ROSE RAMBLER 1ST AUGUST 2019 … Hello dear rose friends as we awake to freezing conditions – glorious night skies with brilliant stars and white all around us when we wake up … then the sun shines and we have beautiful winter days. Aaah, we are so lucky to live in this little valley alongside the Sunday Creek within a kilometre of the Hume Freeway at the CLONBINANE INTERCHANGE … makes stopping in to visit with us so easy!
GRA’S GARBLE …
Both of us have been travelling around Victoria to deliver standard roses which weren’t possible to send with Australia Post due to oversized parcel length. It’s been a bit of a chore and chewed into our otherwise busy day but we’re pleased that this season for bare-rooted roses is nearly done.
Q. What do you call a dog magician? A. A labracadabra...
LOTS OF EMAILS ABOUT PRUNING … You know, you really cannot get it too wrong – if you don’t get it right during this winter prune, you can fix things up and correct the growth on the roses during summer – remember to just keep trimming and trimming!
If you’re experiencing frosty conditions, leave the roses – they’ll be ok to prune any time through August/September – however, if you’ve pruned them and they incur severe frost damage, DON’T RE-PRUNE immediately … just wait, let the bushes recover from frost impact and trim the dead ends off once new growth has appeared.
This is a delicate and fine-line between – DO IT NOW or DO IT LATER … please follow your instinct … we would rather you do NOTHING other than weekly applications of seaweed solution whilst frost conditions prevail.
Here at Clonbinane it’s been rather mild up to these past few days … we don’t know what’s around the corner but we are pressing on with pruning the gardens in between other tasks.
Here is an email enquiry which might also answer pruning questions in your garden:
Hi Diana, I have just begun to prune a row of standard ICEBERG roses, and the picture below will show you what they are like. I didn't finish these because I wanted you to see what a mess they seem to be in. Stems going everywhere, they have been like this for a long time, but I think we have made them worse! Nevertheless they flower magnificently every year, but I wonder if you can advise me - can I cut into any part of the main bit or will that ruin everything? We usually just cut the stems very short which we will do again, and take out bits but perhaps we could do better. We are unable to come and watch Graham do his pruning, and I just wanted to know if you can help us.
If you have any advice I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you in anticipation, Barbara
To which I responded …
Hi Barb ... these roses look EXACTLY like all our OLD STANDARD ROSES look ... none of us look as good as we did 10 or 20 years ago and I guess you might do some 'corrective surgery' by removing some of the old, daggy bits but really …? These roses flower and flower, they give you heaps of pleasure and you've pruned them really well (except for a few dead bits that you might take a saw or loppers to!).
Go on and get old together with your garden ... cheers with a giggle … GRA
We keep being asked for the most fragrant roses available as bare-rooted roses NOW … here are a few we highly recommend:
| PER-F-YOOM PERFUME (Top) , MY HERO (Middle), ST CECILIA (Bottom) |
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Interesting that they’re just the PINK varieties … I’ll be sure to give you some of the most fragrant apricot roses next week.
A quotation: “We are here on earth to do good unto others. What the others are here for, I have no idea.” … W.H. Auden
Enjoy this week of head-down-bum-up pruning in your rose garden … see you soon at Silkies Rose Farm, Clonbinane and be sure to keep ordering bare-rooted roses for planting in your garden this winter … |
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| Cheers from all of us … Graham, Diana and the team. |
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