I am busy working out in my gardens every day. It is mid-summer, and maintenance time for our rose gardens. Two weeks ago, we hit almost 100 degrees for seven days. But this week has been just lovely! Low 80’s with no humidity and a cool, steady breeze. I love being outdoors, and I try to take advantage of weather like this in every way. I am a firm believer in the solar hair dryer and the solar laundry dryer! The smell of the washing when I pull it in off the clothesline and the sheets come in like they are ironed. When I look up from working in the garden, it is a pleasure to see the laundry blowing in the breeze.

Our second flush has almost finished, so there is deadheading to do every day. I have almost finished with my last fertilizing of the year. As I finish feeding a bed, I come through with about 4″ of shredded pine bark mulch. It’s kind of late to be mulching. However, because of my busy schedule in June, it had to be put off until now. It looks and smells wonderful when it’s finished. When the ‘August Dog Days’ arrive, the mulch will help to hold the moisture in the soil and keep the roots of the roses cool.

Summer Deadheading

Why do we deadhead our roses in Summer? To keep them from forming ‘hips’ or seed pods. If roses are allowed to form seeds, sometimes they will think that their job for the year is finished. We don’t want them to get that idea! Most of my roses are repeat bloomers. If I am really johnny-on-the-spot, they will get deadheaded just before the petals fall all over the place. I drag a 5 gallon bucket around with me to drop my rose garbage in. When it’s full, I dump it in the trash. Hybrid tea roses should be pruned back to an outward facing stem bud.

It’s a fallacy that you must cut back to a five leaf petiole…just cut back to a spot on the cane that is large enough to support a new blooming stem. Floribundas can be cut back in the same manner, but usually, I just cut the spent blossom off where its stem joins the plants. That way, you don’t have to wait for a lot of growing before a re-bloom happens. My floribundas are almost always in bloom because I deadhead them in this manner. You can trim back your shrubs in the same way, and your climbers, as well. I always like to see my roses attain maximum growth each summer with as much bloom as possible, and this method works great in my garden.

Plant Care

In order to grow into that big, beautiful rosebush, water is an absolute necessity! I keep a rain gauge and supplement from there. I try to make sure that each one of my 200+ roses get their equivalent of 1″ of rain per week, which translates into about 5 gallons of water a week. If you keep your roses well watered and deadheaded during the summer, the regrowth and rebloom will be mighty!

Pest Control

I noticed last week, after all the summer heat and humidity we’d had, that my gardens had an outbreak of spider mites. This happens in my yard every year during the hottest week of the year. I have a lawn…and that’s different from grass! There is some grass in there, of course, but there is also ground ivy, clover, cinquefoil, creeping jenny, english ivy, and some other stuff. When I spot spider mite damage on the lawn weeds, I know it’s just a matter of time before they blow into all the gardens and they multiply like crazy during really hot, dry weather.

My first line of defense during a severe hot spell is to wash down the foliage on the roses. This helps to drop the temperature in the garden and also washes off some of the mites. Last Saturday, when it cooled off, I used a miticide in my spray material. Mites suck the moisture out of the leaves from the underside, and the first sign of an infestation is mottled-looking foliage in the lower portion of the plant.

They move rapidly upward, leaving tiny webs on the undersides and in between the leaves. If you turn the leaf over, you’ll notice the underside of the leaf looks dirty and feels gritty. That stuff is mites and their nymphs and their eggs and their poo. Yuck! These tiny creatures, if left to do their business, can defoliate your rosebush rather rapidly, so it’s a good idea to control them if you can.

Summer Help

Today, my 12-year-old grandson, Christian, was helping me deadhead and mulch out in the gardens. He told me that he loves our beautiful old house and everything in it, and that he wants to buy the house someday and live here and take care of all the gardens. (!!!) I could just smile, give him a hug and a kiss. I remember that I had said almost the same thing to my beloved Gram when I was about the same age. Looking up at the washing blowing in the breeze, I felt another connection to her and I felt that multiple generations were spiritually joined in the garden this morning. Grandsons, grandmothers, and gardens…it is a love connection well worth experiencing!