes that are younger and will attach easily to the arch.  There's no point in keeping a lovely young cane that I can't get onto my structure.

I think I'm ready to begin to tie Ms. Zeffy to her arch now.

It is important to note that I haven't shortened any of the remaining main canes.  I want them to be as long as possible to cover this arch.  What I have done, to control the girth of the rose and to encourage better blooming, is to shorten the little lateral canes that branch off of the main canes ... in this case, I trimmed each lateral to about 6 inches or less.  You can see how this (sort of) in this 'enhanced' version of the photo.

All that's left to do at this point is to take each cane and attach it to the structure.  Here is my finished product.

I took more off of this rose this year than I normally would.  Many of my climbers are incredibly overgrown, and I want to have a nice, orderly starting point for (hopefully) easier maintenance in the years to come.  I also want garden visitors, and wedding guests, to be able to easily walk underneath the arches ... without having to dodge wayward, aggressive, thorny rose canes.

In a few weeks, we shall see if I succeeded.

Far-Flung Randomness

I am overwhelmed by all of your wonderful, loving comments and emails about our dear Amy.  It is comforting to know that we are not alone with this ... that so many of you have recently gone through this with your beloved pets ... and that you cared enough to send such wonderful thoughts my way.  I am humbled.

This past weekend was a blur.  It began on Saturday morning with a beautiful sunrise.  I was sitting here on the couch in the family room, answering emails and thinking about how to write about Amy, when I noticed a beautiful pink light coming through the windows.  I grabbed my camera, put on a coat and boots, and I stood outside leaning against one of our oak trees, snapping photos while the sun rose.

I checked on the roses in the greenhouse, and I found that the bud on the Mutabilis baby was open!  (I showed it last week in THIS post.)  Looking at this makes me really anxious for rose season ... but I have so much to do before then.

Later in the morning, we went to see our grandson's soccer game.  I loved watching our daughters play soccer when they were kids, and I get to experience this feeling again with Drew.  It was cold, and we froze, but it was so much fun!

In the afternoon, The Husband and I went along with our daughter for the first fitting of her wedding dress.  You should have seen her face light up when she stepped out of the dressing room and looked at herself in those huge mirrors.  I took pictures, but I can't show them to you ... sorry.  Trust me, there will be lots to share after the wedding in June.

We had a wonderful spur-of-the-moment dinner with friends on Saturday night.  She called while we were at the soccer field, and invited us to come over after the dress fitting.  It was a delightful way to end a very hectic day.

Sunday was a whole lot warmer than Saturday had been.  Before anyone else was awake, I put on my coat and boots, put my second cup of coffee into a travel cup, and I slipped out the back door to go for a walk in the garden.

I love this time of the morning because the angle of the sun illuminates the barn in the distance beyond the garden.  There's still a lot of work to be done in the garden to make it decent.  I'm thinking of having a volunteer work day soon ... I wonder if anyone would come?

As I walked to the barn itself, I found that deer have been using the area around my new David Austin garden as a pathway to get to the pond next door.  Nothing is eaten ... yet ... but it's probably only a matter of time.  This garden should probably get its picket fence sooner, rather than later.

There is a beautiful view from beside the barn, the highest spot on our property, across to the vineyard at the winery next door.  In summer, this view is the most beautiful color of green!

I couldn't stand around and admire the surroundings for too long, because I had to get cleaned up and on the road to do a presentation for the Virginia Peninsula Rose Society, which required a 2 1/2 hour drive to get there.  It was really relaxing ... the traffic was light, the sun was shining, and I tuned my Ipod to my favorite Godsmack CD and turned the volume UP ... it seemed like the perfect day for some hard rock.  The folks at the rose society seemed to enjoy learning about the roses I grow.

Today will be a warm one ... perfect for pulling weeds and pruning roses.  There are still a LOT of roses left to prune.  While I was gone yesterday, The Husband finished installing the timber edging around the rambler fence.  It looks really good!  (I'll show it to you later.)

Now, I have to call someone and have them bring me a dumptruck-load of mulch.

Sweet Amy

Amy came to us in the summer of 1996.  She was born a barn cat, in the hayloft at my sister's father-in-law's farm.  She was cute, and fluffy, and the most beautiful cream color, and we brought her home to live with us when she was about 6 weeks old ... before she could get feral and barnified.  From the first time I saw her, snuggled with her sisters in the hay, their eyes barely open, I knew that Amy was different ... and that she was meant to be mine.

We discovered why she's different within a few weeks of bringing her home... Amy is deaf.  She probably has been since she was born.  It's been interesting to have a deaf cat ... she's not afraid of the vaccuum cleaner or other things that make loud noises, she's always been easily startled but she recovers quickly, and her ears are always perked forward in that cute way of hers.  She is incredibly patient, which was a good thing while my daughters were younger ... Amy was often the subject of the girls' photo shoots, which almost always included costumes and props.

Amy is our little opera singer.  One of her favorite things to do is to sit somewhere high and sing arias.  She howls SOOO loud, it echoes throughout the house.  Her favorite places to sing are the top of the stairs and the upstairs bathroom ... which are also the most echo-ey places we have.

One of the benefits of being deaf is that Amy can sleep just about anywhere.  We are known to find her curled up wherever she decides is warm and comfortable.

When our grandson joined the family, Amy loved story time.  She patiently let Drew play with her, like my girls had played with her when they were younger.  I was fortunate to be in the right place with my camera to capture this exchange shown below.

"Say Cheese, Drew."

"Wanna wear the hat, Amy?"

"Are you in there?"

"I love you, Amy."

Amy is my evening time companion, sitting in my lap while we watch TV, purring louder than any cat I have ever heard.  She also purrs MORE than any other cat I know ... often sitting alone, purring happily to herself.

14 years is a ripe old age for a cat, and Amy has recently begin to have health problems.  Her kidneys don't function as well as they should, but the deterioration is stable and she hasn't required treatment.  She has developed serious allergies in the past year, which haven't responded to antihistamines or allergy shots.  Last month, we made the decision to treat her allergies with steroids because her quality of life was getting pretty low.  She responded well to the steriods.  She isn't nearly as itchy now as she had been a few weeks ago, and her fur is even beginning to grow back.

Amy in 2007, for Drew's 3rd birthday.  She has always loved being in the middle of whatever is going on.

Yesterday, I noticed that Amy appeared to have something wrong with her mouth.  Knowing that cats on steroids are more prone to infection, I made an appointment with her vet to check it out.  Dr. Stamp checked her over, looked in her mouth, drew in her breath, and said, "She has a mass under her tongue."  Things like this are almost always cancer in cats ... probably squamous cell, which is aggressive and nasty.  I'm really glad that I was sitting down at the time. 

It's been twenty-four hours, and I'm still having trouble facing the reality of the situation.  My dear, sweet Amy has cancer.  With her other health problems, complicated by her age and the location of the mass, we cannot in good conscience put her through the stress of treatment ... doing so will reduce her quality of life, and is unlikely to have any benefit. 

I have done a lot of crying in these 24 hours.  We can never know how this will progress, but it will probably be a miracle if Amy sees the end of May.  As I do with all of my critters, I have promised Amy that she will not suffer ... I will take the suffering for her and I will set her free when she tells me that it's time ....

... and I will cherish whatever time Amy and I have left together.  It's never long enough.

The Promise of Spring in the Greenhouse

Now that the days are longer, growth on the roses in the greenhouse is really picking up speed.  Even though the weather outside is cold and damp, the inside of the greenhouse is warm and protected.  The roses are growing big and healthy, and they are ready to move up to their final, half-gallon pots.

This is Abraham Darby, ready to go into his new pot.

I am really pleased with all of the healthy root growth!

Last month, it was easy to see the individual cuttings in their little pots in trays on the greenhouse shelves.

Photo taken on March 4.

Look how much larger they are now!!

Photo taken March 29.

A few of the roses have even produced buds ... which I should have snapped off to encourage the plants to put their energy toward growing leaves and roots, but I didn't have the heart to do it.  My soul is tired from the long cold winter, and blooming flowers are just what the Dr. ordered ... even if it's a little bit ahead of the season in the greenhouse.

I found this flower on Pink Joy, hanging over the edge of the pot.

This bud on Mutabilis is almost ready!

If tomorrow is sunny, which will warm the greenhouse and make it comfortable to work out there, I will continue to work on repotting the roses. 

My greenhouse isn't large enough to hold all of the roses in these larger containers, so I'm going to do as many as I can ... starting with the ones that REALLY need it right now.  I will do the rest as soon as it's finally warm enough to transition them to outdoor conditions.

The Garden Symposium in Lynchburg, Virginia

This past weekend, The Husband and I went to Lynchburg, Virginia, to attend the annual spring Garden Symposium at the Lynchburg Old City Cemetery.  This is an event that I look forward to every year!  It is incredibly well organized, and there are fabulous speakers.  Combine this with the atmosphere of the cemetery, and it makes for a wonderful weekend!

The Old City Cemetery is a treasure!  It is owned by the city of Lynchburg, and operated in cooperation with the Southern Memorial Association, a non-profit foundation.  The cemetery's 27 acres contain five museums and an impressive collection of historic bulbs, shrubs, trees, and ROSES ... all beautifully maintained in a park-like atmosphere.

The roses are all pruned and staged for their big show later this spring.

The Symposium was lightly attended this year.  This made for a very intimate atmosphere for us in the audience, and gave us ample opportunity to have all of our questions answered.  The weather was threatening, with cloudy skies all day, but the rain held off until we were on our way home on Saturday evening!

This is the Confederate Section of the cemetery, with row after row of simple headstones.

The speakers this year were superb, as always.  Peggy Singlemann, Director of Horticulture at the Maymont Foundation in Richmond, spoke about using flowering shrubs to spice up our gardens.  Cherie Foster Colburn, a landscape designer and author from Houston, Texas, presented a program on how to create a garden to be enjoyed at night.  The final presenter, a man I am proud to call a friend, was Rev. Doug Seidel ... who spoke about the history and tradition of plants in cemeteries.

After the formal presentations, we went out into the cemetery (where it was WAY colder than the late March date would have suggested), and Doug walked through the Cemetery's rose collection and told stories of the various rose varieties growing there.  We were all totally captivated!

The roses won't be blooming until May, but the Hellebores were certainly putting on a beautiful show!

If you have been here for very long, you already know how much I love to spend time in cemeteries.  I adore a cemetery's peaceful atmosphere and the great love that exists among the stones. 

I love the simplicity and pattern of the simple head stones in the Confederate Section.  The rest of the cemetery has a wonderful variety of fencing and flowers and stones ... almost worthy of a sculpture museum!

This was my very favorite epitaph.  I think it applies to most of us ... don't you?

I hope to be back in Lynchburg on May 7, to help with the annual Antique Rose Festival and sale.

Later this week, I'll take you to see another one of Lynchburg's treasures.  Stay tuned.

(The photos in this post were taken with my new camera ... a Canon SD1300.  I'm still getting used to it.  Please forgive the weird colors.  I trusted the 'Auto White Balance' feature, and I shouldn't have because everything turned out a lovely shade of icy blue.  I did my best to correct it in Photo Shop, but they are all still a bit off.)

Sunday Snapshot ... Snow This Morning

It was a long, exhausting weekend for The Husband and me, in a good way, and bed was a very welcome place when we got home last night.  I slept incredibly well, waking at 6:30 this morning, feeling charged and ready for the upcoming day.  I looked out the bedroom window, and found SNOW!

A small weather system has brought us about an inch of snow, which accumulated only on grassy areas ... as you can see on this little weed in the crack of our driveway.

I don't expect this little bit of snow to affect my plans for today.  This morning, I hope to clean out my car ... the inside of which is beginning to resemble a dumpster.  This afternoon, I'll head to Richmond for a rose society meeting.  I love the Richmond Rose Society, and I do whatever I can to attend every meeting.  Besides, Richmond is south of here, and they probably got even less snow than we did.

This coming week will be a busy one in the greenhouse.  It's time to plant the baby roses in their 'big boy' pots, to settle them in and ready them to go to their new homes later this spring.  Most of last year's left over roses are sitting in the nursery, waiting patiently for spring to REALLY arrive.

I think it'll be here any day now.

Happy Sunday, Everyone!

Connie

Roses Are More Than Just Roses To Me

When I was invited to speak at the Northern Neck Rose Society's Christmas luncheon back in December, I struggled a bit as I tried to think of a topic.  A luncheon isn't really the place to lecture and teach like I usually do, and I wasn't sure what I could talk about that would be appropriate and interesting.  I decided to 'introduce' myself and tell the folks about how roses have been a theme that has followed me, and how roses are more than just 'roses' to me. 

The beautiful 'Honorine du Brabant'

I spoke mostly off-the-cuff, as I am most comfortable doing, with only a few notes to keep me on track.  The Society members listened, smiled, snickered, nodded, and genuinely seemed to enjoy themselves. I'm going to see what I could do to put my thoughts and stories into this post ... so you can all get a better sense of why I grow roses and what they mean to me.  (This post is L-O-N-G ... so grab a snack or something to drink and get comfortable.  I guarantee that you will have a much better understanding of who I am by the time you reach the end.)

My Grandmother grew roses.  She grew Hybrid Tea roses with Hall of Fame names ... 'Peace', Mr. Lincoln', and 'Mirandy' were some of her favorites that come to mind.  Her southern California garden was an ideal place to grow these roses to perfection.   When I was a newlywed in our first house in the early 1980's, I wanted to grow roses ... my Grandmother's kind of roses.  That first spring, I went to a nursery and bought roses, and I planted them proudly in a blazing, south-facing bed against one wall of our house.  Those poor roses suffered from the heat, the poor soil, and my complete ignorance of even basic rose care.  My Grandmother did what she could to help, but she couldn't be of any real help since she was 3000 miles away and in a completely different climate than mine.  For example, she called me in January that first year to remind me that it was pruning time.  I tried to make her understand that roses in Virginia are often under snow in January, and we have to wait until March or April to prune.

My grandmother, c. 1930

My husband and I lived in that house for four years and the roses survived, though they were never beautiful.  At our second house, a new, larger house with a similar south-facing wall, I again planted another row of Hybrid Tea roses in the blazing sun in unimproved, back-fill soil ... having obviously not learned anything from the suffering of my original roses.  These roses (Angel Face, Peace, Tropicana, Chrysler Imperial ... or was it Mr. Lincoln ... and others) suffered even more than my first ones did.  I dubbed them "The Mangy Roses", a name that stuck and it accurately describes their pathetic appearance and unhealthy condition.

Mr. Lincoln, growing beautifully in a friend's garden.

One afternoon, fed up with the struggle I went through to try to grow decent roses, I decided that they looked awful because I COULDN'T grow roses.  In a fit of frustration, I dug them all up and tossed them into the back of The Husband's truck, and he drove them to the dump for me.  While he was waiting for his turn to dispose of his load, a woman came over and asked if he was throwing those roses away ... if so, could she have them.  He agreed, of course.  The Mangy Roses were transferred from his truck to hers, and I have often consoled myself with the thought they undoubtedly had a better life with her than they ever could have had with me.

'Chicago Peace' in my current garden -- not mangy at all, now that I know how to make it happy.

Most of the yard at that house, in its wooded neighborhood with mature trees, was quite shady.  My urge to garden was strong, so I learned which plants thrived in that shade and I created a shade garden that I was very proud of.  The rest of the yard developed beautifully, but I never could get anything to survive in the spot were the roses had been.

House #2.  I took this photo the day the For Sale sign went into the yard.

Our next house was also in a wooded neighborhood, with sunny conditions only in the front yard and the driveway.  I made a lovely shade garden in the backyard for my own enjoyment, and put traditional landscaping in the front, as dictated by the over-zealous homeowner's association.  By this time, I was educated in gardening enough to realize that I couldn't force roses to grow where they wouldn't be happy ... a lesson that I have since passed on to others many, many times.  I worked three roses into the design, with 'Blaze', a red climber, on an arch by the front door, Knock Out beside Blaze (a hideous combination, by the way) and 'Verdun', a dark pink Polyantha (my first OLD ROSE) at the end of the sidewalk by the garage.

Verdun

In 2002, I went back to school to study Horticulture.  During the first class, the instructor asked us to introduce ourselves and to describe why we were there and why we were interested in horticulture.  One of the other students introduced herself, explaining that she was a Master Gardener and that she coordinated volunteers at the James Monroe Library in downtown Fredericksburg, and that she was a member of the Fredericksburg Rose Society.  This woman seemed like my kind of person, and I introduced myself during the break.

She and I became friends, and I volunteered many hours at the James Monroe Library, manicuring its small garden and planting ROSES.  One day while we were working, I told her that I liked working with her, but that I COULDN'T grow roses inmy garden.  She laughed at me and said something that I will always remember ... she told me, "If you think you can't grow roses, you are probably trying to grow the wrong ones."  This was all the encouragement I needed.  Under her guidance, the rose garden I have now started that day.

She introduced me to Old Garden Roses, and patiently answered my questions.  We made trips to Sherando Roses (an old-garden rose nursery that was about an hour from here.)  Sherando was a wonderful place, run by a retired teacher who shared his huge love of roses.  I would go see him with a well-researched list of roses which I thought would be perfect for my garden.  He would take my list, nod and concur with some of the choices, and he would poo-poo other choices, saying, "You don't want this one.  Let me show you ...".  He would lead me to the garden to show me his alternative to my choice, which always turned out to be better than what I thought I originally wanted.

Sherando's gazebo -- where I spent many hours talking roses.

By this time, we owned this old house we live now, but we didn't live here ... I was working full-time on the renovation.  This house is my dream house, and its property has fertile soil with nine acres of sunshine that is perfect for growing roses.  I didn't have time for much gardening then ... I had more pressing things to do, like paint stripping, masonry, plaster, roofing, and a full kitchen remodel to deal with. 

This is me sanding the family room mantel.  The hose comiing from the sander is attached to my shop vacuum to collect the dust, so I don't spread the dust around the house ... or into my lungs.  Notice the heat gun and the carbide scraper in the background.

While I was working on this house, and still living in the house with the shady yard, the roses I was buying from Sherando lived in pots in our driveway ... waiting for the day that I could plant them in gardens at my dream house.  The driveway had great sun, and easy access to the hose.  By the end of 2003, I had a virtual hedge of large pots of roses in a double row that stretched most of the way down the driveway, forming a hedge between our property and that of our neighbor.  Our neighbor loved the view from her side, because she had the sunny south side of the 'hedge' where the most flowers always were.

My fascination with roses grew at a lighting pace as work on the renovation progressed, and my roses-in-pots garden numbered about 60 inhabitants by the end of 2004.  Our renovation was supposed to be finished enough for us to move by summer 2005, and it seemed perfectly within our ability to move this many roses, continue to care for them in their pots, and plant them in gardens that were yet to be designed.  As is common with renovations, this one encountered obstacles and took longer than planned.  We were finally able to leave our former house and move into this one in October 2007 ... and, according to my database, I had 138 roses in pots in the driveway at the time.

It took three trips with The Husband's truck to move all the roses from our old house to this house.

It was during this time that I discovered online rose discussion forums, and it was very rewarding to 'converse' with folks with similar interests from all over the world.  This is how I found my friend Robert.  He and I 'met' on GardenWeb's Antique Roses Forum.  We corresponded and we realized that we lived only about an hour away from one another.  Another Forum friend (who I also had never met in person) mentioned that she was planning to visit Robert and his garden.  I sent her a message, asking if she'd like company for the trip.  Picture this ... two women, who had never met each other in person before, driving to spend the day with a man neither of them had ever seen.  Before you get all excited about this seemingly dangerous situation, let me tell you that Robert's name is unique enough that I checked him out pretty thoroughly online, and I satisfied myself that he wouldn't turn out to be an axe murderer.

The Rose Tunnel in Robert's garden, in full bloom in May.

Robert and I liked each other instantly (he calls it love at first sight), and our friendship has grown to be something that I treasure ... as trite as that sounds.  It's about a LOT more than just roses, but it all began by sharing our love of roses that afternoon in his garden.

'Leontine Gervais', my favorite rambler, in Robert's garden.

In 2008, Sherando Roses closed.  This hit me hard, because it meant the loss of the only Old Rose nursery within hundreds of miles of here.  Robert and I were talking one day afterward, wondering what we would do without Sherando.  Robert encouraged me to follow my dream, and open my OWN nursery.  He said that this wild-hare idea of mine wasn't nearly as crazy as it seemed.  He assured me that I would be good at it, and he told me he would help in any way he could.  He is my Number One hole digger, a great listener, and a dangerous person to go to a nursery with ... I wish I had a picture of what it looked like one afternoon when we stuffed his BMW completely full of plants.

Once I committed to starting the nursery, I threw myself into collecting roses at a dizzying pace.  I hadn't planned to add so many roses to my collection so quickly, but circumstances presented themselves and it seemed like I had little choice but to roll with the opportunities as they came.  Three of my favorite mail-order nurseries closed in 2008 and 2009, potentially taking with them the commercial availability of the rare and unusual roses in their inventories.  I felt that I couldn't let this happen, so I went on a HUGE rose buying streak to collect any of the roses these nurseries sold that I wanted to have here.  According to my database, in the two year period between January 2008 and December 2009, I added more than 650 different roses to my collection! 

Roses waiting for spots in the garden, living in pots in the driveway, in August 2008.  Forgive the blurry, through the window screen view.

This is what it looked like at ground level.

Opening this nursery has brought many friends into my life.  Some have come as customers, visiting the gardens here in season and sharing their love of roses.  Others were online Forum friends that have become real, flesh-and-blood friends ... much like the blog friends that I now cherish.

Blurry photo of Jim and Robert and me.

I cannot separate my relationship with roses from my membership in Rose Societies.  I attended my first Rose Society meeting in 2002, with my friend from Horticulture class, and I discovered that Rose Societies aren't at all what I thought they would be.  I imagined a group of straight-laced, white-glove-wearing, tea party ladies ... no men allowed.  Things USED to be like this long ago, I am told, but it is not at all like this today.  Rose Societies are full of generous rose growers, who want to do whatever they can to help members (and anyone else) GROW BETTER ROSES.  Monthly meetings are important because personal IN PERSON contact is the best way I have found to learn.  Experienced members mentor beginners, often sparking lifelong friendships.

Frenzied preparation in the staging area at the 2009 Colonial District Rose Show.

My dear rose friend, Rick, came into my life as a fellow Rose Society member.  He and I see eye to eye on a lot of things, and I can always count on his advice when I need it.  (I introduced you to Rick's garden in THIS post.) 

That's Rick, second from the left, judging the rose show.

As I delivered my talk at the Christmas Luncheon, and I told of my experience, I think I got my point accross.  Roses mean a lot more to me than their role as flowers in the garden.  Roses have followed me in one way or another for my entire adult life.  Sometimes I was struggling with them, or longing for them, or (now) thoroughly immersed in them.  Roses have taken me to places I didn't know about, and have brought me friends I can't imagine being without.