On Twitter a few days ago, @TimesGardening asked me about pruning roses. I was a little flippant in my answer, basing it on the lyrics from 'Anything Goes':
"In olden days a gentle snipping, with secateurs, and poor gloves ripping, now heaven knows, anything goes".
This was written to suggest that with roses, one used to carefully prune, stem by stem, to the desired shape. More recent research suggests that cutting them straight across with a hedge trimmer is just as effective at encouraging flower production (although not necessarily a long term improvement).
I was going to expand this lyrical mutilation to a whole post on pruning roses, based on the entire lyrics of Anything Goes, but inspiration failed me. So I have taken the easy way out.*
With apologies to Bananarama and Fun Boy Three.
It ain't what you prune it's the way that you prune it
It ain't what you prune it's the way that you prune it
It ain't what you prune it's the way that you prune it
And that's what gets results
It ain't what you prune it's the time that you prune it
It ain't what you prune it's the time that you prune it
It ain't what you prune it's the time that you prune it
And that's what gets results
You can prune hard don't mean a thing
Prune it easy and then your plants will fwing
It ain't what you prune it's the place that prune it
It ain't what you prune it's the place that prune it
It ain't what you prune it's the place that prune it
And that's what gets results
I thought I was smart but I soon found out
I didn't know what pruning was all about
But then I learnt I must confess
That pruning is like a game of chess
It ain't what you prune it's the way that you prune it
It ain't what you prune it's the time that you prune it
It ain't what you prune it's the place that you prune it
And that's what gets results
You can prune hard don't mean a thing
Prune it easy and then your plants will fwing
It ain't what you prune it's the way that you prune it
It ain't what you prune it's the way that you prune it
It ain't what you prune it's the way that you prune it
And that's what gets results.
*If you actually want to learn something useful about pruning, BBC Gardeners' World Magazine has a good series in it by Matthew Wilson at the moment.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
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7 comments:
Ha ha! Brilliant! Love your posts Happy M, they make me happy :o)
RO xx
nooooo, I have read this before going to bed, and now I know that song will run around in my dreams all night.
Glad to see you got a "fwing" or two in there
great post
K
Makes total sense - I'm boogie-ing my way to breakfast right now!
Pruning's a whole culture all its own. And there's room too, for several opinions on almost every type of pruning.
Wisteria, for example: the RHS says 'Thou shalt prune in August and again in January' - but I say August will do, cutting wispy growths back to 7 bud, but forget the January bit. That way, you get longer spurs and more flars.
Like many things in gardening, & life, I learn the 'proper' or 'officially recommended' way to do things & then adjust it to my way ie as little as possible. And indeed many plants are very forgiving if you don't prune properly, or indeed not at all.
Once I'd stopped laughing I realised that maybe I should have read this BEFORE I hacked by my old rose bush! :)
Love Anything goes... Possibly my favourite musical and now I'm off singing the song...
When it comes to pruning I do whatever takes my fancy, it doesn't seem to have caused me any problems so far, rules just confuse me! After all, they're there to be broken ;)
I'm rubbish at pruning. I think you have to know the rules well before you can break them. I vaguely know some of the rules, but my problem is remembering to get round to doing it. My bad.
Apologies to those who got the sonf stuck in their heads ;-)
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