Roses at Disneyworld and Pruning Time

Roses at Disneyworld

Last week, L and I spent a week at Disneyworld.  Among other things, it was the Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot.  I must say, I was a little disappointed with the roses in and around the parks.  With only a few exceptions at Epcot, it appeared to me that all the roses throughout Disneyworld were some variety of Knockout…. Mostly the basic red variety.  I would have thought that some place like Disney would have the staff and the wherewithall to have other varieties but, as they said on the “Keys to the Kingdom” tour of the Magic Kingdom, the Four Keys are Safety, Courtesy, Show, and Efficiency.   I guess the “efficiency” of Knockout trumps using other varieties, which might require more care, this time.

Pruning Time

The forsythea are blooming so that means that it is time to do the string pruning… I might even be a little late getting at it since a number bushes are well on the way to leafing out.  I will say that having the buds at the point where the leaves are becoming obvious does have some advantages because it is easier to see where the dead and dying canes are.    I managed to prune 5 bushes in the garden this afternoon and I did the the rooted cuttings for the Cherokee Rose (R. laevigata) and the other potted roses on Saturday morning (though the big Cherokee Rose may require some additional pruning to keep it from grabbing people as they walk past the herb bed and up to the kitchen door.)  It does look like the rooted cuttings did have some damage from the cold weather but it probably would have been worse if I had NOT put them in the workshop.  I am pretty confident that they will survive and recover …  as long as I can remember to keep them watered.

One of the things I did today was walk around the garden with the video camera describing what I see needs to be done to get the beds reconditioned.  Once I get the video edited and up on YouTube, I will post the link here.  On a positive note, most of the beds have minimal weeds  (… we will see how long that lasts …) .   I was sad to actually count the number of rose bushes I have.  It looks like I have declined down to about 33 bushes (22 different variety).  What a drop from the 60+ I used to have.  Oh well.  I have ordered 5 new bushes to be shipped the second week of April and I am hoping to have things clean up and rebuilt by then, with some professional landscaping help.   I figure they can do the heavy lifting of actually replacing the landscaping timbers.

Tired now… time to go to bed.