Gardener's diary

My denuded rose garden after hours of hard work this Saturday. I was left with sore hands after gripping the shears and a few scratches after I had impatiently tossed off the leather gloves.  My technique is first to tackle those straggly winter roses with the hedge shears. Does that make you experts flinch?  This is a tip I picked up from a DVD on rose pruning by an Australian expert. After chopping the spindly canes to a manageable size and removing the debris, I return with the pruning shears and  begin to prune with care.

 Altogether I pruned approximately 45 bushes throughout the garden. Standards, miniatures in pots, climbers, which incidentally I believe benefit from pruning, tea roses and floribundas.  Now I m ust spray them them with lime suphur, build up the  moats and fill  them with my own homegrown compost.

These are the roses in early summer glory in Vienna.

Ruth and I celebrated the roses of Vienna with two poppy seed pastries and cappucinos on a park bench on a hot, sticky Sunday in June.