I’ve found my mind blissfully focused in a week with almost no teaching but with time to attend to my garden. The tasks I most enjoy in the garden are pruning and feeding, and this is the time of year for roses to receive this attention.
First I assessed the overall shape and took note of any spindly, straggly growth that would need removing. Then, with the aim of maximizing the potential for a beautiful shape, I launched into the making of hundreds of tiny decisions as to where to make the cuts. I looked for good, outwardly facing buds and made the cuts just beneath them, standing back from time to time to re-assess the shape.
As I worked I remembered the different scents that emanate from each rose. The deep red Rugosa Roseraie de l’Hay is very strongly perfumed with the heady perfume traditionally associated with rose. The coral/pink rambler rose ‘Albertine’ has a slightly spicy scent. The exquisite cream flowers of the Macmillan rose have a very delicate perfume with perhaps a hint of fruit.
The rose next to this in my garden is ‘Felicia’ – meaning ‘happiness’. It’s a rose that’s taller than me now. As I clipped it into shape, my senses recalled being drenched in its heavenly scent and delicious colour in past summers. In those moments of extreme pleasure I thought how well it lives up to its name. It’s an anomaly in my front garden really – a bit of a showgirl – because it’s a very pink pink at odds with the restrained palette in the rest of the front garden. But I love my rose of happiness and so it will remain as long as it is happy in my garden.
Pruning the climber by my front door is always a challenge. Ideally I need someone to help get the ladder in place so I don’t have a nasty accident. Even though I had some help this year, I still had a scary moment or two leaning into the wall at the top of the ladder with nothing to hold on to; but I was determined to reach those rogue stems.
This rose has two names – ‘Blush Noisette’ and ‘Cuisses de Nymphe’, the latter meaning ‘nymphs thighs’. When in full flower the myriad tiny flowers – all in subtly different shades of pales pink – do look like nymphs thighs.
In June when the roses are at their best, I ask my students to pause and smell the roses as they walk down the path after class. I believe that for a happy and soulful life it’s important to pause long enough to take in the scents and sights of beauty in our world. Roll on summer!
Chinese proverb:
If you want to be happy for a day – get drunk
If you want to be happy for a month – get married
If you want to be happy for ever and ever – make a garden
