A very very long time ago, when Aunt Toby was Little Toby (and my mom used to use me as an example in her college parenting classes), our family had a dentist friend who was an absolutely amazing gardener. Not with veggies, mind you – his entire garden was devoted to his work with roses and when he retired and moved to sunnier and warmer climes, he went around offering rose bushes to his friends before he sold the house. My parents were the lucky recipients of four rugosa roses which grew to amazing Rapunzel heights on the south side of their house, in a mixture of cement, clay, and goodness only knows what (My Mama was NOT a good gardener; any plant sunk into a hole in her garden was on its own). What would have happened to those roses if they’d been given the least encouragement with real soil or some compost is truly frightening to contemplate (can we all say “Little Shop of Horrors”? Knew you could). (more…)
