I find myself cogitating on odd topics while I'm gardening. Maybe it's the solitary nature of it. Or maybe it's the weird situations I find myself in as I adventure through the gardening year. Sunday it was space suits. Kinda. I was at that moment wrestling with a dangerous alien creature that had embraced me with flesh-ripping tentacles and I thought about how useful a space suit with helmet would have been at that moment. Also, moon boots. And those big gloves. And maybe one of those tractor carts with telescoping arms and useful tools at the end. Ok, it was just a rose bush but the flesh-ripping part is real.
January is the pruning season. Five of my 20-odd rose bushes are climbers that have reached massive proportions-Francis Lester, Dortmund, Pax, Madam Alfred Carriere and Cecil Brunner. They all are fully armed and dangerous at close range. I never--repeat never--venture into them without plastic eye goggles, leather gloves that reach to my elbows, and as many layers of clothing as possible to prevent flesh punctures. Tools include a fiberglass telescoping tree trimmer (heavy, cumbersome, and the cut canes invariably land on your face), pruning shears, a coarse-toothed saw, and my trusty Felco clippers.
Dortmund, a cherry red bloomer with claw-like downward curving thorns, had crushed the metal arbor supposedly holding it up. I had to extricate the tubing piece by piece from the interior of the plant. Imagine a game of Twister with a porcupine. So much for cheap trellis ideas.
Posted by briggs at January 20, 2004 1:58 PM