“Every gardener’s New Year starts with a euphoric gush of hope”

It is the last day of the year 2024 and didn’t it just fly past this year? So, a new year is upon us, and like all rose enthusiasts or gardeners, we look ahead in hope for the coming year. Planting a garden is an act of hope, a belief that with care, love and nurturing, even the most difficult spaces can be transformed into a beautiful haven.

We work through the year with single-minded purpose and determination, hoping nature comes to the party. After the festivities, it is now time to reflect and anticipate the year and hope the seeds open, the bulbs hidden beneath the surface come to fruition and the roses continue to bloom.

Creating a new garden from scratch is both addictively fun and maddeningly elusive —
a tale as old as Genesis. It’s neither for the faint of heart nor skint of wallet.
Jim Dodson

January has a slower pace that the rest of the year, there is not so much planting or striving to accomplish anything, just a time to enjoy the growth, the blooms and the fruits of the years labour. Especially in Australia with our hot summers. As long as we can keep our cherished plants alive is the most important aspect of summer in our gardens. Our new rose garden is in a cooler climate so there is less stress on the plants, slightly higher rainfall, higher altitude, and lower temperatures and, so there is a lot to be grateful for.

Gardening is an act of hope, a belief that with love and care, even the most neglected spaces can
be transformed into thriving havens.
Christopher Lloyd

In the Southern Hemisphere, we usher the New Year in during summer, so the weather is paramount. We hope for rain and wind but not too much, for pollinators but not too many other plagues of pests or drought. And then, as the season ends and winter looms, we hope for manageable frosts, few diseases, or natural extreme events, such as storms, hail, and floods. New Year is a blank slate to begin again and live once more in constant hope for our gardens.

For some, resolutions and promises to do better are made at New Year’s. I’m not keen on resolutions for life or the garden because they are so easily broken, like the resolutions in the quotes below. Who hasn’t made similar unrealistic promises to themselves at the start of the New Year and find them impossible to maintain for long?

“Next year, I won’t plant things too close together. I might even read the plant tags before planting.”
The Whistling Gardener

My approach is to forget resolutions and instead plan and visualise the year unfolding. This is a must. We can hope to be a better person, but the more we can see the outcomes of our goals, desires and dreams unfolding how we would like, the more successful we will be—ourselves or in the garden.

“My tool shed is going to be perfectly organised next year so I can always find what I need when I need it.”
The Whistling Gardener

Our Summer Solstice was on the 21st of December, so we have reached mid-summer. Some areas of the garden are beginning to be overgrown and rebellious after the hot start to the season of plentiful growth. A few roses are wild and unruly although most varieties planted are upright growers and well behaved. These few recalcitrant roses, weeds and summer perennials, mean a summer trim is needed. The roses have done exceedingly well for the first season and have such an array of spent blooms it was time for a fresh start.

“What the New Year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the New Year.”
Vern McLellan

Summer is also about keeping the weeds at bay, watering well, providing protection, from strong afternoon sun and wind, fertilising and trimming the tops of the roses (as against just deadheading the roses.) This will ensure another good flush of flowering in February and Autumn.

“Approach the new year with resolve to find the opportunities hidden in each new day.”
Michael Josephson

The first pure joy of the garden… weeding all day to finish the beds in a queer sort of enthusiasm which made me say this is happiness.
Virginia Wolfe

After spring if your roses were deadheaded another bountiful bloom of roses should be out around January. Once finished, according to the Australian Rose Society there are two ways to consider summer care.

One

Leave the spent blooms on the rose bush and reduce the watering a little, providing just enough to keep the plants alive, but not thriving so that the roses go into a kind of summer hibernation. Then start more vigorous watering and fertilise with ‘Sudden Impact for Roses’ in mid to late February. Two weeks later to ensure the rose is ready for an abundant autumn flush trim the rose so that blooms will be out approximately 55 days after the trim.

Two

To maintain a steady flow of continuous blooms keep deadheading to remove spent blooms, add lots of water, and apply liquid Sudden Impact every two weeks in January. The roses will continue but in the heat of January, February and March will usually be smaller blooms than Spring and Autumn due to the temperature. Shade cloth is a temporary fix to prevent petals burning in hot afternoon sun.

Today’s rose is Elysium Fields another truly beautiful rose from the Kordes family, that grows prolifically. It has masses of warm orange to apricot blooms covered in petals in a flat or semi-cupped rosette formation.

Elysium Fields thrived in the rural garden, where it never failed to produce stunning roses in every type of weather. Now, in the new garden, I’ve recently planted one, but it is early days and is not established yet. Often, the first lot of blooms are imperfect, so we live in hope and expect it will be as spectacular as before.

Rosa Elysium Fields is a Floribunda shrub rose bred in Germany in 2001 and introduced into Australia in 2017 by Treloar Roses. In South Africa, it is called Knysna because it was named after the Knysna Rose Society. The registration name is KORknysna and it will grow to approximately 150 cm high by 100 cm wide.