A Rose Seminar

I recognize that those of you who are contending with the third of many months of gloom and cold and frozen soil are probably gnashing your teeth at the notion of sitting outside and learning how to prune roses.  But that's what I did on Saturday.  

Katie,  Rillito Nursery's Assistant Manager, started her talk on time, paused when the MedEvac helicopter buzzed the hospital across the street, repeated the crowd's questions loudly before answering with just as much detail as necessary.  

 She told us how often and how long she runs the irrigation in her own yard and in the nursery.  She described her fertilization schedule in detail.  And she was brutal about her pruning advice - be ruthless.

Look at the structure of the plant.  Use bypass pruners,

aiming the point into the heart of the plant, cutting just above an outward facing node above a cluster of 5 leaves. Working above the graft, cut back the canes that criss-cross, the ones that turn inward, the suckers, leaving only 5 or 6 canes.  Daub some wood glue on the wound to keep out boring insects; disinfect the pruner between plants to minimize the spread of disease.

Those directions are easy to follow on most of my sadly neglected but delightfully resilient plants.

I managed to get this one in the ground, but couldn't bend down to remove the tag.  It's been glaring at me for a long time, and yet I've done nothing about it.  

I did mention that they've been neglected, didn't I?  

And resilient - see the yellow flower that managed to eke out enough nutrients to strut its stuff.

There are leaves, but the plants are telling me that it's time for them to rest.

Except for this beauty.  

She's blooming.  She has buds yet to open.  

I just can't cut her, not even a little haircut.

Looks like I'm going to be a doing a controlled experiment in my own backyard this year.

Does benign neglect hurt?  

Time will tell.