When Hurricane Sandy hit, I hadn’t yet pruned the ‘New Dawn’ rose that clambered up and over the tall metal arch that separates the upper and lower gardens. The rose was still throwing out the occasional shell pink bloom, and because I am both sentimental and pain-averse, I planned to put the prickly pruning confrontation off until after bulb planting.
The arch stayed anchored through Sandy’s onslaught, but finally toppled over after the snowy nor’easter nine days later. Having fallen to earth, the arch blocked access to the side of the house where the internet/television cable connected before the storm. Though the back garden is still piled high with fallen limbs that need my attention, my first task was to prune back the rose and get the arch moved so the cable technician can eventually get through to reconnect us.
Some of the oldest rose canes were an inch thick and rife with large thorns. I am sure those sturdy canes helped anchor the arch, even as the gales upended hundred year old trees up and down the eastern seaboard. I lopped back the rose to the tune of whining chainsaws that were taming the fallen trunks and branches elsewhere in the neighborhood.
A few blooms and buds still clung to the youngest stems. I clipped them carefully and brought them into the house. The roses, like everything else in the path of the storm, have been through a lot, but now the buds are opening in the kitchen, which is finally warm and well-lighted after almost eleven days in the cold and dark.
‘New Dawn’ isn’t an antique rose, but it is a classic, introduced in 1930, during the Great Depression. It was a seedling of ‘Dr. W. Van Fleet,’ a large-flowered rambler that can grow to twenty feet in height or length. ‘New Dawn’ is a little more restrained in its habits. Before the radical pruning, my mature plant went up, over and part-way down the other side of the eight-foot tall arch. I think that adds up to about fifteen prickly feet. Martyn Rix, writing in the wonderful rose compendium, The Quest for the Rose, describes ‘New Dawn’ as “one of the all-time best roses.” I agree, which is why I know it will rebound next spring. In fact, if past experience is an indicator of future performance, the rose will make an extra effort—just to let me and the world know that it is undaunted by insignificant events like hurricanes, snowstorms and humans wielding loppers.
Now I can turn my attention to the lower back garden, the remnants of which are completely hidden under tangles of fallen limbs and wires. If I peek through those tangles, I can just see the damask-like leaves of the hardy cyclamen, which persist, no matter what else happens. The limbs on top of them fell from the big old maples that stand on the lot behind ours. The trees shed branches in every storm, taking power lines with them and invariably depriving the neighborhood of electricity and other services. This time, the utility company sent a tree crew to remove the remaining dangerous and dangling maple limbs. I hope this will help in the next storm.
In the meantime, the season is advancing and I am going to have to combine intensive limb clearing with bulb planting. The two activities compliment each other. Limb clearing—sawing, lopping and bundling branches–is physical and gets the blood flowing. Bulb planting is much gentler—except on the knees—and more conducive to reflection.
In clear spots in the front yard I already see the first few millimeters of the green tips of next spring’s daffodils. They are way ahead of themselves, but will endure through the winter. As I clear the lower back garden, I will probably discover the emerging growth of the daffodils planted in those beds. In this season, when everything seems turned upside down and Nature has reminded us who is boss, it is reassuring to know that Nature’s toughness takes many forms. I am absolutely positive that even if I left all of those limbs right where they are, the daffodils would find a way to rise through them.