>Roses Pruned & Planted – Finally!

>I hope everyone had a great week. Mine was hectic, but good. A few big rose events have kept me hopping:

1. Guest Blog Post. We had an awesome response to my guest blog post at GaGa’s Garden. Thanks to everyone who made the trip over and left comments. GaGa is an awesome rosarian in her own rite. I hope you will add her to your blog roll and check her posts out often.
2. Roses delivered this week! The bareroot roses I ordered in the fall arrived. All 9 of them. 2 “Lavaglut“, 2 Betty Boop, 2 Scentimental and 3 Our Lady Of Guadalupe. All floribundas.
3. Raised Beds – I had started raised bed #3 back in October and knew I had #4 to build too. Like many of us I am pulled in 50 directions at once, and the beds were not ready…. I knew I needed to act fast.
4. Pruning at the Gardens. This is the annual pruning event at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. The Birmingham Rose Society always volunteers to prune the magnificent Dunn Formal Rose Garden. It is a labor of love, to be sure. I was up early on Saturday and headed out to the gardens. Worked about an hour or so and it started to rain… Not just sprinkles, I mean rain. And rain it did, for the remainder of the day….. Plans thwarted… I returned home soaking wet, wondering if I would get my own roses pruned and the new ones planted.
5. Pruning my own roses. With the Forsythia blooming in all its glory this week, I knew it was time to prune my own roses. The roses I exhibit at shows, I prune low. This gives me long stems and graceful forms. The roses I have for garden and vase, I prune any way I want to…I typically “tip prune” about 1/3 off the top and shape up the shrub. I don’t prune climbers or roses that bloom once a year until after the first flush of bloom.

Having been rained out on Saturday, I was up very early on Sunday in my own garden pruning my guts out! Once done, I started to work on finishing the raised beds. I can’t tell you enough how much help a nail gun can be!! My son and I had them finished in about an hour! I had pre-cut the wood and all we had to do was assemble, fill and plant. I now have a whopping 65 roses in my garden. Can’t wait until the blooms start coming in!!!!!