Many thanks to the hardy volunteers who showed up to prunes roses Saturday in 17 degree weather! At least it was sunny and hot coffee helped a bit. This annual event marks the beginning of the volunteer season in the park- we assess winter damage to the plants and prune back to live wood, which this year was low on the canes, close to the mulch line.

Every year in the garden is different, and sometimes the roses benefit from tough love pruning. The amount of growth they put on in the spring and summer doesn’t seem to correlate to how hard they were pruned- they may still reach record heights. When you see (as we did last year) hybrid tea roses grow to five and six feet, well, those roses are happy.

The work consists of using hand pruners or long handled loppers to prune individual plants. The canes are thrown onto tarps spread out between the beds. When each tarp is full it is dragged to the city truck and loaded up to be driven away to the composting facility. Not including the climbing roses, there are about 11,ooo plants to prune. Garden supervisor Stephanie starts by herself in late winter, but this half day work session with several dozen volunteers assures that we won’t be cutting out dead canes all summer long. We don’t prune the climbing roses now, since they bloom on old wood. They will be cut back later in the spring, after blooming.

If you would like to learn more about growing and caring for roses, becoming a volunteer is a great way to get hands on experience and meet lots of other gardeners. Registration forms will be posted this week at www.parkofroses.org/support/volunteer. Contact me there if you have questions.