Years ago, I bought a rose in a pot at a fair at Bush's Pasture Park, a 90-acre oasis just south of downtown. The entire property belonged to one family in the 1870's, and the original home, barn, and greenhouse are still beautifully maintained. The fair included handcrafts, live music, and food, and outside the barn (now an art gallery) the grounds staff had a selection of plants grown from cuttings of the hundreds of plants in the park. Many of the plants there are "period plants", and this one had a particularly interesting history. The original rose bush had been on the property for many decades, and it had come from a cutting of a bush in the garden of one of the royal estates in England.
I bought it for a little more than I'd intended to spend, planted it in the back yard, and really truly meant to plant other pretty things around it instead of letting the weeds bury it. Unfortunately, good intentions appear to make better diabolical paving stones than rose fertilizer.
Twelve years later, it has been mowed over twice, rescued into a pot, moved to a new house, ignored for years, frozen, scorched, eaten by bugs, and attacked by a rogue blackberry bush, and it finally sent its roots out the bottom of the pot in desperation. It persists in living, and today I decided that it needed a better home (Item #94).
Here it is, before I got it detached from the corner of the yard where I'd abandoned the poor thing:
I gently extricated it from the ground beneath the pot, detangled it from the encroaching stickery bush next to it, and carefully eased it under the low-hanging oak branch at the edge of the yard. It thanked me for my pains by attacking my head. The thorns got badly tangled in my hair, and I eventually had to take my French braids completely out and put my hair in a ponytail instead.
I hauled it to the back porch where I had the planter (rescued from a neighbor who was going to throw it out last year) and the bags of dirt needed to give it a second chance at life (purchased this afternoon from the exceptionally helpful people at Guentner's Gardens). I started out using a little shovel to get the planter prepared, but the truth is that for a project like this (i.e. one that doesn't involve pokey weeds), I just like getting my hands in there. So I ditched the gloves and shovel and played with dirt. Lovely, lovely dirt ...
There we go - all settled in, roots cared for as per instructions, and I'm holding it steady for the next round of dirt.
Oh dear ... my fingers look a little Gollum-ish. "MY rose ... it's mine, all mine ... my precioussssss..."
And there we go! All settled, watered, new dirt on top, situated so it can get some sun but have shade in the afternoon. It looks a little wilty and shell-shocked, which isn't too surprising given all the attention after years of neglect, but I'm hoping it will survive the move.
Come on, little plant, live ... you can do it!
I didn't know you liked to get your hands in the dirt. Hope your rose bush does well!
ReplyDeleteSo, what number was this on the list? I didn't find it in my quick look though. Is there a place where you can see what item numbers have been completed?
Love, Jan Wagner
Mrs. W., the hands-in-the-dirt thing is something that developed in the last few years - I *definitely* did not have that urge when you knew me, as you may recall from our weedpulling sessions in front of the church. ;)
ReplyDeleteThis was Item #94, and I need to go change it to bold print on the list on the sidebar. Does that show up when you look at the page? It should be blue where the entries are, and green on the right side where the list is.
Well I'll be darned. I was out messing with a plant today as well although mine is the very dead rootball of a cedar. It floated into the boat basin after some number of years coming down river as a whole tree and with no branches left came to rest against some docks. It was still some 35 feet long but once it was ashore a chainsaw converted it to four eight foot sections and the rootball. It had been through a fire.
ReplyDeleteI'm removing some of the bashed up roots after which I plan to sand and finish some of the surfaces and then it will become a stand for a wood heron that was carved by a friend of mine. I hope it comes out as well as the heron did. It's too bad pics are not allowed in comments.
You know, you're going to have to provide regular updates on the rose's health and well being. I think, if I was you, that I'd also leave some chocolate close by. Who knows, might work.
ReplyDelete