My roses look a little mangy. They haven’t had a proper winter and they’re all budding out already which makes me crazy because I know the weather is going to change and it’s hard on them. I needed a little outdoors today, so I gave them all a good prune.

For the most part I have David Austin roses, but I have also started accumulating some old roses or “antique roses”. And I have been looking at the bushes and looking at the bushes and looking at the bushes and I just decided to pull out crisscrossing canes and dead canes and give everything a bit of a haircut.

My roses aren’t going to suffer from a little bit of a haircut but they might suffer if we keep going through climate change like this. I know I’m going to be a broken record, but I don’t have very much room for roses in this garden so the ones I have are precious to me.

And they are all budding already. Not flower buds, leaf buds. 

I did not trim up every bush. There are some that I planted that were bare root that I don’t think I’ve grown enough that I should just leave them alone and see where they are in the spring.

I also trimmed off the dead stuff off of some other things while I was at it and took stock of the garden. My bulbs are coming up. I have some daffodils in the very front actually have buds pushing up. The little snow drops and leucojum are getting ready to bloom. I even discovered a primrose!

I walked my beds to figure out where things are going. I don’t have a lot of stuff coming but I am going to add in the back where I have the canopy break because of the maple coming down yesterday.

My pals at Go Native Tree Farm in Lancaster County have reserved a couple flame azaleas (no plum leaf azalea which I really want), Shagbark Hickory, and Chestnut Oaks. I’m going to add to our reforesting project with them this spring.

I got an email from Chanticleer this morning and I would really really love to take the garden workshop week in the summer with Annie Guilfoyle but it’s almost $700! So sadly, I don’t think that is in the cards. That is expensive!

Now back to the garden.

Part of me getting out to the garden today was to just commune with it and nature. Someone I knew in high school died yesterday and it wasn’t a person who was one of my closest friends but they were sort of part of the fabric of life, and it made me feel sad and old. Futzing around in the garden a little bit helps make those things a little better.

I also sprayed for deer again. I didn’t do that much, but I wanted my legs to get a little bit of a stretch to help my knees. I am concerned about my garden though because they’re too many things starting to bud. But mother nature is going to do what mother nature is going to do.

One thing I really loved was seeing today what a very small Witch Hazel’s flower was going to look like as it grows!! Red!!

Now as I sit here and write this it’s raining again and it feels like freezing rain so it’s quite possible everything that is budded out could be covered in little icy encapsulations by morning. 

Have a good night!