Our re-birth has begun

Part of what makes us, well us, in my opinion is that we offer roses hard to fine elsewhere. They may be old, they may be new - but many are unique. Quite a few of the newer ones are roses I found in Europe and brought back to introduce to our U.S. Rose Family. This is not something I take lightly and consider an obligation to them.

As well a great excuse to get over to Europe!

At least that's how it was before the problems began.

Last week we began our first baby step back to the past. We went to a dear friend's house who generously opened her garden to us so we could take cuttings of old and new rose friends to propagate for our customers. Michael, Trish, Myself and some of the Red Clay Day Gang propagated them and they are now in the mister.

Then today I set out upon Kubbie, Jethro's smaller brother, towing the small trailer. Loaded up with burlap for wrapping cuttings, buckets of water for putting the cuttings into, clippers, lists of roses to take cuttings of, my camera and another list of roses to take photos of, I set out on the grand tour of the old property.

I roamed all over the place taking cuttings of this and that - some old, some new. Took photos of roses I haven't visited with in a while, smelled the newly cut grass and just enjoyed the day.

About half way through my sojourn I rounded the corner and there were about 30 varieties of roses bred by the Barni Family in Italy. Beatrice sent them to me about 3 years ago and I have not had a chance to do anything with them since. Beatrice understood why, bless her heart.

They are in full bloom, healthy, clean and lovely. Very few of them are available in the U.S. at this moment. Tomorrow I'm going back to take photos, cuttings and another baby step along the path of our re-birth.

Barni Roses - coming soon to an Ashdown website near you!

Ready, Set, Propagate

Man, I love this time of year. Propagation season is about to really get rocking. We've already done some from the existing plants we have in inventory but in another week we move outdoors to roses we have not had in stock this past season

Or, sadly several seasons for that matter. We had so many roses we wanted to propagate and offer to our customers but we just couldn't get to them these past few years. And quite honestly I couldn't focus enough to get us organized to get to them anyway.

Now however, we know where we want to go, Michael starts full time next week and since he is our main propagator I know I'll have a solid person out there running the show.

We have a very ambitious goal this year. 1000 varieties on the website by September 1st. I think we can do it and I've put the word out to the Red Clay Day Gang for help and I know they'll respond.

I certainly measure Ashdown's year by the business stuff like profit and loss, website stats, attrition rate of transplanted roses etc etc. But our identity and to me one of our yardsticks are the roses we offer our customers on the website.

We are privileged to care-take some lovely and special roses. And a responsibility of that privilege is to make them available to customers to keep them in commerce and in as many gardens as possible.

And for purely selfish reason I love seeing all those new babies blooming the in greenhouse. It's like seeing old friends over and over again. Talk about stopping to smell the roses!

Our First "Red Clay Day"

Last Saturday morning in a slight rain I found myself surrounded by 7 of some of the greatest people I've ever had the pleasure to know. Here's how it happened.

We have close to 3600 rose bushes in the ground. Some have been there for close to seven years now and they are quite happy and firmly rooted where they are thank you very much. They don't want to move but since I have no plans to leave them behind they haven't much say in the matter. There comes a point where you have stop talking to your plants and start barking orders.

There is actually plan in place to move them. We'll accomplish this by cutting them back very short and "dig" them out of the ground with a bare-root rose lifter. This is a simple device pulled by Jethro with a blade going about 12 inches into the ground that severs the deep roots and then a short ramp on the back that heaves the rose out of the ground accomplishing two things. Getting the rose out of the ground with your back intact and further dispelling that "roses are delicate plants" crap.

This works for mature plants but not for small ones. They just get sucked into the rose wake as Jethro and the digger work their way up and down the rows. So this means first the small roses need to be dug up and planted in pots - by hand - one by one by backbreaking one.

And that's how I found myself surrounded by 7 eager volunteers who also happen to be dear members of our rose family this past Saturday. They brought shovels, gloves, clippers and most of all an energy and spirit that cleared the rain from the skies. Did I also mention they also brought a great pot-luck lunch? Including vegetarian chili for yours truly.

We hit the fields and 7 hours, countless bags of soil and pots and a great lunch later some 500 roses had been lifted from the ground and now rested in their pots in one of the cold frames.

I was perhaps more exhausted than any of them but not because I worked harder. But because each passing hour of laughter and rose camaraderie further put the past behind and reminded me why I do this for a living. So while they lifted some 500 roses those Magnificent 7 also lifted two years of weight from my shoulders. I suspect Trish felt the same.

Whew!

I'm a meet the deadline kind of guy.

I was really getting worried about meeting the deadline for all the good folks who are coming in a few weeks to help us move roses. Worried because the place was not going to be ready for the roses to be moved and also ready for them. And "them" were in some cases driving hours and taking time off from work.

I spent the day up there Monday with John, a great guy who is working with me to get the property ready. We got a lot done but ran into some snags moving a huge pile of old brush that had been stacked when the place was logged a few years ago. This put us back in getting to the other areas where the new planting would go. I know what you are saying right now. Why not start with the planting areas first - and you'd be right.

Except I'm a meet the deadline, visual kind of guy.

I need to see the space before I can really see what goes where and when. And that big pile of brush was in the way of my mind's eye. So it had to go. John worked his tail off and moved mountains of brush in short order until we got to the backside of the pile.

There we encountered piles of rotted branches turning to soil bogged down by the rains that finally broke the drought. It was not going to be moved quickly even with Jethro hustling in after John to smooth areas down so he could come in without losing his kidneys on a Norman Bates roller coast ride.

The next day I went back with Ray who is the clear set of eyes at Ashdown. He's the kind of guy who can see the rose nursery for the trees and pointed out that if we started planting where I wanted we'd lose a lot of property we were renting and also would most likely end up not have buildings and greenhouses where they would best serve the overall picture. So why not wait until we can get in a big ol bulldozer and push the big stuff out of the way. This was not easy for me to admit and took far too much of Ray's time for me to come around.

You see I'm also a meet the deadline, visual kind of, do it now kind of guy.

After Ray talked me down from the trees I knew we had to postpone moving day. So the next morning I timidly emailed the dear Rose Family members organizing it and let them know. Their response?

"And your point is what? We're coming anyway to do what we can and we'll schedule another day for all of us to move the roses."

You see I'm a meet the deadline, visual kind of, do it now and very, very blessed kind of guy.