Pruning, Planning and Planting

On my way home I stopped at the rose nursery to buy the six roses that needed to be planted in the rosarium. A rosarium, Keith explained, is a rose garden where you have a variety of different roses. Well in our rosarium there are a 120 different roses and the art is not to repeat them.

I had to choose a red floribunda, pink hybrid tea, yellow floribunda, white hybrid tea, blue hybrid tea and a burgundy floribunda. I enjoyed selecting the new roses and decided to introduce a green rose in the white section with Keith’s permission of course. Keith does not like to be surprised when it comes to his rosarium.

I wonder sometimes if the rosarium serves as some kind of rosary to him because he seems so at peace wandering through the rosarium or just watering or dead-heading.

Shawn and I introduced the six new roses to the rosarium on Saturday. There they were standing with their names on their chests like new learners to a nursery of children. Shawn has learnt that the name tags are quite important and after planting the rose he would re-adjust the name tag to be displayed properly.

Burgundy Iceberg with its 'selfie'

The Burgundy Iceberg had a photograph instead of a name tag and after planting it Shawn commented “This one must be important. He has got a ‘selfie’ instead of a name tag.” I smiled to myself and thought yes, it is quite important for a rose to have a ‘selfie’.

The orchard was more difficult to complete and I had to drive from Robertson picking up the Oom Sarel, yellow cling peach and the Van Der Merwe prune. Then to Ashton for the Santa Rosa plum because Keith loves this plum, (is anybody else seeing the rose and religious theme going here).

Vineyards being pruned in the valley

Last was Montagu for the De Wet desert peach. With all my preferred trees for the orchard I could head back and complete the orchard again. With its full complement of 18 fruit trees the orchard feels on par again.

I planted the Van Der Merwe prune to commemorate our friend Philip van der Merwe’s launch of their company in France on Saturday, not that he is a prune in any way. Let’s hope that our fruit tree will be as successful as Philip’s company.

The new fruit trees

With the pruning, planning and planting of the rosarium and orchard complete I could focus my attention on the herb garden.