A month of dreaming about gardening has been stolen by good weather - rains followed by 80 degree days this week.
Daffodils are either coming from the ground or already blooming.
Soon the baby squirrels will be checking out the feeders. "You have three feeders in our yard. If you youngsters cannot get a quick meal, I give up."
Roses have various schedules. Some have greened up and leafed out. Others are still dormant. My first task is to prune all of them back by 33% to 50%.
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| Garden like Someone is watching. |
KnockOuts enjoy rampant growth, so aggressive pruning is best for them. Last year I periodically pruned them way back. They soon climbed back to the same height, full of buds.
Roses love to be pruned, and questionable growth should always be cut away. Some candidates are spots of dead wood, so nothing will grow on it. Simply cutting that off will spur growth in the roots and on the canes.
Some rose growth gets tangled up. Someone complained about roses being thorny - a big problem. I said, "Look at it this way. They are thorn bushes, but thorn bushes with beautiful flowers."
Their cane growth is rather chaotic, so creating a vase effect will give the canes more air and room to produce good flowers. Throw the cane debris away (John 15).
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| All roses will look grand when cut at their peak, and home-grown roses will last longer in the vase. |