"4. Don't expect to become an expert anytime soon."

LOL! Harmony, is there REALLY any such thing? An "expert" is honestly someone who knows ONE more thing than you do, or one more thing than anyone around you knows. It's also a has-been drip. Ralph Moore used to love saying, "Just when you think you know the rules, the rose changes them!" and he was SO right! Roses and Mother Nature have real senses of humor and both are ready to stick a stick in your spokes, throwing you over the handlebars just as soon as they feel you're getting too big for your britches!

We love looking at things as "on" and "off" situations. Do this and that will always occur, but it ain't necessarily so. All of it is like scale...do something on one side and it MIGHT result in the desired effect...unless one of the "it depends" decides to rare its obstinate head. I guess the best we can do to become "more expert" is to learn the "it depends" and take them into consideration when we encounter a question. Another of Mr. Moore's favorites..."The rose will find the way". Little we can do to/for them is actually going to hurt them in the long run, as long as it isn't anything really stupid! Fortunately, in relatively benign climates, it's really hard to kill a rose. Dump a pound of inorganic fertilizer against the shank and that will do it. Keep them in the house as house plants and that will likely do it. Treat them as bog plants or never provide them water and that will probably accomplish their murder, but barring anything that obvious, most are going to survive in spite of "us". Kim

Sounds like you had a really good rose season, Harmony. You learned about and from your roses. Congrats on your cuttings and I can't wait to see some of those seedlings!

All terrific lessons for all of us. Here's one that I'm resolving to remember this year after a bad 2012 for different reasons (sympathies on the $^&*% gophers!):

- Notice the rose not the deadheading, or its related rule for this year - Notice and enjoy the roses that survived and don't count all the ones that died. I actually find deadheading a fun part of rose gardening, but sometimes I find myself leaping into it with a little too much focus and not taking the time to step back and appreciate the rose itself or the peacefulness of the garden as a whole. The whole reason we grow roses is to enjoy roses, but I get distracted by the work or worry in various tasks. I need to spend more time stepping back and saying "Dang, that looks nice" even if it's only a small patch or "When we moved in this was nothing but grass and a few trees".

Thanks for sharing these lessons, harmonyp.

Cynthia

I'm a slow learner but last year it began to sink in that I'm not really in control of my garden, and I need to discard the belief that I am. Nature controls, and all I can do is try to be a facilitator to help the plants do their best.

I've had to let go of the idea that I'll ever have a totally mature garden since there are always plants that need to be replaced for various reasons, and tiny little bands put in their place take their time to make a show. Dry heat and decomposed granite don't encourage plants to grow like weeds (although the weeds do!) so patience is another virtue I'm trying to acquire.

I'm too critical of my garden and need to enjoy the successes instead of wallowing in the failures. That will be easier once we're closer to the spring flush!

harmony, your list is very insightful and shows great understanding.

Ingrid

My big lesson this year was that I have a lot less sun than I thought. All my lilies that were up against the house bent nearly horizontal to try to keep in the sun as the day passed. Had to move all of them, which meant FIND a place to put them. Lilies have always been fool proof for me up to now. Finding them places to grow that weren't in the middle of the driveway was difficult, and there isn't any 'back of the bed' area for them with sufficient sun, so I'll just have to look at them while they brown and wither away. I could and would plant them along the driveway where they'd get sun all day, but my daughter has parked her dead car smack in my way, and I don't know when it's getting towed away. My learning curve as to what will grow here was a lot steeper than expected, because my winters here can hit high 20's (which killed a lot of stuff) and my previous lows were low 40's, high 30's, and I am SO shady (which killed nothing, but many things were less than pleased).

BUT - my Cl Cecile Brunner is really happy where I planted her, and when she blooms she'll be great! After trotting her around in a half barrel for years, where she bloomed every year but never got really large, she's happy to be in the ground. Once I get the bigger things situated, I can start shuffling around the smaller things. All my narcissus etc. are in a wire cage that is barely deep enough because I had to dig it in the Not Digging Season. I could move it now, but I don't know where I'd put it, so it's going to have to wait until next year at the earliest. I need the bones of the bed settled before I play with the rest of it.

There were so many lessons this year, a lot of them learned on this forum. Irrigation was the biggest aha. Changing to ever larger volume drip emitters for three years in a row wasn't working. In rocky fast draining soil, watering straight down doesn't allow roots to spread because the soil all around them stays dry. My roses on overhead sprinklers have always done better. I plugged the tubes into fountain type emitters on their own stakes. They water the ground all around the roses not just in one or two spots straight down. Huge difference and the spider mites are gone. I can actually water a shorter cycle and get a better result.

My newest resolution is to research a rose in a local rose grower's garden or check here before I buy it. I only have room for about 70 roses and finding out I bought something that is going to become a monster results in a lot of reshuffling. Mary

Pretty much everything I think I have learned will be forgotten in the heat of aquisition or the ridiculousness of dreams and caprices. It happens every year. Unless I was to tattoo a new resolution on my forehead, it will vanished into obscurity in a matter of weeks.

Too true. If the nursery doesn't have anything on my list I come home with something else. Happens every year.

I've been gardening since I was twenty(62 now) and my rose garden is 18 years old. There are lessons every year. Imagine what a bore it would be to have nothing new to learn.

Thank you for this thread, Harmonyp. I seem to have to learn some of the same lessons over and over. Just within the last week or so I've relearned that however dismal I feel about the rose garden in the withering heat of August and September (and this year in the withering heat of October as well), the sight of roses starting to leaf out after their winter "pause" (no real dormancy here) is a huge lift--not just about the garden, but about life in general.
Oh, and I've also relearned something about companion planting. No matter what the box says or the expert at the nursery tells you, "never needs staking" is always a lie. Always.

Kay

The biggest lessons for me this year were:

1. Things don't always work out as planned. Sometimes its even better than I envisioned and sometimes I wonder 'what was I thinking?'

2. Some of my best results have been accidental dumb luck. I planted a rose (that I later found out likes 'humidity') where the vent for the clothes dryer emits warm moist air. It loves it there. Lesson = try something different it might just work!

3. How can something that smells so bad work so well? Alfalfa tea, liquid fish emulsion, etc.

4. Kelp meal really works for me to reduce disease.

5. The collective knowledge of the board is amazing. Roseseek - thank you for your detailed posts to my questions. Kstrong and Jeri thank you for your comments on coastal roses that work or don't work in your gardens. Thanks to everyone for their willingness to share their experience and for asking the questions I don't know enough to even ask.

6. Why do some roses look better than the pictures and some not nearly as good? Lesson: it's best to see the rose in person before buying it, DUH.

7. Enjoy the garden!

Happy gardening this spring!
Lee

These boards are such a great resource. So much good information I don't read elsewhere. Alfalfa really is amazingly stinky but looks so benign in the bag. A few pellets in a bucket can perfume the whole neighborhood. Rose growing does seem to have a lot of new lessons each year-certainly more than my hotspot okra and eggplant bed. Mary