Resuscitating ramblers
A scuffle with a JCB leaves a rambler in tatters, but luckily Toby can save the day by making some hardwood cuttings
OIL and water, Meghan and the Royals, and… err, bath tubs and toasters: some things just don’t mix. And the same is true of builders and plants.
When I heard the rumble of heavy machinery inside the old walled kitchen garden where I work, I knew there would be trouble. And sure enough, there it was, the garden equivalent of Kryptonite – a builder in a digger, clawing at the soil.
His job was to level the paths, but being keen to ‘tidy’ the place up, he had also scraped the beds where, a year ago, I’d lovingly planted a row of rambling roses to clamber over the walls. And now, here they were – gone into the bucket of a JCB.
I couldn’t really blame the driver (although I did), as from up in his cab the wiry briars looked like brambles, but what I could do was administer CPR and replant the roots back in the soil.
Ramblers have iron-clad constitutions and, if pruned hard and kept watered, they’ll bounce back from almost any rough treatment. And dibbers crossed, there’s also life left in the bundle of snapped stems.
Hardwood rose cuttings can be taken right through the dormant season, and although the ‘last orders’ bell might have rung, there’s still time to get ’em in. The trick is to choose pencil-thick stems that are glossy green or bright burgundy, indicating that they grew last summer.
I put them in the water butt to hydrate for a few hours, and then cut them into 10in (25cm) lengths and trimmed just above a bud at the top and just below another at the bottom.
The traditional method is to slide the cuttings ‘up to their armpits’ in slits made with a spade in the soil. Mulched and watered, they would be ready to move to where they’re wanted in a year’s time. However, in order to speed mine along, I’ve sunk them into deep ‘long tom’ pots that were saved after planting clematis.
With just the top buds showing, and with the heat of the propagation bench below, they’ll grow away and be ready for potting on individually and planting out by autumn. But obviously, somewhere the builders won’t find them…
“The trick is to choose pencilthick stems”