Tenacious Tip Tuesday - The Roses of Autumn

I seem to be on a philosophical kick with my Tips the last few weeks. As the season ends, I have a tendancy toward melancholy and introspection. I hope you can bear with me. Today's tip is simple - be true to your gardening self, no matter what.

As you know, I've been trying to simplify my gardens to better care for myself. Many plants are being re-evaluated and some are hitting the compost heap. If I'm being honest with myself, most of my roses should be shovel pruned. Many of them are hybrid tea roses, which are notorious for disease problems and generally are the prima donnas of the garden.

This year, they have gotten no love whatsoever. No fertilizer, no spraying; they were lucky to have gotten pruned this spring (in fact, some didn't). I wrote in an earlier post that I would have to toughen up and get rid of the worst of them. The ones that survived my new Darwinian care program would stay; all others would be banished forever. I really meant it, too.

Then they go and do this:

Rose 'Playboy'

'Playboy' is one of those roses that looks fabulous when well cared for. It gets covered with those orange/yellow flowers, has glossy green leaves and stays a reasonable size. It's a blackspot nightmare when not sprayed, at least in my garden. I thought it had died over the winter and spared me the necessity of digging it out. But no, it not only recovered, it started sending out little clusters of its beautiful flowers.

Or how about this one?

Rose 'Sunstruck'

This rose is what we who grow roses call a "one-cane wonder". It literally has only one cane coming up out of the dirt. Excuse me, out of the soil. Yet, it has still managed to have at least one gorgeous flower and a few buds on it all summer. How can I rip it out when it's giving me presents like this?

So I've decided to modify my earlier, tough-love stance on my roses. They still get no special care, but if they keep blooming, I'll keep enjoying them, even if all their leaves fall off. My true gardening self simply isn't as hard-hearted as my renovation self. And I don't care! The joy I get from a single rose blossom is worth a few weeks of blackspot or Japanese beetles.

Here are some more roses currently blooming in my garden. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!



Rose 'About Face'



Rose 'Autumn Sunset'

Rose 'Chrysler Imperial'

 

Rose 'Cinnamon Spice'



Rose 'Falstaff'



Buds on Rose 'Mother of Pearl'



Garden Mayhem!

I have moved many plants in anticipation of some new hardscaping (a patio and 2 pergolas).  This month the real mayhem commences as I clear out plants which are too much work, too fussy or just plain boring. Which plants stay and which ones go will be determined by several factors and, of course, the whim of the gardener.

The first ones to go will be those that rampage merrily through the garden, indifferent to the suffering of other, less enthusiastic vegetation and require entirely too much work to keep them from taking over. I don’t mind perennials that spread slowly for many years and then need dividing, like daylilies (Hemerocallis ssp.) or iris, but others can become genuine thugs. Reining in the herds of bee balm (Monarda didyma) will be the first order of business. This genus is in the mint family and spreads by underground runners; not as aggressively as true mints, like peppermint or spearmint, but too much for their current position. They have wonderful, strange flowers that are adored by hummingbirds and butterflies; the leaves smell like Earl Grey tea.



Monarda 'Jacob Kline'

 Several varieties, including ‘Jacob Kline’, a bright red, ‘Blue Stocking’, shorter and purple, and ‘Coral Reef’, a medium sized pink, will all be relocated to wilder areas of the garden where they can roam free and a few will be given away with proper warnings. While I adore their flowers, and these 3 are all wonderfully healthy, they have strangled 3 roses and a daylily and are threatening several iris. Fling! Out they go!

The flocks of garden phlox (Phlox paniculata) will also be thinned out this year. I have 4 large clumps of the tall, white phlox, ‘David’; they are drop-dead gorgeous, smell like heaven and bloom for almost two months. The leaves rarely get powdery mildew, a common fault in many otherwise beautiful phlox. Three of them are getting the shovel, along with a few other varieties. Why, you may ask?

Plants are Telepathic

Plants are telepathic. Not all of them and only certain thoughts, but I’m convinced it’s true. They know, for instance, when you are planning their demise and can respond accordingly. How else can you explain my ‘Golden Zest’ rose?

Last year, in preparation for major renovations, I was reviewing all my plants to get a jump on those I would be removing. The list was actually more draconian than I intended to be and several plants landed on it more as ‘watch’ than ‘remove’. ‘Golden Zest’ was one of those and I was quite upset over it as it was a lovely, yellow rose and had performed quite well previously. While I am not one to talk to my plants, my mental message could not have been clearer – shape up or ship out!

Fast forward to this spring. With no further intervention than my mental admonitions, this rose now has multiple healthy new canes and new growth on the one cane that survived the winter. I wouldn’t dream of ripping it out now.

Coincidence? I think not.

I’ve noticed over the years that this phenomenon only occurs when the gardener is genuinely considering mayhem. The attempt was made once to influence a perfectly healthy plant to greater performance and you can imagine the result. Bupkiss.

No, you must be in earnest in your intention to shovel prune the pathetic specimen before it picks up your vibe. And it doesn’t always work. Some plants are simply done and ready to shuffle off this mortal soil. Let them go; there are stronger-willed plants waiting to take their place.

Talented or Just Stubborn?

“You must be a very talented gardener to have such a huge and lovely garden!”

“Why, thank you. You are very kind!”

This exchange occurred after one of my continuing education classes at our local high school a few years ago. I had given a talk on growing roses in upstate New York and shown several before and after pictures of my garden. A few students had stayed behind, some asking questions about more specific issues, and this comment was made in passing. At the time, I gave it little thought; it seemed just a pleasant remark. Over the years, though, this remark has resurfaced in my musings, usually with a self-deprecating smirk.

What that person could not have known was I have never considered myself talented at gardening. Dedicated, yes; obsessed, absolutely. Talented? Not so much. I have always bought plants I liked and put them wherever I found room for them – no talent required. Space requirements were occasionally followed but not religiously. Zone information was noted but only in passing. Soil and water recommendations were unashamedly laughed at. So why did I have an admittedly huge and, to me, beautiful garden?

I think what has made me a successful gardener is not talent but pure cussedness. Gardeners, as a species, seem to take it personally when things go wrong and will go to long lengths to make it happen anyway. In fact, stubborn doesn’t begin to describe it; we can be downright mulish when it comes to what we want in our domains.

Several years ago, I found a rose I absolutely adored in a catalog. This rose was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. The petals were ivory and blushed in the sun to a rich pink; the flower form was perfection. Aptly, it was named “Color Magic”. The description said it was hardy to zone 6, disease resistant and had a lovely scent (a blatant lie, by the way; rose porn . . . er, catalogs should be perused with a salt shaker handy, especially when they are describing fragrance). Needless to say, I had to have it. Zone 5 and zone 6 are almost the same, right?

Into the garden it went, in a large planting hole with a modest dash of Rosetone and a good drenching with the hose. It was spectacular the whole season, covered in flowers and only the faintest touch of black spot. Everyone ooh’d and aah’d; a few exclaiming what a shame there was no fragrance (I was one of those but my language was somewhat stronger).

Come the following spring, after an average winter, it was dead. Well, said I, I must not have protected it sufficiently or maybe the local varmints chewed up the roots or maybe I got a bad plant. There is always some excuse the first time you kill a plant and it’s never because you ignored one of its cultural requirements. Ergo, I ordered and planted another one. This plant, too, was gorgeous all summer and I was extra careful to mulch it for the winter with branches pruned off our Christmas tree. Sadly, history repeated itself and the second one was also dead as a doornail the following spring.

The gardening gloves were now coming off. I wanted this rose in my garden and that was final, darn it!

I tried planting the third one in a massive pot. Another extravagant show graced our patio rather than the garden but it was still a sight to behold. That fall, the pot went into our unheated garage (with some minor and good-natured grumbling from my husband, Brian, He of the Strong Back) and emerged alive and well the next spring. Success!

After spending two winters in the garage, the rose succumbed to a combination of black spot and one missed watering too many during the season. Also, Brian was grumbling less good-naturedly about moving that pot again; understandable, as it must have weighed 60 pounds. At that point, I decided it was more trouble than it was worth and gave up.

Cold zones matter and fighting them is hard. It took me 3 dead roses, 5 years and a mildly disgruntled husband to come to that conclusion.

I have learned a few other lessons over the years and try to avoid making the most egregious errors more than two or three times, no matter how much I want them to work this time. I learned to pay attention to cold zones and cultural requirements. If you are gardening in zone 5, you really can’t grow tender roses without a great deal of fuss. Really.

Fortunately, there are plenty of other roses out there. I don’t have the rose that I was besotted with anymore. I did however find another, not quite as breathtaking but a lot hardier, and if I squint, I can pretend they are the same. It too has no scent, though to their credit, the supplier described the scent as “light”, which in catalog speak means “non-existent”; most rose gardens understand that little fiction and don’t feel cheated.

I think if you are stubborn enough, everything eventually does come together into a beautiful garden, if only because you’ve already tried all the wrong things, usually more than once, and all that is left is the right stuff. If you’re really lucky, other people might even mistake that perseverance for talent!