It was pruning time this week.
My Mum taught me how to prune a rose many moon ago and with her ‘instructions’ at the forefront of my mind, I pruned my twelve rose bushes this week.
Not sure I cut at the right outwards facing rose bud eye every time, but I mostly got it right.
I left my Pierre de Ronsard climber until last because it has the biggest thorns and the longest canes. And yes by the end of it, despite my good rose pruning gloves securely on my hands I still managed to score one or two stabs and cuts from it. However, it is a small price to pay because in a good season its blooms are pretty impressive even if I say so myself.
It took me quite a while to chop up all the cuttings and I was surprised to see how much there was in the end. Obviously lots of growth had happened over the past twelve months.
I gave them all a good dose of a long-lasting fertiliser and there is rain forecast for this coming week so that will soak it in nicely.
I always consider it a good gardening day when all the rose beds are looking neat and tidy, and they certainly are looking that way at the moment.
My next project is to prune the fruit trees – nectarine and peach. The peaches this year were the best ever so hopefully I can manage to prune the tree “correctly,” so we get another good harvest this coming year. There is nothing better than picking a golden ripe peach from the tree and enjoying its juicy sweet flavour.
I love my garden. It covers a fairly big area and goes from being traditional like the rose beds, to the native shrub bird loving area across to the mini orchard with its current crop of mandarins, oranges and limes which are now ready to pick and enjoy.
Not sure I can say which part of the garden is my absolute favourite but methinks my roses would come pretty close to being in that position.
Fingers crossed that my pruning session this week was successful enough to ensure that there will be some pretty nice blooms happening this coming season.
Until next time – have a great day.
