Around here, you are supposed to start pruning your roses after President’s Day.  I’m not sure whether that means  Abraham Lincoln’s real birthday or George Washington’s real birthday, or whatever Monday is a day off for state workers.  I started today.

For my penitential act this Lent, I am forcing myself to prune only a bush a day for two weeks.  That way, I will be absolutely forced to bring my tools inside and disinfect them after each one.  This is supposedly mandatory to keep from spreading disease from one bush to the other.

Failure to follow this rule in the past might explain why I have some diseased tea roses.  It takes more will power than I can usually muster to not stay out there and do a bunch.

I threaten this favorite tea, the fragrant pure white Honor, every year that I am going to rip it out because it is not healthy, but then I can never bring myself to do it.  I pruned it first this year and tenderly sprayed it with dormant oil to arm it against black spot and pronounced a blessing over its head.

And, while I was out there,  I gave the Handsome Man his winter-time crew cut.  Got rid of all those ugly grays.  

Was doing a little work out back and collected a few things to bring inside that smelled so Christmassy:  redwood, bay, rosemary, even a couple of roses.

But it would not be without guile on my part to imply that everything I was collecting out there smelled great.  Fact is, the actual work I was doing was shoveling up after my three canine companions when I happened to notice the sweet-smelling flora.  I do love those dogs!

Some people take ginkgo biloba supplements to supplement their memories.  I don’t know if it works, but I never forget to marvel at the memory of my ginkgo tree:  it never forgets that it is supposed to turn yellow every October and not red like the Japanese maple.  And every spring, it remembers that its leaves are supposed to be fan-shaped.My bottle tree has memories too in the blue bottles friends and family have brought me from all sorts of places.