By Tim King
Special to the Leader
I recently visited a beautiful rose garden fully engulfed in color and fragrance. In a square plot about 30 feet across, stood more than 25 rose bushes of different sizes, shapes and colors. On this day, after several days of sunshine and intermittent showers, the blossoms seemed to have reached their zenith with each bud stretching in the sun and bursting with color.
While most were still in full bloom, there was a circle of spent rose petals on the ground around a few of the early blooming varieties.
Viewed from above, the shriveled up blossoms reminded me of the chalk-line used by the police to indicate where a crime has occurred. Luckily, in this case, there was no crime, but rather the natural progression of life.
All spring, I had wanted to revisit this place since I first stumbled across it last winter purely by chance. That cold and windy day, rather than take the route that I usually followed – along the Penobscot River Walk in Westbrook – I decided to head out in the opposite direction to see what I could see.
Now, due to the paved sidewalks I was walking on, it was virtually impossible to determine if this was in fact the proverbial “road less taken” ...but it certainly did deliver me to a place that I would never have known existed within the harsh urban landscape of Main Street in Westbrook.
That winter day, my curiosity was piqued by a relatively unsightly pile of pine branches carefully crisscrossing a raised plot of land. In one corner, a single small sign protruded up from the pile with the words “Whitney Rose Garden” proudly withstanding the cold winds in raised white lettering.
Soon after my visit, the snow came and it continued to fall for many months. In the back of my mind, I would sometimes think about the Rose Garden now patiently waiting under a blanket of snow, ice, rock salt and road grime.
Yes, this wonderful oasis of color is located precariously at the crossroads of no less than four major routes. The plot stood no more than 15 feet from the road and was constantly bombarded with exhaust fumes, sand and salt. Victory Garden it was not.
Fast-forward a few months. On this early summer day, I decide to chance a quick trip back to the Rose Garden under threatening skies filled with heavy clouds and something the weathermen are now calling ‘disruptive sunshine.’
By now, I found that the pine boughs have long since been removed and each rose bush is now full of new growth, prickly stems and glossy green leaves. I can also see now that the garden was a created as a gift. A small granite slab proclaims “Planted in Memory of Dr. Ralph and Mildred Whitney. Donated by the Percy Conant Family – June 1983.”
Now here I was visiting the place 25 years later – June 2008. As I walked back to my office, I began to wonder about the Whitney and Conant family and specifically why they were forever linked by this perennial plot of bountiful color and life.
Unfortunately, a quick Google search turned up very little. Not surprising since any news about the dedication would have occurred before there actually was an Internet. In time, I plan to talk to some of the long-time residents and businesses in the area to see if I could learn anything more.
As I mentioned, the Rose Garden is located at a major intersection of several busy roads in Westbrook. Spending some time at this crossroads, with drivers zipping past more concerned with merging safely into traffic than looking at flowers, I sit and realize that we’ve also reached a crossroads in the growing season.
Where nature has pretty much taken care of itself for these first weeks of spring and summer, how well or poorly our gardens perform from here on in is a direct result of the amount of time, energy and attention we, as gardeners are prepared to give it. After all, we gardeners have very little to do with getting tulips, crocuses or lilies emerging from the ground. They pretty much take care of that on their own. This is also true of most perennials, roses included.
However, it is at this point in the year when many flowers and vegetables will call upon us to help them survive in times of drought, invasions from pests, disease and prune them in order to promote healthy, sustainable growth.
Yes, this is the time of year that separates the gardening ‘men from the boys’ – of any gender. While just about anyone can get spring bulbs to pop every year, it takes much more effort to faithfully tend to vegetables, deadhead perennials, weed out weeds and train climbers to grow where you want them to.
It’s an important time of the year and some of the things that need to be done can seem counter-intuitive. For example, remember the chrysanthemums I spoke of planting (rather than just decorating with) last fall? By now, the plant’s new growth should have emerged and last year’s dead stalks cut away. While these thick green stems are not much to look at now, here’s a tip for getting their late summer / early fall blooms to be all they can be.
Cut them back - by half. Now.
Yes, cut back the stalks halfway to the ground. ‘Pinching back’ the stems will promote lateral growth (instead of vertical) resulting in many more flower blooms in the fall. At first, I found this advice hard to swallow. How could removing nearly six inches of perfectly good growth be a good thing? Trust me though, it works.
After all, I guess there is something to the idea of stepping back, slowing down growth and stopping to smell the roses. I wish the people who speed by the Whitney Rose Garden twice a day would do the same thing instead of honking their horns at each other– I’m sure that’s what the Whitney and Conant families would have wanted too.
Tim King is a freelance writer who sees the forest and the trees from his home in Scarborough. He can be reached at - sylvan.sauntering@gmail.com