JanineThrossel.com

I usually love pruning my flower bed.   It's like giving my roses a haircut.  I  anticipate how lovely they'll look come summer. But yesterday's pruning was hard.   Even painful.   It felt less like a trim and more like surgery.     You see, I've been worried about one of our roses, a bush that was planted in our yard approximately 100 years ago.   It was full of flowers our first year on the property, but after I cut it back last year, it hardly bloomed.     That is rare.   Usually the right kind of pruning makes the roses stronger.   So, a friend who is a rosarian graciously came over for a look.     Last Spring's blooms on the Lady Banks She said the rose was perfectly healthy, and I hadn't hurt it at all.   In fact, it needed to be cut back even more.   Almost to the ground.   Though it was healthy, it had developed years of twists and turns that were hindering it from being t...

Well, first things first, right?   The roses.   I don't know if any of you prayed about it, but that splendorous rose I mentioned in my previous post?  It didn't reach half-bloom until the Friday of show week!   It was amazing!  I fully expected it to be over and done by then. So, here's the deal. . . Roses for judging are supposed to be cut when the sugar is highest.  That's in the early evening or early morning hours before the show.   But by early Saturday morning, more than 24 hours before the show, my rose was already two-thirds open.   If it blooms beyond three-quarters, it is disqualified.   So, I drove to the fairgrounds Saturday morning to meet with a rosarian (Yes, that's a real word.). "My rose is already at two-thirds. What do I do?!!?!?"   (Do you sense the panic there?   Can you feel it?) She told me to go ahead and pick it early, and do the regular prep routine for the pageant--I mean, show.   Th...

Well, I have to get something off my chest.   Years ago, I wrote a small newspaper piece that discussed the dreadful dangers of drag racing.   How terrible for our teens to engage in such risky behavior!   So, is it hypocrisy or maturity that drove me to the same (legal) track with my family to don a helmet and ride along with my husband?   To hold a bouncing iPod and try to video corners like this?  By the way, we had a blast in our closed course, racing against a clock.   So no worries, right?   I mentioned racing for pinks (wink) and one of my sons assured me that registrations are digital now and paper copies must be requested in advance from the DMV.   Ah. . . times, they are a-changin'. From there, I traded in exhaust fumes and helmet hair to something more seemly for a lady. . . .   tending my garden.   A few months ago, a friend enrolled me in a local rose society.   Once a month, she and I take a class in...