Sandsock said:
I am actually asking everyone who is on this forum to try to keep in mind gifting roses instead of tossing the ones you shovel prune. I hear so often the shovel prune and toss, while so many new rose growers/gardeners wish they could try this that or the other rose and can't afford to.
I grow roses as my key garden structure plant. Gradually from just a few, my gardening moved from about 20, now sturdy oldies ( 30 years +) to a collection around 500 bushes. Do I ever shovel prune? no. Would I ever do it?. I really don't know. I haven't reached my limit yet. Those that dissappear do it on their own. Once gone the remainder is piled along with the ever growing fire-wood pile. In winter they become ashes and these are spread under roses or irises alike. But of course I live on a very large property ( a small farm of about 30000 sp yards) so I always have somewhere to move about a bush.
I would never treat a cultivated rose bush as a weed. There's something of self respect that I particularly pay attention to. Respect of my dreams, efforts, hopes plus that of others before the bush ended in my place. I'm still learning ways of how to place my bushes within my property. I'm gradually acquiring the skills needed to achieve long lived bushes, along with pleasing views. Cultivation is about plant domestication. They become a familiar sight in my every day stroll. I cherish those familiar angels that point out accomplishments in my gardening goals. My garden is a source of solace for my spirit and soul. Are roses sentient beings? Not in an animal sense, but their angels yes. Everything in this visible world has invisible dimensions that are guiding their role in this material world. I don't want to disrupt that delicate balance that emerges when everything is right: me as the creator and observer and they ( roses or other cultivated plants). That magical moment sometimes does happen. Unfortunately, some of those roses eventually go downhill and end up in the pile for winter fires. However the memory still lingers. Roses are not static sculptures so one is permanently dealing with the fleeting, which slips between the fingers of our grasping hands. What is fleeting? Life itself...
All the above is my own view, but I share it because some parts will surely resonate in others, perhaps for some, nothing. In that case I beseech that they ignore my post. However, in others it may call their name. For these, I implore they listen to their hearts ( not to their thoughts). There are reasons of the heart that the mind can not understand. This doesn't pretend to open a moral debate of what's right or wrong. That I leave for each reader to judge by himself. Instead its about awareness, sensitivity and expanding conscience. After 7 decades + of life, and keeping this personal pursuit as a top-most beacon, every day life provides back those little miracles, private and personal when a bloom smiles back at me. Those angels of joy awaiting their turn are fluttering around...That experience is worth having lived so far, in spite of losses of every kind.
Arturo
