By Crystal Trojek 

Tillsonburg Horticultural Society 

Doubt

Pruning roses is difficult, and painful. I don’t like doing it.

It has been a hard winter in my garden, we have been discussing if the results this spring are from too much heat and drought last year, or rabbits, or a polar vortex that arrived when they should have been long gone until next winter. I have had to resolve myself to the fact that I must do much cutting, dead wood serves no good purpose to roses. It’s also depressing to look at day after day. I have purchased new pruners, sharp and lively they are. Mixing buckets of water soluble fertilizer, dumping each hopeful pail on rose feet. Ground is dry already. Scattering water soluble fertilizer to tempt rose roots with a healthy snack. Hoping for growth and blooms like no other year, I have great expectations.

I remember each rose as it looked last May, the time of year when disease has not yet discovered its leaves, insects have not yet attempted to defoliate rose canes. I imagined how the rose looked covered with green buds, how often I checked each one for the first sign of colour, the way the first rose looked as it began to open on the finest of spring mornings. I dreamt of how rose perfume sometimes came hunting me, when the dawn was shy and new, when the scent of that first rose stepped out into my garden and wandered the earth, young and cheerful. I clipped dry canes away from roses, some with multiple brown rose hips left behind on frosty autumn mornings. I imagined the canes struggling to hold all the blooms, how the rain filled roses drenched in a spring shower reached for the earth. Almost upside down they were, they danced a little, swaying in that fresh bathed breeze that follows the rain when everything is clean once more.

I walk with roses on fine spring days. I pull old brittle leaves away and uncover rose feet. Ladybugs are waiting there in the remnants of autumn, the speckled predators climb the green canes that are dimpled now with the anxious buds of new green leaves. They will discover aphids there, a favourite snack. The heart of the rose lives, it beats green in the weeks of May. The waking leaves stretch out, the green buds follow, new rose canes streak towards the sun, laughing with the spring daffodils.

I have left some of the larger canes for further thought, distributing time for more signs of sprouting rose leaves. There are some thick, gnarled rose branches that I do not like to sever with the loppers, but I must. I thin rose branches that have been knit and purled together, already a dappled greening blanket without rose embellishments. It will come. I remember ‘The Crocus” will send them in deep shades of cream. An opportune break from pruning rosesfound me, the new roses have arrived at the garden centres. The air is still winter scorned, but the sun shines brightly scoring the air with warmth. The roses huddle silently waiting for adoption. I choose three more Austins, because I doubt the strength of a few of the roses I have in my garden to survive. I fear I shall not see them again. We visit a few other garden centres, early shoppers get the best selection. I buy two more roses. All of them wait for me on the lower deck.

It is almost three weeks later, one rose waits to find the ground in my garden. In between May planting, we have been blessed with two good rains that deliver fertilizer to the winter worn roses. They rise. The canes spring into the warming air, in multitudes. They soar daily for the skies, I ask for forgiveness that I doubted their rose hearts. The leaves stretch and yawn by the light of the moon and under the deep and pleasant care of the sun. Each new day more roses awake, they are coming, they are coming for me in June. They are coming in numbers, the tiny green buds are peeping out amongst the leaves. I purchased one rose named ‘Amberness’ this year who already carried flowers, because it called my name as I was passing by, shivering in a cold breeze. I wandered into one greenhouse, a new clematis hopped easily onto my cart. I went back for the sweet rose, and purchased a floribunda companion.

Today I have my camera with me, documenting the spring garden for the grey winter days when I forget what lies sleeping out there under inches of snow beyond a frosted window. The winter days are long, pictures of yesterday comfort those who remember the lost and provide hope for tomorrow. ‘Amberness’ does not speak of the ravages of winter, but of the sweetness of spring. There are buds, many buds, on all my roses. I whisper their names out loud as I pass, as if meeting a long lost friend. When the roses take their first breath and begin to sing, I walk amidst their sweet perfume and listen to every note. I carried them the year before, and now they carry me, when I walk with roses.

Tillsonburg Horticultural Society members will be opening their gardens to society members during the upcoming Garden Tour July 7. It’s not too late to purchase a membership and enjoy all the society events, monthly meetings, and discover just what is being accomplished in the community. Visit our Facebook page or the website www.tillsonburghorticultural.ca for more information. New gardeners, seasoned gardeners, all welcome. Come garden with us.