SUMMER TRIMMING - Part 2

Articles In This Section:

· SUMMER TREATMENT

· WATERSHOOTS

· WATERING

· MANURING

· SUMMER TRIMMING - Part 1

· SUMMER TRIMMING - Part 2

· CARE OF CLIMBERS

Each branch will terminate in a bloom or a stalk from which a faded flower has been broken or a thin part left after the cutting of a bloom at an earlier date. That bloom will have been cut with a short stem. One or more of the uppermost growth-buds may have broken into growth, especially if rain has fallen in January. In any case, the heavy watering in the first week of February will have caused these and even lower growth-buds to swell.

Cut each branch back to a plump bud pointing outwards. Conserve all the foliage possible, leaving little leafy twigs in the centre of the plant, but try to induce the inner branches of the current year's growth to shoot in directions that will ensure their not damaging one another. Treat watershoots in the same manner as at any other time of the year.

Gather all trimmings and fallen leaves as thoroughly as possible and burn them. Later spread the ashes on the garden. This is one of the few instances where organic matter should be burnt, for one should aim at making as much compost as possible at all times of the year. Admittedly the ashes are spread on the garden, but they do not improve the physical condition of the soil, and in burning the rose clippings a lot of useful constituents are lost, while others are converted from freely available organic compounds to less available inorganic compounds. The sole reason for advising this burning is that the trimmings, and, even more so, leaves that have fallen beforehand, carry great numbers of spores of mildew and black spot. Spores are very resistant to forces of destruction, and burning is the only safe way of dealing with them. If one's compost heap were very big and could be left undisturbed for two or three years, it might be safe to incorporate them in the heap, but otherwise one would be merely breaking down the organic matter and steadily increasing the numbers of disease spores, year by year, in the garden. Very few gardens are big enough to allow space for large compost heaps to stand for long periods.