Hi Everyone,
Deadheading?
When I bought my home, I inherited a lovely garden—roses, hollyhocks, lavender, ivy—forty years of growth. As I took possession in a November, I wasn’t truly aware of what might arise from that dark tangled mess of wet leaves, vines, grasses and topiary trees. Although saying that, I had had a peek when I’d agreed to purchase the house back in June, so I had a rough idea: a palette of pastel blooms in yellow, pink and green!
I wasn’t particularly bothered about what the garden might produce as I envisioned building (subject to planning permission) some sort of garden studio, all the rage since Covid 19, in the bottom third of the garden (on the Oxford canal) and increasing the value of my property. A garden? Didn’t a writing studio weigh heavier in the balance? Aren’t gardens loads of work? But as I dithered, the longer I lived in the house (989 days as of this writing), the more the garden piqued my curiosity.
That first winter, enticed by the odd glassy sheen covering my jungle from an icy night or a snowy morning, I said ‘okay’, a garden can be beautiful, inspiring, deserving of space. As we moved through November, January, February and into March, when spring arrived so did the first few delicate snowdrops. A wild flower? Yup, I was touched by that strange beauty emerging from a dark and frozen earth. Was I becoming British, where gardening and dogs seem to be second nature?
Was I really watching the odd BBC gardening programme—Gardeners’ World—while doing my 60 minutes on the gym treadmill? I was beginning to get it, the varied seasons, the uncontrolled life, the loving touch of manure and bug spray, as well as appreciating that lovely ivy arch in my garden through which I often spied a swan on the canal first alone and then with her three (sometimes four) cygnets.
Someone once said, “Oh you will get to know the garden.” I was clueless—know the garden?—but my postage stamp of greenery has become a personality on her own, sometimes showering me with billowy bouquets of purple roses originating from Provence, or the odd wild strawberry, even raspberry. But sometimes she holds back, and I am in horror that a bush once so prolific produces nothing. (Mmmmh? More manure perhaps?)
I really don’t like to research. I like to guess: the basics, water, sunlight, soil, love? But the word ‘deadhead’ had been suggested many times. To me that sounded unnecessary, barbaric, surgical, needing a horticultural licence of some sort, but I had to step up to the plate. My roses that once seemed to abound were drying up and disappearing. So I Googled, I asked my PA whom I invested with superior agricultural prowess, and then with gloves and shears or even just with bare hands (on the less thorny ones) I jumped in.
So what is deadheading? Deadheading is snipping the dead heads of those lovely roses that have grown brown, petals fallen, leaving nothing but a rosehip. (Technically there is a point to cut—45 degree angle arguably—just below the flower on the stem above a leaf with five leaflets.) How could such slaughter result in bounty? I wasn’t sure. So this year I gave it a go, and yes, I live to tell the tale (as do my roses). A second round of blossoms have appeared, lightly cascading down over my front door, and in the far corner of the garden with the shyest of plants, the French Rose (Rosa gallica) and the bossy, overblown, needing to be staked Tea Rose (Rosa hybrida).
The moral of the story? Listen to what I am told, be still, cut off the dead bit, and let go? Multiply? Perhaps so!
Wishing you an abundant and fearless August, deadheading wherever your instincts tell you to snip, nick, trim or clip!
Love,