Judith’s Corner - April, 2002

    Are your pruning shears dull? Mine were, until I found a gem of a shop downtown, where I was able to get three pruning shears sharpened for $4.50--in less than 10 minutes! Precision Sharpening is at 326 S. 2nd St., and besides sharpening of all kinds, they do fanciful metal sculptures that amuse you while you’re waiting. Check it out!

    I started working at a local nursery last month--I will never be able to consume more calories than this job is working off me! I love this job--I get to talk to gardeners about gardening, all day, AND GET PAID FOR IT!

    Naturally, I pay particular attention to rose buyers, and I’m shocked (SHOCKED!) by the prevalence of rose ignorance out there! Some people actually pick their roses by color, and have never even heard of the American Rose Society! Of course, that was me a year ago, so I’m completely sympathetic to that ignorance.

    And, what’s wrong with falling in love with a gorgeous bloom and taking it home? If you’re getting your roses from a local nursery, you can generally count on the roses to be user-friendly for the area, so, if you put that gorgeous bloom in good soil with lots of sun and water, Voila!  Perfection!    There are rose buyers who linger, wandering the aisles and poring through the books, agonizing over exposure, soil conditions, heat tolerance of colors, and arrangement--it can take hours to make a decision--even days, with multiple visits before committing. I am just beginning to show signs of becoming one of those buyers, but the transition isn’t complete.

    My favorite rose buyers, though, are the ones who stop dead in front of a rose and exclaim “Wow!”, or “OH! MY! GOD!! Look at that rose!” It’s a purely sensual response that’s as obvious as puppy love, and just as happy. Sometimes, the passion is so overwhelming that they don’t even stop to ask questions--they rush their treasure out the door before you can get the instruction sheet into their hands! It’s always a pleasure to see someone swept away with rose-lust!

    Less enchanting are the rose buyers who ask about guarantees. Most rose growers and nurseries will guarantee roses, or other substantial plants, for a growing season, but I’m surprised they’ll commit that far. Nursery plants are grown under ideal conditions, and babied along until they present their perfect selves to you for sale. Once they leave the greenhouse, there’s no way for the nursery owner to guarantee that you’ll do right by the plant you purchased.

    Will your soil be perfect? Will the exposure be appropriate? Will you water and feed often enough, without over-watering and over-feeding? Will you water during the winter? Can you guarantee that you’ll be as good to your new rose as the greenhouse was? If your rose fails, and you bought it at a local nursery (not a chain store), you can be 99% sure the fault was in the after-sale process, and not in the plant. I cringe when someone comes in demanding a refund--doesn’t everyone know, by now, that there are no guarantees in gardening? If you’re a long-time customer, and you’ve spent a lot of money in the place, you might be able to work something out with the owner, but, please don’t expect refunds for every failure in your garden. A gardening “guarantee” in Colorado---I can hear Mother Nature giggling!

    My days, including weekends, are now devoted to jogging up and down greenhouse rows, finding, fetching, carrying, and lifting. Oy, the feet! Now that I’m a Gardening Professional, I don’t have time or energy for my own garden. I have eleven roses awaiting planting, and I haven’t even pruned the roses that are in the ground. I figure I’ll get around to digging eleven holes sometime around October, after my feet start speaking to me again. What’s left of my energy will continue to be devoted to GVRS and this newsletter.     Just don’t ask me to walk anywhere, OK?

Back to Judith's Corner                             This page last modified: December 18, 2003