The Ice Man cometh

Most of us in the UK are still in the grip of winter, either under snow, frost or water! It really has been a strange winter, but as older people keep telling me, it is what winters used to be like! I can certainly remember a couple of really cold, snowy winters when I was a child, but do have to admit that they are very faint in my memory. However, I suppose we have been lulled into a false sense of security over the last couple of decades.

So now the wake-up call, and OK this is winter. However, I am still longing for the first really firm signs of spring. Still no camellias yet! Over the winter months I have kept myself busy with the computer, family history or just surfing in general. I look out at the window and pine for the warmer days when I can go outside and do things. With regard to the computer I have just got used to Facebook (yes I have a page but Lord knows why), You Tube (on which one can find endless entertainment!) and now comes along something called Twitter. What the hell twitter is I have no idea. It just looks like a text service to me, but I suppose I will have to have a twitter page now. It is rather like being unfashionable wearing the wrong label, if you haven't got a twitter or facebook page you are somehow out of it. Ah well!

I have managed to get out and do some rose pruning. It is always easier to prune and prune correctly when the rose has no foilage. You can then always give them another clean up when the leaves start growing if you feel you need to. The euphorbias have looked good this last few months but after severe frost, such as we have had, they can look a bit dejected. However, many of them recover but if they are very blackened and sad it is perhaps best to give them a chop and leave them for another year. I have to confess I am not a lover of euphorbia, and I do have a lot spreading around my garden which at times gets a bit out of hand.

At least in the garden things stay the same to some respect and proceed in an orderly fashion. Yes there are changes in garden design and art and form, but generally speaking we do not have to constantly update our knowledge as one has to do with a computer or technology in general. Planting is planting, staking is staking, roses are roses and the seasons - well yes - in general they are the seasons. A time to do things - spring, summer, autumn and winter. The roses don't need a twitter page but they do need a good feed and the time will be drawing near when the ground gets warmer and they will benefit from the first feed of the year.

I tend to spray for black spot around the beginning of March before the foilage gets really well established. It really never makes any difference but I feel better about it. I just accept the leaves dropping off mid July and that is that. I also put down sulphur chippings around the base of the rose, this can help, but again in a climate like Cumbria you really do have to keep the battle up to stop the advance of blackspot. Some of the newer rose varieties are resistent but few really 100%.

So now I am off to twitter somehwere else. Just keep counting-down the weeks because it has got to be spring soon! I hope!