Lower Cape Rose Society

ROSE  FEVER

Hundreds of roses pruned, hundreds of roses to go ! Audrey and I have been very
busy, taking advantage of the sunny spring-like weather of early March. There will be
much more in the next Rose Beacon about pruning techniques. For those who are thinking about an early start in the garden, lets review the basics of pruning. Remember the 3D’s, the dead, the damaged and the diseased. Start with the dead, it’s the easiest to recognize. Its usually black, brown , very brittle and dead! Then look to prune a quarter inch below pink colored bud eyes that are on the outside direction of the bush. You might have to prune out a good looking cane whose only crime is that of  growing in the middle of the bush. Dress warm and enjoy the day outside.

Espoma has a wonderful  line of products…here are my favorites including their percentages of  N-P-K ( nitrogen, phosphate, potash ) information Rose-tone 6-6-4,
Plant-tone 5-3-3, and Holly-tone 4-6-4.  We drove down to Agway to pick up some bags of Holly-tone, but just before we made our purchase we and made a unique discovery.
The Holly-tone is “rich in natural organics”, while the Plant-tone is “all natural and organic”. We bought  four bags of Plant-tone, did we read too much into the labels?
We rejected the Rose-tone because it only came in 25 pound bags, while the others were available in 50 pound bags for the attractive price of two for $30.
Audrey and I have been taking the process one step further. After we have pruned several roses, they receive their first fertilization. Organics are the food of the day!
Each bush receives a cup of Plant-tone, which is covered by a blanket of manure.
As a side note, all the fertilizer that has been applied has been watered in by Mother
Nature during the weekend  of March 8.
Over 200 words and I’ve only mentioned the secret of good rose growing ,“organics” three times,  Lets step up the pace…organics, organics, organics, organics, ORGANICS !
The March 29th meeting will be all about good growing rose growing. You can’t be a good rosarian without being a good farmer. It all begins underground. You don’t think that the farmers are turning chemicals over and over into the soil, do you? On a smaller scale it is the manures, grass clippings, fish bodies, winter rye and more that make everything come alive in the ideal situation. We will be presenting a program on the wide
world  of composing. Learn what  and what not to put into your compost pile. Discover how to keep the pile “alive,” even speed up the process. You will even be able  to build a compost bin instead of just having a pile, in one easy lesson.
On Sunday, July 30, 2000, Peggy Eastman wrote in The Cape Cod Times, From the Garden on Weir Creek…Osborn’s motto is “ the more you do for a rose bush, the more it will do for you.” I was right then, and I’m right now. What more could you do for a rose bush than to mulch it with a complete compost.
I’ve paid my $20 LCRS dues for 2008, I’ve paid for my seat on the bus trip to The Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden on June 7th, I’m  going to the Yankee District Rose Convention in Mystic on the 15th and I’ve marked MARCH 29 on my calendar for the Composting meeting,…..all is right in the world ! !       OZ

Looking at my calendar, I realize that March has many interesting dates. A true hi-lite
is the 9TH , on that Sunday we will adjust our clocks marking the beginning of Daylight Saving Time. This will give everyone an extra hour to be out in our gardens, whoopee !
This is also a traditional reminder to change any batteries in our smoke alarms.
The planet Uranus was discovered on the 13TH, 1781, by British astronomer William Herschel. The planet was named after the mythological god of the skies, but lets put Uranus behind us and move on .
On the 15TH Julius Caesar ignored the warnings of his fortune tellers to stay in bed during the ides of March. In public he taunted them “The ides of March are come”, but they retorted “Ay Caesar, but not gone”; foretelling of,perhaps, the three most memorable words in Shakespearean literature….”Et tu, Brute?”. To paraphrase from the play, the winds of March have come, but they have not passed.
I might be repeating myself each year when I mention that March always brings to my mind the image of Howard Keel singing the lively “My Defenses are Down” during
his performance in the timeless “Annie Get Your Gun”. He laments that he went into the fight (his potential romantic conquest) like a lion, and came out like a lamb. This is the same often repeated metaphor that the TV meterologists use for March weather trends. I remember asking my mother what all this colorful language meant.
March 19TH ( also St. Joseph’s Day, plant your peas, please), will find the beloved cliff swallows coming back to Capistrano. It seems that the Mission in San Juan,southern California, was severely damaged by the earthquake of 1812. The open towers made it easy for the birds to build their nest of mud in the ruins of the old stone church. By the way, writer Leon Rene, not Pat Boone, is held in very high esteem at the San Juan
Museum for the song that also returns to the lips of many people every year.
Spring officially arrives on the 20TH, the day of the Vernal Equinox, when the Sun will cross directly over the Equator. Because of the tilt of the Earth’s axis we will have more of a direct hit from the Sun’s rays, contributing to better rose and tomatoe growing but also increased danger of skin damage to those gardners who should know better.
R.L.Ruzicka’s (look him up) contrbution to American Literature is as follows :
When March goes on forever, and April’s twice as long,
Who gives a damn if Spring has come, as long as Winter’s gone.
The date for Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Therefore Easter Sunday is on the 23RD. Happy egg hunting !
I deliberately left March 17TH for last. Everyone who is Irish and those who are Irish for just one day a year, know that the 17TH is St. Patrick’s Day. Every year our house vibrated with traditional Irish music, the apparel of the day was GREEN, and the food was always Irish Soda Bread and Corned Beef and Cabbage. Soon I became a “kool” rebellious teenager who wouldn’t be caught dead wearing green, only listened to “top 40” music and probably went to Burger King rather than eat any “corn beef and garbage”.
But now, as Dennis Day, Phil Regan, Carmel Quinn, the Clancy Boys, the Irish Rovers
and the Three Tenors sing along with me all day, I wish that I could sit down once more with Ma and have one more plate of her corned beef and cabbage. Kiss me, I’m Irish !