I never promised you a rose garden

 

When Master Gardeners offered its members a rose pruning workshop at the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden, I jumped at the opportunity.  I may only have three roses myself, but I wanted to be sure that if my clients had roses that I'd be getting it right. 

Roses seem to have a reputation for being delicate, pernickety plants that gardeners have to coax along and pander to. Don't be fooled. Sure, they can have their fair share of diseases, but when it comes to low water, heat tolerance and frost hardiness they are tough little garden soldiers.

Back home, when it came to pruning roses I pulled no punches. Those babies got hacked to within inches (usually between 4 and 8) of their lives and they always came back with full astonishing bloom. 

But it doesn't have to be like that here. John R, the MG who showed me how its done in the Golden State, was a fabulous teacher. I came away with at least three new things that I either didn't know or that changed the way I'd previously pruned. To me that's a hugely successful workshop.

So here's "Pruning Roses in Santa Clara County 101"

1  Don protective clothing - leather gloves, denim shirt and a hat.

2  Bypass pruners and lopers are the tools you will need.

3  Begin at the base of the rose bush. Clear away leaf-litter and identify the graft union. This is a bulbous scarred area, usually near the base, where the rose you want is grafted to its root stock. Anything growing below this a sucker and you don't want it.

4 Tear away any suckers. Previously, I'd been clipping off my suckers but, as John pointed out, this left behind growing material, so I always had a recurrence of these suckers. Ripping them out takes more away and helps prevent regrowth. So far we haven't used those pruners or lopers yet.

5 Next, and this I found hard at first, defoliate the bush. Take off every leaf you see.

This is all last years leaves and will contribute little by way of photosynthesis, especially if the leaves are diseased in any way. Removing them tricks the rose bush into a sense of dormancy, promotes new growth and helps prevents spread of rust and black spot.

6  Before we pick up the pruners, identify the growing points. They are nubs of tissue along the stem, more fleshy than the thorns and not prickly. You'll also find them at the base of the petioles of the leaves you removed.

 

In the above photo the thorns are beige and the growing points are purple.

7  Remove dead branches, anything less than a pencil thickness (that was another hint from John) and any branches crossing or otherwise growing the wrong way. Some of this is also subject to aesthetics. If you have two bushes growing close to each other, you want to prune them so that you can separate them out. In the above photo, I took out one of those crossing branches. This opens up the middle and helps prevent disease. It reminded me of the rules for fruit tree pruning.

8  Choose growing points that point in the direction you want the bush to grow - usually up- and outwards.

9 Leave about an inch of stem between the cut and the growing tip. Here's one I did a little too close last year. The tip may not grow.

10  John reckons that the more you leave, the more food storage the plant has for regrowth. This is where I stopped.

 

There is also a really good section on roses at the MG website. 

Another Master Garden told me that if you ask 10 rose experts how to prune you will be told 15 different ideal ways how to do it!

Bottom line - don't be afraid of "hurting" your rose. Chances are anything you do at this stage will benefit rather than stunt your rose garden. As John Hammond said in that great work of literature Jurassic Park, "And if we could only step aside and trust in nature, life will find a way. "

If it works for extinct dinosaurs, I'm sure it will apply to half dead looking roses!

Byddi Lee

'Tis a soft day, Thank God...

A soft day is what the Irish call a very very damp fog or a mizzle, which is a cross between a mist and a drizzle. I'd been dreaming of a nice soaking fall of rain for the garden and was happy to wake up to a damp day today, although the skys are now clearing, and a few rays of sun are breaking through now. I never thought I'd ever worry about the lack of rain - certainly not when I lived in Ireland.

And tomorrow is New Years Eve! Wow, how quickly did that year go in? I feel like I only wrote my blog post reminiscing about childhood New Years celebrations yesterday.

I used to love watching the news round-up of the year at this time of year. I don't seem to catch it here in the USA. Perhaps it's not on the chosen 3 channels that I watch (out of the gazillion that are available  to me!) or maybe they just don't do it here.

I remember we'd all be sitting watching the show and we 'd see events that happened, say, the previous March and it would be like recognizing an old friend. We be saying to each other, "Oh yeah, I remember that airplane disaster," or, "Oh, yes, I remember that bomb going off." (Bear in mind that I grew up in the North of Ireland during the Troubles.) I don't know why reminiscing together over even bad news brought on the warm and fuzzies. Perhaps it was that being young and with our family we felt a continuity and a part of something bigger when reviewing the year.

When I try to think of this year news-wize, I can't get past the Earthquake in Japan last March. I know other huge things have happened but Japan wins the horror prize for 2011. And there is no warm feeling reviewing that. Perhaps it's called growing up. I also know as soon as I post this I'll remember another news item that shook me this year and I'll be tempted to add it as a comment - we'll see.

When I was a teenager (and into my twenties) I used to keep a wall calender, and at the end of each year I'd take it down and stash it in a shoe box, along with my diary and memorabilia,like concert tickets or a pebble from a beach I'd been to. I'd write down something personal from each month that stuck with me and paste it to the lid of the box before squirreling it away in the attic.

So for 2011 here's my twelve highlighted memories.

Jan - I started my Master Gardener Training
Feb - I tiled my backdoorstep (Granted not an exciting highlight but a satisfying one-off event)
Mar - Got stuck in the snow on the way home from skiing in Tahoe
April - Easter - we had a bunch of friends for lunch and a egg/treasure hunt, though the friends were really the treasure.
May- Graduating Master Gardeners
June - Trip to Ireland (technically this began in May but ended in June)
July - Trip to California's North coast
Aug - An encounter with a black widow spider in the garden shed
Sep - Started to put together my new business - Eco Gardening Coach
Oct - Another visit with my family in Ireland
Nov - Wedding in Hong Kong
Dec - Launched the new business, the website and facebook page!

All-in-all an eventful year. So it's out with the old one, and hats off to 2012.

It's all to play for and a fresh new start.

I hope you have a Happy New Year and if your dreams don't come true in 2012, I hope it takes you closer to fulfilling them.

Byddi Lee

"The happiest days are when babies come."

This direct quote from Melanie in Gone with the Wind sums up what Christmas means for me.

I wrote last year about our little nativity scene that we put up under our Douglas fir each year.

Yesterday I was out weeding, enjoying the gorgeous weather we are having and wishing it would rain. My succulent garden has been, not so much neglected as, "left to do its thang" this last wee while. However, on closer inspection I noticed that the babe in the manager wasn't the only baby in my garden. My succulents were having babies left right and center - quite literally!

 

Nestled around the bottom are the pink-cheeked (well pink-leaved) little babies that will grow into replicas of the parent. I think this is a Sedum clavatum but my Succulent id could be better. I just know how to grow 'em not name 'em! But if you can confirm or correct me on any of my identification attempts in this blog please leave a comment - I'd appreciate the education.

 

This black/purple Aeonium is hard to capture in the morning light with its dark babies peeking out from under Mama's skirts.

It's hard to distinguish the parent from the baby plants in this ramshackle Aloe vera plant.

And the babies are more like teenagers having nearly caught up with their parents.

I particularly love the ones that make their babies at the ends of their leaves. So convenient for propagating! I bought one of these in Homedepot - two inches tall for $3 and now have about four two-foot plants that are about to burst into bloom. Of course I promptly lost the label, but I'm going to say this is a Chandelier Plant or a Bryophyllum tubiflora. In fact, I'm pretty sure that is what it is 'cos I looked it up on that interweb-thingy, and if you click here you can see some information about it.

Buying those random $3 succulents at Homedepot has added some strange but cute plants to the succulent patch. 

Bear's Paw (Cotyledon tomentosa) looks like little paws complete with the claws at the end. It's been growing slowly but steadily. The lobelia are volunteers that I haven't the heart to weed out seeing how they add a delightful splash of color.

  

When I first purchased this stone plant, Pleiospilos nelii, it had just two halves - now it is on it's third leaf set.

Of course I cannot mention my succulent garden without thanking my Master Gardener friend Nella who shared with me so many of the pups from her own succulents. Without her generosity I'd be waiting a much longer time to have my patch of the planet growing this many succulents and looking so nice.

 

Have a happy, peaceful Christmas.

Byddi Lee

Beet that!

Winter gardening in California seems to be split into two segments divided by December and January. If you get organized by mid September you can have a crop of winter veggies already growing and some harvested by Christmas. If you decide in December that you want a winter garden all is not lost - you can plant again in February and harvest in time for your summer garden. I like getting started in the fall as you get a jump start on the slugs and snails. The dry conditions seem to hamper their movements. In the spring they are a force to be reckoned with, but if your peas are already established then you aren't providing these dastardly molluscs with the tender shoots they prefer.

If you look at the Cool Season planting charts on the Master Gardeners website you'll notice that generally it is not recommended to plant in December/January. My guess is that the soil temperature in the heart of the winter gets too low, but as the soil warms up in late January/February the heat kicks in and gets germination going again. Sometimes, if the daytime temperatures are higher than average, you can get away with planting during these months. Likewise, if the weather gets cool quickly in the fall or lingers in the low figures into spring, germination will be effected. Experiment - that's what I do!

This year, I planted a whole bed of beetroot. And even when I follow all the correct procedures, it is still a delightful surprise when things grow! By the start of December, you could tell that about half of them were ready to be harvested by the way they were pushing themselves out of the ground, just begging to be picked.

The great thing about picking beets is that you can use the greens too. I fry these with some olive oil and salt. Boy, they are tasty!

I get carried away when buying seeds and I had planted 5 different types of beets. I was able to label my Detroit reds, my Dutch baby ball beets, and the gourmet golden beets, but Renee's Garden Jeweled toned beets have three seeds types in one packet. In the end the entire bed became one big beet potluck!

Nevertheless, it did not diminish the taste testing fun I had with them. I loved the golden one, but really they were all delicious. It was weird eating the paler one (my guess is it is a candy-stripe) and it packing the same beetroot punch as the Detroit red. The taste is obviously not just in the pigment.

My first attempt at pickling has yet to tasted. I'm keeping one jars for my nephew visit in February and the other for Christmas. It took a whole day to harvest, wash, cook and pickle these beets and for only 2 jars!

As we approach the winter solstice, frost is frequenting the garden more often. The light kiss of white doesn't do too much damage to what I have growing right now. I've learned my lessons from previous years - not to plant my spuds too early, and that lettuce is actually fairly cold hardy, so I don't even bother to cover it now.

There are still cosmos blooming bravely at the back door despite the cold. So I took this picture especially for May Dreams Gardens Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

 And the sun had just thawed out the frost on this pea flower leaving delicate little droplets.

 

The sun hadn't quite reached this log - a beautiful, yet temporary garden art makeover.

Caught in the act, this first sunbeam wakes up the garlic for another hard day of photosynthesis!

 And so even during December, the garden remains a work in progress.

Byddi Lee