Friends, I knew that we had a long, hard winter here, but I didn't know how exactly how hard it was until my normal spring chores came around to my "formal rose bed." You can see it below and then from a different angle, just after cleanup, open and bare, ready to begin new growth again.
It has been years since this bed looked so bare, so lacking of the beauty within. It probably hasn't looked this way since I first planted it, over 10 years ago. In most years of late, as Zone 6B has moved up to our region, I've given most of these roses a mere trim with a hedge trimmer, leaving 3-5 foot bushes throughout the garden. Only one or two Hybrid Teas get a regular scalping, and sometimes even 'Tiffany' or 'First Prize' stays at the 3-foot level. This year, however, most every rose was either growing back completely from the roots or had only spotty growth higher on the bush. I could hear them whispering. "Renew us." "Help us."
Many of the 50+ roses in this bed are cane hardy to at least Zone 4, so that really tells me what our winter was like. The remaining tall roses of the picture are 'Therese Bugnet', 'John Franklin', 'Martin Frobisher' 'Earthsong', 'Variegata di Bologna', 'Red Moss', 'Leda', 'Blush Hip', and 'Coquette de Blanche'. Notice that most of these are either Canadian Roses or Old Garden Roses.
As for the chopped off group, they're a varied lot of fame. Two English roses, 'Golden Celebration' and 'The Dark Lady'. About eight Griffith Buck roses went down, including 'Prairie Harvest' and 'Autumn Sunset'. 'Sally Holmes' and 'Lady Elsie May' became midgets, along with two Bailey Roses including 'Hot Wonder and 'High Voltage'. Even two Canadian roses, 'Winnepeg Park' and 'Morden Fireglow', got burr cuts.
I would be upset at the winter kill, but, to be truthful, this wholesale destruction needed to happen anyway. The bushes here were tangled and overgrown, some of them massive things that were shading out more delicate neighbors. And, in the end, it is fitting that the renewal of this garden took place on the eve of Easter. What better day to ready oneself and one's garden for a new beginning?
Feels wonderful to take control and do what is needed to recover from this past winter, doesn't it ... even if that means crew cuts for most of the roses in the garden. Makes pruning go a lot faster, with fewer decisions to be made as we work. If it's dead, cut it off. If it's live, leave it. Move on to the next one.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking the same thing while I pruned this year, Connie. At the K-State Garden pruning last weekend there were a number of roses, mostly English and Shrub, that did better and needed some time and a lot of decisions for pruning. Here, this time, it was just lop, lop, lop. More cleansing.
DeleteDo you think you have lost any roses, or will they come again ? You have surely had the most gruesome winter, and it must feel great to move into the gentler waters of Spring.
ReplyDeleteIf Spring actually comes, Jane, now that it's Easter! I don't think I'll lose more than one or two roses, and none from this bed of established survivors. I may have lost a few new Heirloom bands planted late last year, but those were never well established and hardly count. And I don't think I'll give them up yet as they may still generate from the roots.
DeleteWow, what a chore. I'm sure you have a huge pile to burn. I guess it is a mixed blessing isn't it? I was surprised to lose a few plants which I thought were in the ground long enough to survive into the future, maybe it was just zone envy.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the tulips, three years ago I planted a group differently than suggested planting methods: I planted that group considerably deeper than normal 9-10". I used quite a bit of bone meal in the planting trench(I read somewhere that tulips like to multiply and create many more smaller bulbs which are weak and seldom flower then on but those that are planted deeper do not multiple as much). The bulbs were planted in compost enriched topsoil and on the downhill side of drip irrigation so they stay pretty wet. I also let the foliage fade instead of pruning.
I suppose we are in for one of those winter to summer seasons with little spring?
Not sure about the sentence structure there. he he.
DeleteThanks for the tulip tips, Greggo. I've viewed them as annuals, at least the hybrids, if not some of the species. I'll have trouble keeping them wet here, though.
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