The thumbnail is Winter Magic, hybridized by our highly respected ATP member @Betja.



Finally, December's here. I've been waiting and waiting for the start of my pruning season. Last year I didn't prune the roses, and I ended up with a veritable forest. No one needs hybrid teas that are 7 feet tall. It's impossible to see the blooms at the top, and the whole rose bush looks misshapen when it's too tall.

I'm setting a goal of 100 roses a day. That way, I can still finish by the end of the year even if it's too cold or wet to go outside some days.

I still haven't heard from the PG&E, so I'm not sure whether I should bother pruning the roses that might have to come out when the gas pipe is replaced.

Betja's creation is gorgeous! Such a subtle but luscious color.

Zuzu ....

I got a head start on my pruning this year. I usually wait until about mid-March.

A doe figured out how to breach the deer fence at the top of the slope. You know, the one that has been held up by wishful thinking ...

I haven't been outside much because the day temps have been in the low 40s for about three hours a day. That means temps are in the 30s or lower for the rest of the day. That's too cold for me to do anything except work on wood.

The other day I, when I was out getting more wood, I saw that something had been getting at my strawberries. Then I looked around. Every rose had been deer pruned.

The only way deer can get into the house pad garden is through or over the fence at the top of the slope. So, I went up and checked. The doe was standing right there checking things out.

I found that a top rail of the one part of the fence where the deer can see into the garden had fallen off and am certain that's how she has been getting into what I thought was my deer-safe area.

I am too short to really repair the fence on my own. It's not safe to use a ladder in that spot. So, I cut a lot of juniper branches and tied them onto the part of the fence that is still in place making the fence look a lot taller. It's flatter on my neighbor's side of the fence, so when I can get some help, I'll do the repair on that side of the fence.

I knew I should have checked the fencing up there earlier in the fall, but I just didn't get to it. The deer was simply doing what deer do. I am the one that messed up.

btw ... the deer have been eating all of the buds off of my star magnolia out in front of the house. This is the first time in five years they have gone after the magnolia. The drought is not leaving them much to eat or the town herd has grown too large and will eat anything and everything.

Lyn

How very helpful of the deer.

My fence probably isn't tall enough to keep the deer out, but my garden's so crammed full of plants that they can't see a convenient landing spot, so they've stopped coming over.

My 3-rose order from Rosemania has now doubled as a result of the addition of three new items on their website. After the nice people at Rosemania were kind enough to add Lady of Shalott and Watercolors Home Run to my existing order, I asked them why they weren't offering Edith's Darling, the only new rose of the Downton Abbey series they aren't carrying. They said their buyer had just located some and they could add that to my order also. It's an own-root plant, so I'm violating my resolution to buy no more of those, but it's a shrub, so it should be able to grow on its own roots fairly well.

Can you predict from a rose's parents whether or not it is likely to do well on its own roots?

Probably, but sometimes the parentage isn't disclosed, so it's not an easy way to determine future vigor. Besides, even a rose that does well on its own roots could possibly do better if it were grafted. Hybrid musks are rarely grafted these days because it's deemed unnecessary, for example, but I have a few duplicate hybrid musks of both types and the difference is quite visible. My grafted Penelope and Sally Holmes roses are easily three times the size of my own-root Penelope and Sally Holmes, although both types have been growing in my garden for many years, so the own-root roses theoretically should have caught up with the grafted ones by now if the claims of the own-root nurseries were to be taken at face value. It's just another reason that I won't buy any more own-root roses unless I really, really want the rose and I can't find it in grafted form.

Well, it certainly makes sense that many roses do better budded. After all the root stocks must be chosen for their superior ability to grow great roots (and accept grafts) talents not shared by all.

I have very few budded roses as I now grow mostly old roses that do fine on their own roots. However I used to have quite a lot of budded roses and none of them survived more than about ten years - probably due to the fact that modern roses expect more care than I provide, but I tended to blame their demise on the fact that they were budded. A talk I attended by the former president of the Houston Rose Society mentioned that budded roses in Houston had a half life of about six years; she didn't say why, so I continue to wonder...

There are so many variables in this equation, Porkpal. The mere difference in our levels of humidity could be the explanation, for example. Maybe the most common types of rootstock don't grow as well in Houston's soil or climate as they do here. You could have rootstock-harming pests or diseases we don't have here. It could be any of a great number of things.

So true! However the most common rootstock I have encountered here is Dr Huey, and I have lots of Dr Hueys thriving as memorials to their former guest roses. I think that takes it back to my lax care practices. Who knows what those folks in Houston are doing...

My surviving Dr. Hueys always make me wonder about something else: If the gophers are so eager to eat the Dr. Huey rootstock on grafted roses, why don't they come after the Hueys that are no longer serving that purpose?

That's a good question! The deer NEVER eat the huge Dr. Huey's I have in the distant garden! They want to come in close to the house and eat the hybrid teas and shrub roses. Also, I'm beginning to think red roses do not taste as good to deer and rabbits. Red Knock Outs get ignored, but the pink ones get pruned down to about 8". Also, I'm sure it's rabbits eating the Drift roses, mainly because they have smaller twiggy stems, and they prune those clear to the ground.
Actually, I've never seen the deer eating the roses, I'm assuming they are the culprit. It could be the coyotes, because I have seen them in the rose beds up next to the house. There's plenty of rabbit poop fertilizing my Drift roses so I'm calling the rabbits guilty as charged.
Lyn, are there no hunters in your area? It really is sad to see deer overpopulate an area, then starve to death. One of my magazines had an ad for an 8 ft deer fence that was basically a super tall vinyl snow fence. It looked pretty easy to install. It wouldn't work here because of the winds, but it might be something you could install by yourself.

Cindi ....

There's no hunting allowed in town. They hunt in the back country. Yes, the town deer herd has gotten too large.

My slope deer fence just got old. I need to repair it. The whole thing should be replaced, but I just don't have the funds for that and the other maintenance that I need to keep up with on the house.

btw ... it's only one doe, so far. It's been raining for the last two days, so I haven't been able to make the repair. She has hit every rose. Red, white, orange, purple, pink. She doesn't care what color they are. She also doesn't care if it's raining.

It seems like she has eaten every shoot on every rose. It's hard to see the damage. This is the first time I have had a deer problem on the house pad level.

Oh, well. She has pruned them harder than I would have. I'll just call it a rejuvenation prune ...

According to the forecast, there will be no rain Friday and Saturday, then it's going to rain or snow every day next week. I have those two days to get the materials I need and find someone to help me. Working on the slope is not a one person job.

What a dilemma! I know next to nothing about deer, but is it possible to put out a big bowl of something else she might prefer to eat? Some cheap greens of some kind? When I had a persimmon tree, the local raccoons and opossums completely ignored their usual nightly feast of cat food whenever the persimmons started falling.

Thanks for your concern, Zuzu.

The rule of thumb is to NEVER feed the deer or else you would have the whole herd in your garden.

At the beginning of the drought, my neighbor above me stopped watering his lawn. He almost had his own private herd of deer grazing on his property. They all moved down to my very small lawn. I've been chasing them off successfully for a couple of years, now, and the fence at the top of the slope has held until now.

I've called two different handymen and neither one of them have returned my calls. So, I am going to have to try to find someone else. That's not easy. Since most of that kind of work is seasonal, many of them go out of town to find work during the winter months.

I've tried to keep my sense of humor as they have eaten all of the deer resistant plants out in front of the house, but this is the first year they have decided to eat the magnolia tree. The roses out in front have strong deer fencing. They look great.

I think the doe has found another spot to get through. If I don't get all of them blocked, I won't see any roses next spring. I know the roses will come back, but they were finally getting some size on them. Considering that they are growing in nutrient poor soil, that says a lot about how good they were beginning to look. I think that's why I am so upset.

We used to have a handyman problem in Sebastopol. There was no point in calling them at home. We had to go to a local bar to find them. They all must have sobered up, however, because now we have a surplus of handymen. They ring the bell and ask whether anyone needs anything done. I wish I could send one up to you.

Whatever you do, don't try to do the job on your own. The risks are too great.

Zuzu .... how in the world did you know I was trying to figure out how I could do the repairs on my own ?

If you become desperate enough to try the repairs on your own, please call someone and have them stay on the line as you talk constantly while you're doing the work. That way, they can send help if you suddenly stop talking. I'm trying to sound lighthearted, but I'm also absolutely serious about this. It might be better to go without roses in spring than to try repairing a fence on a treacherous slope in cold weather where no one can see you if you fall down or injure yourself in some other way.

That's really good advice, Zuzu. Thank you.

I found someone I can trust who can come on Saturday.

Now, I just have to find my attitude adjustment.