Rose Pruning Time

Double Delight

The San Diego winter is so mild it's hard for Cindy to know when is the best time to prune our five rose bushes.  The temperature was in the low sixties for the last two weeks, then jumped up into the upper seventies yesterday and today.  So, of course, the rose bushes think it's Spring, and who can blame them for that, especially when the humans are beginning to exhibit signs of Spring Fever, too.

Moonstone

Cindy had been thinking of taking some of the bushes out this year and replacing them; the Double Delight seemed to be struggling and the Moonstone suffers badly from rust and spider mites.  However, she decided to stick with them for now and has spent the last three days pruning them back, fertilizing and mulching them and making sure the irrigation systems is working properly.  She also gathered up all the fallen leaves to try to prevent the rust from spreading.

Ole

We don't know if the katydid (see "Mystery Bug" post in September and "Where's Katy?" in October) laid any eggs on the yellow rose bush, but Cindy put some of the canes aside to see if anything hatches out later.  One of the Master Gardener sources said to just step on katydids and kill them, but we really enjoyed watching ours; she ate a few leaves, but she wasn't very destructive and she did eat aphids.

These photos are from the summer of 2010.  When we first moved here in 1997, I wanted a yard with little or no grass and mostly drought tolerant plants, but Cindy insisted on having a rose bed.   Roses are a lot of work for her, but when they're in flower, they're absolutely beautiful.