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| Hybrid tea roses are budding at the Jackson Rose Farm |
Hybrid tea roses from last year are budding already. Last year our helper was shocked at how fast the newly planted roses were blooming. They do not take long from newly planted, ugly, thorny canes and drooping roots to productive bushes.
The KnockOut roses, owned by everyone now, are growing faster than taxes, and budding in the midst of red-green leaves. Fast growth is red and then turns green to start feeding the rose through photosynthesis, a long name for solar panels, which God established in every possible form.
Look at the windows. In the lower left of the two large windows are small black squares. Those are solar collectors that recharge the batteries each day for free light all night long. They only have one function while leaves also serve to evaporate air and lift water up through the plant and cool the air.
God created the rose to grow, bud, bloom, and produce seed. This spring, I even found a few seed pods (rose hips) left on the older bushes. The pods are packed with Vitamin C and eaten by birds all winter.
When the roots are established, they network with fungi - and donate carbon in exchange for elements and moisture they need from the fungi in the soil. One fungus can connect several plants at once while growing out to a lump of wood to dissolve it with powerful chemicals.
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| The roses are planted first. Next we lay down cardboard over the grass and clover, then add shredded cyprus. Daffodils have bloomed. Tulips and giant alium are next. More mulching is needed to finish the main rose garden and the maple tree garden. Every old rose bush was pruned by about 50% when the season started. The large bushes on the right are KnockOuts. |
Our helper's children walked over to assist in mulching. This works out well, because their father tells them which jobs to do to speed his work. Their mother brings over cardboard from her job. We always have a jolly time and drink Mr. Sam's bottled water.
Roses flourish with little work. All they need are:
- Pruning
- Watering
- Mulching
- Red wiggler earthworming.
Pruning seems to be the mind-block for most new gardeners. They think of pruning as taking away. But John 15, about the True Vine, identifies the two parts of pruning. One part is prune away dead wood, because nothing grows in dead wood, and it slows down the plant. The second part is to prune what is fruitful because this kind of plant (grapevine, rose) is energized by pruning and slowed down by going to seed.
Both parts of pruning help the plant and give it a growth surge. If I have a newly planted rose that is thinking rather than growing, I prune about 1/4 inch from each cane to remind the rose why it was created - to bud and bloom.
John 15 is a perfect parable, because anyone with experience in bushes or grapevine knows that the comparisons made are exactly what Jesus is teaching spiritually. Nothing grows apart from the True Vine - Christ. The dead wood is pruned away because it no longer contributes to the Body of Christ. The fruitful branches are pruned to make them even more fruitful.
Like some other terms in the New Testament, pruning or cleansing is used in a positive and a negative way. Yeast can be good or bad; either way, yeast grows and permeates. Pruning is negative in removing dead wood, but positive in cleansing the believer. Justification by faith is that cleansing. By abiding in Christ, the True Vine, we are forgiven daily (cleansed, pruned) of our sins; therefore, we flourish.
I pruned the KnockOut roses by 50% to get them growing above and below ground. When it was full of roses and the the blooms are starting to fade, like the picture above, I cut them back by 50% again. They regain their growth quickly and produce around 50 blooms per bush.
The roses cut away went all over to friends, doctors, anyone. The rose demonstrates the German adage -
A cut joy is a doubled joy. Geteilte Freude ist doppelte Freude.
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| Fireworks rose is a long cane full of thorns and flowers. |