Mrs. Teabody Deals with Winter's Devastation

The First Knockout

Good Morning from the sunny side of the mountain where most of the trees have finally unfurled in all their green and gold glory. Nothing can quite compare with the lushness of this little interval between winter and summer . Lawns are perfectly trimmed to best showcase the  ponds of bright green that anchor each dwelling. Hopeful pots and fanciful containers filled with palettes of colors bright and soft sit along rural highways and next to doorways. Porch and window boxes drip petunias and  hold up geraniums. Even the self-proclaimed "Black Thumb" gardeners usually hang a basket of flowers on a shepherd's hook to celebrate this season of growth.  Last but not least are those who garden perennially, who dig and fertilize and prune and  water deeply through all the seasons. Such are the Teabodys although they are no match for some of the master gardeners whose roses make the covers of magazines, whose gardens never seem to be attacked by gladiator insects, whose shrubs are always greener and glossier. The Teabodys are glad to have something to aspire to and nothing if not critical.

Winter 2013 came on hard and fast and cold and it stuck like glue through March and most of April of 2014. The Teabodys headed out of doors to prune and fertilize their 33 roses in mid March over a span of two moderate days, dragging tarp and barrow after barrow of dry thorny branches to the compost. This process takes the gardener up close and personal to the ravages of winter and the Teabodys were not optimistic. None of the roses looked "right." As each bush was pruned of deadwood and extraneous canes, the Teabodys noted that there was not the slight greening of canes one usually finds. "Maybe they're just late this year," said Mr. Teabody as the last rose was fertilized and pruned. "I'm fearful," said Mrs. Teabody. "I don't think some of them made it."

A few weeks passed and the Teabodys kept a vigilant eye on the canes. Leaf buds swelled and popped but they were sparse and scattered. Most baffling of all was the Volkswagen-sized Knockout that was ten years old. Over the years it had hosted birds nests and preying mantis pods, endured a two-cat takedown and being backed over by a car driven by a departing party guest. Truly it was the heartiest, most reliable rose of the lot -- a seemingly indestructible member of the border. And it was in distress.

By the first week in May the Teabodys had to face the facts. Fully half of the roses had not made it through the winter. They knew the shoots at the  base of many of the roses were coming from rootstock - - would never be again the Abraham Darby, the Crown Princess Margareta, the Glamis Castle, the Gertrude Jekyl. But it wasn't just the tender, sensitive English varieties that had somehow lost their way during the long harsh winter. Even the hardiest plants had succumbed to the blasts of wind and snow and freezing rain. The onslaught had  proved too much.

The Teabodys took a visit to Buck Run Nursery to look for replacement Knockouts and as they strolled the grounds with the owner's barky little dog, they happened upon bag after bag of lifeless rose stalks. The owner emerged to call the winter the hardest in her twenty-three years. "I lost plants in the greenhouse, the one with the heated floor. It just wasn't enough. I lost more this winter than all the other winters combined," she said sadly. The Teabodys bought three Knockouts and a euonymous and headed home up over the mountain where the redbud forrest still retained vestiges of magenta.

As they traveled home quietly, Mrs. Teabody recalled winter's first blow, the death of a lifelong friend whose loss still stings as though it happened yesterday. How trivial is the loss of a rose when compared to the loss of a loved one. If only it were so easy to replace a beloved mother, a revered father, a son whose eyes and smile could waken the dullest spirit. If only,

As the maxim goes: "Life goes on." And so it does. It will take some getting used to--seeing a Knockout where Abraham Darby used to grow or a Knockout replacing Crown Princess Margareta-- and none of these replacements will give the same joy and delight as their tender predecessors but if the climate grows tougher, the plants must be hardier. Gardening, like marriage, is always the triumph of hope over experience. Mrs. Teabody deeply regrets the loss of your roses over the winter, Gentle Reader. Let everyone be hopeful of milder winters to come.