Alright, enough already! I’ve read through all of my rose advice and I’m done pretending–lest you think me a rose snob, I must tell the truth…
All gardners (who are sane), commit the following horticultural atrocities
We have cut corners.
We have neglected to water (yes, every gardner has done this, I don’t care what they tell you.)
We have failed to fertilize, winterize, and “down size” (prune) are roses on time. Or at all.
Any serious, large scale rosarian has probably soaked her roses overnight, and left them there, forgotten…slogging away in a bucket she finds days later.
We have let our tools get rust on them
We have pruned our roses with steak knives, when the pruners got lost.
We have let the weeds, the heat, or the kids damage the blooms
We have killed plants.
There. The ugly truth is out. Perhaps David Austin and P. Allan Smith will never admit to these horrors.
But I, for one, am done pretending.
Now. Please. Go grow something thorny and make some mistakes.
