September 2010 Issue 102

by John Merchant

Among her many talents, my mother was an avid and successful gardener. She had received only a rudimentary education as a child, but taught herself horticulture as an adult through extensive and constant reading. Gardening magazines and reference books were never far from her side, and she knew the Latin names for all of her plants, and those of her neighbors.

Though she grew some vegetables, and always had an herb garden, most of her energies went into cultivating rockery and flowering herbaceous plants, and tending her extensive rose garden. Her first gifts to me when I had a house of my own were pruning shears, garden implements and rose cuttings.

Her hybrid rose collection included old established favorites: “Ena Harkness” comes to mind, but as the years passed she added new varieties, usually to mark some occasion. Two “Peace” rose bushes were planted after the end of World War II, and later some Floribunda. Later still came exotic varieties like “Pewter,” but her favorites were always the old established varieties that seemed to have more intense perfumes.

The garden soil was heavy with blue clay, which was not ideal for most plants since it didn’t drain well, but the roses thrived on it, helped by liberal applications of horse manure. During my childhood, many of the suppliers of meat and tea and produce used horse drawn wagons to deliver orders, so horse droppings were plentiful, but in great demand. It was my job to beat out the neighbors to the fresh deposits.

There was a saying back then that roses grow in spite of gardeners rather than because of them, but there were always tasks to be performed. In the spring, the dead wood had to be pruned out, and the earth around the roots firmed where it had “heaved” in the winter freezes and thaws.

Summer was a time to cut off “sucker” stems, remove dead flowers and spray for aphids. At the end of the season, the bushes were pruned back to reduce wind resistance and reduce the shaking that would have loosened the soil around the roots. Climbing and rambler roses needed checking to make sure the ties that held them in place would hold up under the weight of the winter snow.

Our garden was sheltered by high privet hedges on either side, and by a dense wood at the end. This seclusion helped the roses to continue blooming well into the early winter most years, and we waited with growing anticipation to see if we would have a “Christmas Rose.” More often than not the bushes would yield three or four blooms to brighten our festive table.

My mother loved all of nature, especially trees, with the exception of the trees that overhung our garden and robbed her plants of light. The autumn added to her antipathy as the falling leaves accumulated, and she needed to clean out the flowerbeds almost daily with a small hand rake.

Throughout the growing season she maintained a small, slow burning garden fire, kept smoldering night and day by a cover of green weeds and grass. On a still day, the blue smoke spiraled upwards in a thin, fragrant column. Autumn leaves and rose prunings added pyrotechnics to the pyre that appealed more to my childish sense of drama.

They also intensified the smoke’s fragrance, which clung to my mother’s clothes and hair in a very pleasing way. To this day, the smell of wood smoke immediately transports me to my mother’s garden, and to an enduring image of the last rose, surrounded by the frost crusted, dry leaves.

© John Merchant 2010

This entry was posted by John Merchant on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Theme of the Month. You can be notified of any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment in the box at the bottom of the post.

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