Rose Gardening Gloves

 

I never thought the melodic strains of Greensleeves would come to mind while looking at gardening gloves. Isn’t this pair a showstopper? They’re leather and suede––so pretty I’d almost wear them with my good black coat.
They belong to my friend and client, Marilyn Rose (nice name). Thanks to her, I now have a pair of proper rose pruning gloves.

In January, while pruning the rose garden I designed for her, Marilyn began helping me, wearing these beautiful gloves. They were a Christmas present from her husband Fred. I admired them so many times and even took pictures. Marilyn finally said, “Carolyn you can get some for yourself on the way home. Navelets, the store where Fred bought them, is just left of the freeway onramp.”
I went to Navelets, but first I must show you the gloves I wore at Marilyn’s. I’ve probably gone through forty pairs of these gloves since I’ve been growing roses, but do they protect my forearms? No. I’m one of those rustic types who romanticizes my rose wounds. When I found my blood on the petals of a white rose––I thought it was a secret poem between me and said rose––I think it was ‘Evening Star’.
I liked the hardy rubber-coated gloves so much––I even photographed them just out of the dryer. Yes, they’re washable. But that’s no reason to go around with rose wounds.

Last spring, while visiting rose gardener Pamela Temple, I caught a glimpse of her well-worn gauntlets in her mudroom. A faint thought, I should have some of those, went through my head.
Gauntlets? What a word. Webster says, “They are stout gloves with a long loose wrist.”

Navelets was out of stock in my size of the green leather and suede gloves, but they had plenty more to choose from. I settled on an ultra sturdy pair. The next week I tried them out in another client’s garden and wondered how I could possibly have done without them all these years.

The green gloves are made of premium goatskin by Gardenworks. The Womanswork leather gloves are washable and 100% breathable. The rubber coated shorties will always be in my kit, but now, when it comes to pruning roses I’ll grab my gauntlets.
  http://rosenotes.typepad.com/rose_notes/2009/02/gardening-gloves.html

Favorite Garden Tools

Got gardening tasks? The tools rule.

 

Moving a 15-gallon can of Rosa Rouletii is easier with the help of a dolly.

By Carolyn Parker

On a recent Saturday morning, a woman from up the street marveled at how easily I managed to move a 15-gallon potted rosebush 20 feet to its planting hole.
How did I do it? With a dolly, or what some call a hand truck. I use ours constantly.
Stacks of bricks, big stones and bags of potting soil move with ease perched on a dolly. On garden design jobs, I always suggest that my clients invest in one. My husband bought ours years ago at Home Depot. With a dolly, I feel like Superwoman when I'm moving heavy objects around the garden.
Favoritism rules when I think of my garden tools. My least favorite is the ubiquitous garden hose; my most favorite tool varies by the job.

A pickax is a must-have if you're digging holes. Of course shovels are great, but a sturdy pickax will slice through packed earth and deepen your planting hole faster than a shovel. I use ours in tandem with a shovel.
The blade side of a pickax will also peel up sod with ease if you have a mind to widen your rose beds.

One tool that I especially liked was swallowed up by the soil it had just loosened. It was a small hand scythe that I purchased for 40 rupees in India. Simple but perfect — and hand-wrought — it was a wonder tool. Weeds came up with no fuss, small planting holes appeared with a few strokes, and soil crumbled under its swipe.
I lost it while gardening one cold winter day. I looked and looked for it,but it was hopelessly buried. While planting a rosebush last spring, it reappeared, corroded and unusable. I kept it, though. Maybe I'll ask a metal worker to try to reproduce it.

Some years ago, I perused a wall of hoes and rakes at a garden center. Among the many styles, I chose a four-pronged claw attached to a long handle. The tool became surprisingly indispensable. It's great for working in fertilizer, finessing mulch or soil into the right place, and for crushing dirt clods. The tool feels graceful in my hands, as if I were an artist wielding a paintbrush.
On impulse recently, I stopped in at Smith & Hawken in Walnut Creek and came away with two fabulous purchases — a non-kinking hose and a collapsible kneeler seat. My knees have bothered me recently and this handy product really saved them the other day. I cut back fleabane along both sides of a 17-foot-long brick path while sitting on the sturdy foam seat. If I flip it over, the seat becomes a comfortable knee rest for weeding and small planting jobs.
As for the hose, the salesman said I could bring it back if it didn't live up to its non-kinkability. So far it has; however, it's a bit heavier than most hoses. I don't think the new hose will be a favorite anytime soon, but I'm happy with no kinks.

Planting sweet peas

October is the perfect time to plant sweet peas. They grow well with roses and mix beautifully in arrangements. Orchard Nursery has a great selection — I bought five packets the other day. In the white rose section of my garden, I'm going to plant Royal White sweet peas on a white metal tuteur.
In the apricot section, there's a sage-colored wood tuteur that would look good with a sweet pea called Orange Streamer. I saw this treatment of tuteurs in the rose bed, in England, and think it will be fun to try. Another idea is to plant a few sweet peas at the base of climbing roses that are on a fence, arbor, or trellis.
I always soak sweet pea seeds overnight so they'll germinate faster. They are the most foolproof seeds I know, and frost doesn't hurt them. Snails like them, though, and birds might go for new shoots.   http://www.rosesfromatoz.com/rose-tools.html