February Pruning Checklist

Are You Ready for Pruning Season? 

February is the time to prune rose bushes.  Pruning a rose bush prepares it for the next growing season by focusing the plant's energy into the strongest canes.  By cutting out the diseased, dead, or weak canes, you are giving the rose bush a healthy foundation for new growth.  Make sure you have the proper tools before starting and print off our pruning checklist at the end of this article to help guide you through the process.  Happy pruning!

What Do I Need to Prune?

1.  Make sure your pruners are up to the task Before you even step outside, make sure your pruners are free of rust and burrs.  Sharpen them with a tool sharpener and clean off the rust with a multi-purpose lubrication oil.  If your pruners have been neglected for a few seasons, you may need to replace the blade or get them professionally cleaned and sharpened at Witherspoon.  By keeping your pruners sharpened you will put less strain on you body and reduce the risk of accidents.  Most pruning accidents happen when the gardener is fighting the tool.  Make your pruners work for you and stay safe by keeping them properly sharpened!

2.  Protect your hands and arms by wearing gauntlet gloves Rose gardeners know that you will occasionally have to pull a thorn or two or a millon out of your hands and arms legs body etc.  However, there are gloves out there that will make pruning season easier on your hands and arms.  Gauntlet gloves not only protect your hands, but they also cover your forearms.  Trust me, when you are reaching into the center of your Falling in Love rose bush to prune out the center, you will want gauntlet gloves!

3.  Have a place for your clippings to go Imagine this scenario.  You have just pruned your entire rose garden only to turn around and see piles of thorny clippings waiting to be picked up and hauled away.  If only you had thought to contain the clippings as you go!  Having a heavy duty waste bag will save you from the heartache of cleaning up an entire gardens worth of clippings from off the ground.

4.  Heal and protect your hands and cuticles It is easy to forget how much we use our hands until we are painfully reminded with cracked skin and sore cuticles.  Make your life easier by taking care of your hands!  Use a healing salve or lotion to keep your skin moisterized and healthy during the cold, dry winter months.

5.  Witherspoon's Pruning Checklist  Now that you have everything you need to prune your roses, make sure you know how to prune like a pro!  We have compiled a checklist of everything you need to know about pruning your roses.  Print out this handy checklist and take it with you as a guide!

Click Here to Print Witherspoon's Free Pruning Checklist! 

Do you want some hands on experience pruning roses BEFORE you prune your own garden?

Come to one of Witherspoon's FREE Pruning Classes!

 February 15th - 20th - 22nd

@10am

Classes Held at BOTH Locations - Click Here for Directions 

2014 Roses Have Arrived!

Durham has been dreary and cold for the past couple of months.  Few sunny days have interrupted our cloudy days with rays of bright warmth.  The dismal winter months can be hard on rose lovers.  Once you winterize your rose beds, there is not much to do except crack open the Witherspoon Catalog and dream about the new roses you are going to add to your garden in the spring.

2014 Catalog - Click photo to browse our catalog

Even when the days are cold (well what we North Carolinians consider cold) and wet, here at Witherspoon we are always working hard to provide the best roses for your garden.  The gardens are quiet, but here at the shop we are getting ready to unload, grade, and pot up approximately 24,000 roses.  That’s right, 24,000!

Unloading the refrigerated truck from Weeks

The first step in the process is to unload boxes of bareroot roses from refrigerated trucks that traveled from the sunny state of California all the way to Durham, North Carolina.  These boxes of roses have been carefully packed in wet moss and kept around 35° F.  This insures that the roses stay dormant for the entire trip across the country!

Bareroot roses ready to be graded and pruned

We then proceed to unpack and grade the roses.  Here at Witherspoon, we only sell premium grade one roses.  A grade one rose is two years old and has been meticulously pruned to produce at least three strong healthy canes.  Each bareroot is inspected to make sure it meets our standards before it is trimmed up and prepared for potting or placed in cold storage.

Potting Station

Our cold storage unit is 1000 square feet and is kept around 36°.  This unit keeps all of our bareroots cool and moist until they are pulled out, trimmed up, and packaged for shipping or pickup.  We have guys who work in our cold storage unit for hours on end preparing bareroots to ship out as well as make sure that they stay within the proper temperature so that you, the customer, receive a bareroot rose that is healthy and will grow well for years to come.  We are very thankful that they are willing to work in such a cold environment to help us provide the healthiest bareroot roses possible.

Cold frames are filling up!

Even though we offer bareroot roses, the majority of our roses get potted up and grown out in our cold frames until the first of April.  The potting up process can be daunting, but all of the route managers and assistants come into Durham from our satellite locations to help pot up!  It is cold hard work, but seeing the cold frames fill up with pots of roses that will begin to leaf out is exciting!  While the landscape around us is asleep, lying in wait for the warmth of the spring sun, our cold frames are filled with roses ready to wake up and share the beauty and brilliance that only they can offer.

2015 Update:  winterFEST 2015 will be Jan. 23-24, 2015.  Pick out your new roses from the 2015 catalog.

Witherspoon's first sale of the year will be January 25th! 

Visit our Online Store or visit one of our Gardenshops to take advantage of...

$15 Bareroot Roses

$8 Premium Planting Mix

$5 Witherspoon Mini-Nuggets

$18 Witherspoon Planting Essentials

Witherspoon's Virtual Tour of Rose Gardens: Patty Roger's Garden

Welcome to Patty Roger's Garden

There is an excitement that surrounds waiting for a blossom to open.  Anticipation draws a gardener toward the bud over and over again in hope of catching an early glimpse into what that bud will blossom into.  This anticipation is one of Patty Rogers’ favorite things about growing roses.  As I spoke with Patty, I began to sense the joy she gets from her rose garden and how it fills a special place in her life.

Being a professional photographer, Patty is always searching for the perfect flower shot.  I can see her now, camera in hand, strolling through her garden on a quest.  Since About Face and Double Delight are two of her favorite roses, I am certain they are her first stops on her quest for the perfect shot.  When asked what about these roses she most enjoys, she replied with “Both the beauty and fragrance.  The appearance draws you in, while the fragrance holds you there.”

Patty is fairly new to growing roses, but she knows the joy of producing something so beautiful from your own backyard and enjoyment that comes from watching it grow.  As a young girl, she would work next to her Grandfather, who was an avid gardener, but while she was living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina she never had enough sunlight to grow roses.  She would stroll through the Sarah P. Duke Gardens to visit the roses.  The appearance of the roses would draw her in to visit, and the warmth of the fragrance would hold her captivated.  The time came when she moved from Chapel Hill to her new home on Real Quiet Lane.  Finally!  There was enough sun to plant her very own rose garden!  Now she is able to visit her roses every morning, which is by far her favorite thing about growing roses.  Even to the point that she feels a little selfish because she is jealous over her roses! 

As our conversation drew to a close, I asked her if she had any advice for people who are just now beginning their journey with roses.  The advice she gave was to visit other rose gardens before you plant your own in order to gain a better understanding of what you really like in a rose garden.  It is easy to become overwhelmed with all of the rose varieties and want to plant one of every variety in your bed.  So, she suggested that one consider planting an entire bed of the same variety for mass impact.

Patty’s journey began as a young girl learning to garden by her Grandfather’s side and it continues as she begins her new journey with growing roses.  She feels that there is a certain peace surrounding roses that embodies the name of her lane and considers her rose garden to be the crown jewel of her home on Real Quiet Lane.

Would you like for your garden to be featured in our virtual tour of gardens?  

Email Kelley Triplett at ktriplett@witherspoonrose.com

Witherspoon ships premier roses to all 48 contiguous states February- April.  

Visit witherspoonrose.com for product details

Witherspoon also provides professional rose care services.  We offer preventative and corrective spraying for pests and diseases, fertilizing, pruning, mulching, and planting.

Give us a call at 1-800-643-0315 to request a FREE onsite estimate.