I'm sure in a month you'll be reassuring me that my rose is not dying, but it's just it's natural cycle. :) good points, Sherry and eloquently put.

Anytime they don't look the same or perfect I panic. Like La France's canes look a bit greyish,... but apparently that's normal and not a disease. She's just different from my other roses. She certainly looks happy enough otherwise.

Sherry,
I think you're absolutely right, and it's a good observation.
Melissa

oh, wise one - we can really only provide a space for life to flourish. But, oh, the tenacity of the green fuse to catch and spark. Life will prevail from generation to generation. Sorry to be a bit niminy-piminy - feeling quite overwhelmed since life has certainly sparked in our household as our daughter has just announced her pregnancy. OMG, first grandchild!

wow congrats campanula! That's awesome!

regarding rose cycles, I think the tough part is knowing when it's a cycle and when it's the rose telling you it's unhappy.

Congratulations, Suzy!

Yes, yes, congratulations, Suzy!

Sherry

sorry to rudely hijack your thread, Sherry - which was, as always, interesting and observant, still feeling slightly dumbstruck as this news certainly came out of the blue. Big gulp, lots of composing myself ....now, granny, nana, just suzy, old bat? OH ....MY......GOD. I am barely an adult myself - can't drive, don't have credit cards, don't own a house, don't go to hairdressers or dress smart for work. Must buy an apron/frilly pinny and large shapeless cardigan and practice on the cat! I can knit though.

Hey, grandmamas/nanas come in all kinds and flavors, but they're all beloved by their grandkids. I'm sure the new baby will love that you're "barely an adult". And cash works fine. Better get knittin'.

And there was nothing rude about your announcement. It was wonderful news - NOT a hijack.

Sherry

First congrats campanula!
Sherry, Haven't been on in awhile but I was just searching through posts seeing what has been going on and came across your post. You are so right. I got discouraged by both the horrible eating and sucking insects destroying my roses this summer. I have had hardly a bloom all summer and normally have roses blooming from spring into December. The leaves (what was left after the horrible insects destroyed much of them) all started yellowing and falling off and like you said I was seeing the inside of roses once so lush and healthy and covered in blooms. I was so upset. I didn't know what was going on, even my knockouts yellowed and were almost naked! I thought like you they either needed something or had too much of something. Then the other week I was checking out some youtube video's from Ashdown Roses. Well it was about summer care tips and he was saying how not too panic when in the hottest months of the year your once healthy lush roses were now yellowing and and the leaves falling off. He said it is normal as the rose goes into a semi dormant stage and the leaves fall off to conserve energy and protect itself. Well this has been for sure one of the hottest summers I can remember since moving here 14 years ago. Now as it is slowly cooling off my roses have leafed out again and are blooming! I'm so happy as I had almost given up and thought what's the use but now I'm about to place my fall order. :O) ~Meghan

Congratulations, campanula. One thing is certain, your grandchild will never have a boring grandmother - I think you'll make many wonderful memories for her/him. I can already see a little person with his own tiny plot in granny's allotment.

Sherry, I think you've wonderfully described the roller coaster nature of gardening. Recent experience: Great joy in the morning when Mme. Lambard, that I've been babying for ages with little success, is putting out lovely little new leaves and I can finally say it's going to be okay. In the late afternoon I'm as close to tears as I've ever been about a rose when I see that rabbits have almost completely denuded said rose. It now sits behind a barrier at least a foot high of viciously thorned rose canes that I cut off neighboring Glamis Castle that I've grown to dislike. There are a hundred examples such as you've named where we don't know what to do or how to feel because the darned things are not behaving as WE want. Celine Forestier is almost completely denuded of leaves and Reve d'Or ain't far behind. Souvenir d'un Ami on the other hand looked more beautiful than I'd ever seen it last week and now is merely okay. Can't even look at the back garden because every $#@^% band/small rose is surrounded by a circle of thorns. Marie van Houtte is a big (actually small) nothing after three years in the ground and will have to be moved. The SdlM in that area is a stick with five leaves. Thank goodness the one on the other side of the house is growing and blooming nicely. I can't call the garden a success or a failure at any time because it always seems to be both. As I keep discarding roses (giving them to a friend who's starting her own rose garden from my rejects), the prospect of having a mature rose garden retreats further and further into the future. The successes (or possible future successes) are always enough to keep me hooked on this game that I suspect I'm never going to win. And yet, and yet, there are days or moments (not so much at this time of the year but still remembered from last spring) when there is such beauty and perfection that it takes my breath away. Even now after the sun has gone down and the waning daylight is kind to all the imperfections, I feel so blessed and proud that this is my garden, that this is all perfect even with its many imperfections. The roses have their own lives to live and they get on with it according to their own timetables and needs; my wishes sometimes fall in with theirs and they'll allow me to guide them a little too, but often I'm just a lucky bystander who witnesses the process - and thinks it's wonderful.

Well, Ingrid, what is that saying? Same song, second verse? Here we are...gardeners. I am truly sorry about the rabbits, and I could feel your tears. Since I don't live in the wilderness, I probably would not be able to respond to the rabbits the way my temper would want - with some snake shot in a 22, but I would certainly erect fences around my bushes. I don't care how ugly it looked. I hope the thorny canes work. Hold out till the weather breaks and your roses will be beautiful again.

Clotilde Soupert is beautiful again, all covered with her lovely flowers. You'd never know she looked half dead a month ago. I guess she'll look half dead again this time next month.

Must be squirrels that did the damage in my garden. Went out much earlier than usual this morning to the sound of gushing water. Something had chewed through an elbow in the 1/2" poly feeding the climber side of the garden. No wonder the roses looked bad AND NO WONDER MY WATER BILL WAS SO HIGH WHEN IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN LOWER last month. I patched it with that silicone wrap "as seen on TV". Hope it works.

Never a dull moment.

Sherry

we are as up and down as our gardens though since the rest of life rudely intrudes. It is not uncommon for me to completely lose my gardening mojo a couple of times a year. January, goes without saying, a horrible month in the UK but August? After a dry and blistering June and July, August turned cold, wet and miserable - hardly any squashes, certainly not a melon in sight, a pitiful (so far) haul of tomatoes (although that does save the endless boiling, souping and saucing) and NO SECOND FLUSH OF ROSES to speak of yet. It feels like October and part of me is fed up and itching to have a bloody good clear-up, hack back the jungle and loaf around just thinking (instead of doing). And the weeds - turn your back for just a few days and with the wet weather, they have rampaged - large parts of the allotment are impassable because gigantic leaning sunflowers are lolling drunkenly, blocking my much too narrow paths. In a fit of rage, I have rained napalm death (Roundup) on the plots on either side of me since neither owner has appeared even once all summer and they are head high in fat hen, wild oats, dock and hoary cress....and about a million 2m high mallows with taproots growing to Australia. Have also cancelled a large bulb order as I am going to rein back on investing in the allotment plot and sort out my home garden this year so there will be no room for swathes of tulips which, admittedly look fabulous in April and May. Did order some roses though as I class them as tough plants ideal for an allotment. Yes, cycles are probably a good thing.
Cheers for the congrats everyone - am going to need lots of nice thoughts since Naomi, my daughter, is most certainly going to make the most of this whole pregancy thing - all very different from my childbirth days in the 70s when it was all non-intervention, natural this and that, work right up to delivery, get on with it stuff - can't help feeling that pregancy has become pathologised these days with immense fussing, faffing and special diets, supplements, blablabla......oh yeah, did i mention that the 'father' is a french trapeze artist or tattoo artist,(or maybe both, not sure, but sounds a bit of a dimbo), note to self, remain diplomatic, keep mouth ZIPPED.