Gardening Day

Monday morning. Partly cloudy and cool. Perfect day to do some long postponed gardening. Mow the lawn, trim the flowers back, cut off any dead branches.

Dick has been meaning to trim back the roses and lop off dead branches for weeks but has been waiting for when things are dormant before doing so. Trouble is, dormancy seems to be a relative thing around here this year. The nectarine tree seemed dormant last October dropping its leaves (it is sensitive to the angle of the sun), but the other trees and flowers insisted it was not time yet and hung on for a while.

Weeks later the apricot trees began to lose their leaves, and gradually over the next weeks the plum and peach trees leaves also turned and their leaves began to fall. But the flowers . . . they seemed to disregard the change of seasons totally this year and lingered on. What to do? When to trim?

Even after the few frosty mornings in December the rose bushes stubbornly insisted on putting out more buds, making it seem unkind to snip them down to size in preparation for the next spring season.

However, it was decided that when the apple tree lost its last leaves (it has always been the last to do so) that would signal time was right to trim back the roses. Trouble was, this year the apple tree merely changed its leaves from green to yellow and to this day they cling to the tree (presumably waiting for new buds to push them off in the spring).


Some of our roses, notably our Icebergs and Cecil Breuners are famous for their hardiness and bloom all year round. Our Cecil Breuners, with their delicate pink blossoms, are now fully intertwined throughout the 10 foot archway that Katie and John used for their wedding, April 2005. Each year this trellis of roses bursts into its fullest bloom in April and gives us the treat of remembering that special day.

Dormancy? When can we expect it?

The apple tree is not cooperating. We may not get a hard frost before spring comes. Already our bulbs are pushing their sprouts above the ground and getting ready to bloom.

Even the bright yellow flowers arrayed in the deep green of the Euryops Pectinatus, usually blooming twice a year, seem to insist that spring is already here.

And the periwinkles blossoming amid the ivy under the now leafless plum trees seem to agree that if we were to wait for complete dormancy we would find ourselves well into spring and discover that our roses are once again in full bud, blooming in a January springtime.

We must trim back the roses regardless, and so we do.

Having done so, we undoubtedly will now have several weeks of frigid cold and frosty weather to taunt us and tell us "Couldn't wait just a few more weeks could you?"

Ah, so . . . there will be no more rosebuds for the next few months (except our Icebergs and Cecil Breuners). So in the meantime we console ourselves with our winter pansies.

This blog is to express thanks to Tricia and Dan who sent Dick the wonderful classic book "Down the Garden Path" by Beverley Nichols, first published in London in 1932 and reissued in delightful hardbound edition, with original illustrations, in 2005 by Timber Press, Inc.

Thanks Tricia and Dan!