My red roses came back!
This may not seem like headline fodder except that I live in a far northern U.S. state and made the audacious mistake of planting seven rosebushes in my front yard. Even though they are technically zoned for my area, they struggle with the icy cold in winter and fungal blight and bugs in the summer. I’ve already had to replace one casualty of the clime!
I’m no master gardener, but I do my best to mulch, prune, water, and provide fresh garden soil and Miracle-Gro pellets. Oh, and wrap a six foot chicken wire fence around my roses every winter to protect them from ravenous bunny attacks.
*Don’t trust the cute little fluffer! These beasties are merciless munchers . . . .
My husband resigns himself to helping me drive metal stakes into the ground each fall only to pull them out again in the spring. Neither of us knew how hard it would be to keep seven prickmedainty rosebushes alive. I should’ve gone for something low-maintenance like a rock garden, or extra hardy like an evergreen bush. Alas, hindsight is only useful for time travelers.
But my roses bloom for me, they always blossom in unkempt loveliness . . . until last summer, when my red rosebush refused to bud even once. I was mystified as this had never happened to me before. The bush’s leaves all seemed glossy and healthy, so what on earth should I have done differently?
Life keeps the answers pocketed ever so deep sometimes. This year, June rolled around and the usual profusion of pink, yellow, amber and cream roses greeted me with their live bouquets. Again, my red rose declined to bud—
But I didn’t give up! I watered, pruned, and provided fresh soil and Miracle-Gro pellets, just as in years before. And in August, at last, my Rose Red darling returned . . . .
She’s not what she once was—the winter was harsh, and I had to prune a large section back that withered and splintered over the cold months.
But now my Rose Red once again offers her beauty to the sky in a scarlet swirl of petals, and I am grateful for her bold crimson.
I did do one thing differently this year . . . I learned the power of preventative action! I doused my seven roses in a fungal spray early in May before the first spot of blight had a chance to root in the green. I repeat the spray every few weeks. And whenever I find a few sneaky specks among my roses, I pick the diseased leaves relentlessly and rake the spoiled detritus out.
For just one speck of rot can run rampant and blight everything, and a tiny spore become a grand bane as it spreads unchecked among your garden, leaving you feeling cursed by the surety of doom because you missed the early warning signs—
Behold the sorry state of most of my rose garden by September 2025!
Though my faults as a gardener are many, I will never let me roses suffer again because I did not guard their spring.
Since we are on the subject of roses, I thought I’d share a poem—
Sub Rosa: Tokens of Secrecy
Do you know the secret
of five leaves?
I’ll share it with you free
as sun’s slant—
How to coax new rose
from a stem
Whose gaudy crown has already
bloomed and withered.
Let your scissors slide
over thorn
To the first petiole bearing
five leaflets
Gently shear just above it.
None of these coronets will
ever be yours
Bribes for the Grecian God
of Silence,
But not even Harpocrates can
claim confidences that lie
Under the rose—
Deepest mysteries seethe at the root
of every quick and end thing,
Yet too often our pupils seek only
easy blaze of flagrant whorls,
Forgetting humble germination.
Sometimes I count the fine
serration of rose leaves,
Each the shadow of an eye
against my palm,
Wondering if they can tell me
if my efflorescing ink
Will ever petal a single page,
seed bud linear diadem—
But some secrets will
never unfurl
Unless I dare to spell them out
from cane to corolla.
*As the last Wednesday in August, it’s time to add to my monthly Artweaver herd. Behold my wee Dandystallion, cousin to the dandelion:
Source:
“Sub Rosa: Tokens of Secrecy.” (April 2014). Fresh Ink, 45, 28.
~*~
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