Climbing Roses, Cranesbill + Fashion for Gardeners

Brenda in her gardening best

I’m not sure I am typical of most gardeners, but I bet when it comes to what to wear to garden we all are the same.  Gardening is messy business.  No one in their right mind would wear anything light-coloured unless it was an old painting shirt as you are sure to end up with stains from the bag of Sea Soil you horfed from the driveway to the plot where it needs digging in.  Pants have to be extremely comfortable, lots of stretch (more for some like me than others), not too long so you trip, and have to have pockets to jam in plant tags, carry a Kleenex, maybe a fruit bar or those things you push up that produce a little blade to cut open the soil or fertilizer bags.  Sure, if you’ve got a belt or a vest, you wear it for the spade, pruners, and claw, but big pockets in pants are essential.  Shoes and boots vary with the gardener.  Note my very chi chi pink rubber boots in the picture.  I didn’t buy them for their snazzy pink colour – if fact I nearly didn’t buy them because they were pink – but they were at a swap meet, seemed nearly brand new, and were offered for $5.00.  That was 7 years ago and they have trudged through every type of garden condition and are completely clean after a hose off.  Some gardeners prefer those holey clogs, other sensible shoes – but you can bet that whatever they have on, it wouldn’t be considered fashionable.

Retailers are continually trying to lure the gardeners of the world into some sort of must have apparel.  We do undertake the most popular pastime on the planet and many of us are in the huge Baby Boomer category.  But try as I might, I can’t think of one clothing item we all yearn to own.  I once saw a very fetching $90.00 ‘gardening hat’.  I nearly bought it – but not to garden in.  I thought it may look jaunty on a dog walk but I wouldn’t risk sweating up a $90.00 item on a hot day in the garden.  So, clad in my old stretch pants from Old Navy about 10 years ago, my old ‘Canadian Women in Timber’ sweatshirt (another long story), my trusty knee pads that are actually not gardening knee pads but the type that people who lay carpet buy and my pink boots, here’s a short overview of where I am at in the garden……

I’ll include a picture of the kitchen beds tomorrow.  They are now nicely cleaned up which generally entails trying to beat back the consistently invasive cranesbill that I planted there when we first moved in.  It is lovely stuff with little pink flowers, but tries to overcome the special Cranesbill Geranium phaeum ‘Samobar’ with splashed leaves and deep green foliage or even the very popular Cranesbill ‘Roxanne’ which has glorious magenta flowers that are persistent from May to September.  In fact, it tries to overcome the Cardiocrinum (wouldn’t it be great if it bloomed this year for the garden tour??? Not going to happen….it’s only 4 years old), the Phlox, the hostas, you name it.  I do pot up some of the non-invasive Samobar cranesbill for the Mill Bay Garden Club’s plant sale in June.

Here’s a tip about climbing roses that I learned at the rose seminar at Glendale Gardens early this month.  This tip would only be useful for beginners as I doubt there are any other rose growers other than myself that have had roses for 4 years but didn’t know this……………

You won’t get any blooms from a climbing rose unless you actually bend the canes to a horizontal level on poles or posts (bending around and around) or along a fence, or arbour, etc. etc.)  Just letting them grow straight up will produce long canes with some foliage, but no flowers.  I have had what are often described as ‘the best’ climbers – R. Madame Alfred Carriere and R. Don Juan – for over two years with very little flowering.  The site is not as sunny as a perfect location for a rose, but pretty good.  Well darn, spent some time after getting home from the seminar bending them both around the lattice support and within two weeks sideshoots (or laterals) which is the only place where the flowering happens have appearing all over the cane.  Sheesh, live and learn………….

Heading over to Select Roses on the Mainland in Langley to get the R. Royal Sunset I’ve been looking all over for, and a Kordes Fairy Tale rose ‘Brothers Grimm’ and a ‘Apricot Vigorosa’.  The last two are from new German breeders and are apparently absolutely disease free!

A reminder, this blog is attempting to describe the steps I’m taking in my garden to prepare the garden for display on the Cowichan Family Life Association’s annual fund-raising Garden Tour.  As often mentioned, the tour takes place on June 6, 2010.  Here is the website address with all the details:

http://www.cowichanfamilylife.org/events/gardentour.htm

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