Shovel Pruning: An act of ecology and camouflage

摘要

Merriam-Webster's dictionary describes the phrase "shovel prune" as a euphemism, a soft-sounding phrase to conceal the horror of ripping a plant from the soil and tossing it into the trash. Actually, shovel pruning represents the culmination of a number of gardening sins. Intentionally or inadvertently, people commit crimes against the rose, the garden and the community that one can only remedy by judicious shovel pruning.Gardeners young in gardening years, in particular, are wont to "push the envelope," to test the limits of the micro-climate in which their roses grow. With freezes now occurring approximately every 20 years or so in my climate, planting roses that require significant chill in order to bloom is to blow raspberries at the rose and weather gods. The first year I planted 'La Belle Sultane', it was a joy to see, in the early spring, its purple single blooms enlivened by luminescent golden stamens grace the garden. It never bloomed again. Years went by and it spread by suckers, uprooting the lavender, crowding the sedum and choking the 'Lavender Pinocchio'. Finally, I removed it. But not before it left lurking rootlets to pop up periodically and remind me ofa failed challenge.