Last Fall, I just didn’t have time to cut all my roses back from the cold. Each year it seems the holidays show up faster and preparation got ahead of me! So, what happened? Just what I expected.

I have gardens all over our property. The one I worry about most in the winter season is the ‘Neighborhood Garden,’ out at the street.

I planted this garden just for our neighbors who walk by on the sidewalk and for the folks who drive by regularly. I chose to grow roses of all different types in the garden, from minis to floribundas to hybrid teas, but I chose all for their floriforousness. It’s important to me that there be lots of color out there for the people about their daily business, and it is my intention to bring a smile to their faces. It seems to work, because when I’m working out front, people beep and wave and blow me kisses as they go by. More often than not, a car will pull into the driveway and a new friendship will begin because of my lovely roses.

Last Year

Last November, it snowed just before Thanksgiving… a heavy, wet, few inches. Because I hadn’t cut back the roses, a few of the taller canes broke from the weight of the snow. I still couldn’t find the time to whack everything out there, so the roses had to fend for themselves.

This past winter was not the snowiest winter ever, but it was snowy enough. Things really ramped up in the end of January with a storm that dropped almost three feet of dry, fluffy snow. I think we had at least some snow almost daily throughout the month of February and that second month of the year wound up being the coldest in history. I was thankful for the snow’s insulation in all that below-zero weather.

Spring

Spring has been slow to show up this year, as it was last year. A six foot glacier atop the ‘Neighborhood Garden’ finally finished retreating the other day and I just couldn’t wait any longer to attend to the garden. The retreating snow revealed roses that had been crushed by the weight of the heavy, wet street snow. The good news is that the canes that are left are brilliant green and despite the chilly weather, they are ready to start growing. I’ve been outside the last two days pruning them back and it doesn’t look like I have lost anything this year. I never worry about starting out on shorter canes because the roses are established and have great root systems. They will be back in a heartbeat!

I am still hoping for an early spring. Last year, in the same garden, I saw something I had never seen before. It stayed cold here right up until the beginning of June last year. When the ground thawed, I wound up with standing water in that garden that refused to drain. It took months for the soil to dry out and for the roses to recover. It was a puzzlement that kept me awake at night until I read a really great Op-Ed article in The Hartford Courant (America’s oldest continually published newspaper) a couple of weeks ago.

Winter Time

Robert Thorsen is a professor at the University of Connecticut and writes a column every other Thursday. This one was called, “It’s The Winter That Breaks Our Pavement.” In it, he explains the accumulation of underground ice beneath our cleared hardscapes: roads, sidewalks, and driveways. Our softscapes (gardens, lawns, and woodlands), when covered with a mantle of snow, help to retain the earth’s heat. The snow slowly melts and trickles into the landscapes and waterways. The hardscapes of paved areas that are repeatedly cleared conduct massive amounts of heat out of the soil and the road material beneath the pavement ‘allows the ground to freeze deeply, setting the stage for rupturing, heaving, and shattering.’

Hello, giant pot holes!

Professor Thorsen writes, ‘During February’s cold snap, one of my colleagues heard things go bump in the night. He thought that Mansfield (CT) was experiencing seismic shakes like those of the Plainfield (CT) earthquake swarm. Yes, the ground was rupturing seismically, but not from tectonic strain. Rather, a thickening layer of frozen ground experiencing intense cold was contracting until it broke with a sharp report and a brief shake. I witnessed one of these events during a sub-zero dawn while parking my car–there was a noise, vibration, and rupture of the pavement to form an uplifted gap.’ This is an excellent article and is worth reading at the Hartford Courant’s website.

Cont.

After I read the good professor’s article, I understood what happened with the ‘Neighborhood Garden’ last spring. We had much less in the way of snowfall that year and the protracted cold for seven months set up so much ice under the street and sidewalk that there was no place for the thawed winter to drain out of the soil. If it happens again this spring, at least I’ll know why. A big thank you to Professor Robert Thorsen for a missive well-done!