Rogers Roses Posts

Some pages in my gardening journal have softened with time. The corners are frayed and a few are stained from teacups or thumbprints still carrying compost. I don’t mind. In fact, I like it. Neatness was never the point.

I didn’t grow up journaling. But once the garden became more than a pastime, more than just a weekend habit, I found myself wanting to keep track. Not only of the flowers and failures, but of how things felt while I was out there. What I noticed. What I needed to say, even if only to myself.

There are the usual notes: “Eggshells deterred slugs around the delphiniums.” “Yellow climber bloomed again. Mid-April this time.”

But more often, it drifts into something softer: “The compost smelled sweet again. That’s usually a good sign.” “Smells like my grandfather’s shed. Sharp, musty, comforting.”

One I keep returning to was written last winter, just after trimming the roses (see Post 2). I remember brushing soil off my gloves and sitting on the low wall thinking I should write it down before I forgot. It read, cutting back is another way of holding on.

That’s the thing about these scribbles. They’re more than reminders. They’re conversations—with memory, with the weather, with some quieter part of me I don’t always hear in the rush of the day.

I’ve started giving myself little nudges in the margins, for days when the words don’t come easy:

• What surprised me today?
• What did I let go of?
• What am I still holding tight?
• What do I want to carry forward?
• What scent stayed with me?

That last one… I’ll be writing about it more in Post 4. Scent has its own way of anchoring us. Of bringing something back without asking.

Sometimes I sketch a rosehip, a feather, the bend of a stalk that refused to stand straight. I don’t aim for accuracy. Just memory. Sometimes I tuck things in. A curled leaf. A flattened petal. The papery skin from garlic I forgot to plant. Each one its own quiet story.

On wet mornings, when my knees ache and the shears feel too heavy, I make tea and open the journal. I don’t always read it. Sometimes I just hold it. Let my eyes fall where they will.

The margins are where the real garden lives. Not in the rows, but in the in-betweens. Where things are messy and meaningful. Where nothing needs fixing.

This journal, like the garden, has grown into its own sort of companion. Neither of them perfect. But both rooted in love, and still learning.

Some pages in my gardening journal have softened with time. The corners are frayed and a few are stained from teacups or thumbprints still carrying compost. I don’t mind. In fact, I like it. Neatness was never the point.

I didn’t grow up journaling. But once the garden became more than a pastime, more than just a weekend habit, I found myself wanting to keep track. Not only of the flowers and failures, but of how things felt while I was out there. What I noticed. What I needed to say, even if only to myself.

There are the usual notes: “Eggshells deterred slugs around the delphiniums.” “Yellow climber bloomed again. Mid-April this time.”

But more often, it drifts into something softer: “The compost smelled sweet again. That’s usually a good sign.” “Smells like my grandfather’s shed. Sharp, musty, comforting.”

One I keep returning to was written last winter, just after trimming the roses (see Post 2). I remember brushing soil off my gloves and sitting on the low wall thinking I should write it down before I forgot. It read, cutting back is another way of holding on.

That’s the thing about these scribbles. They’re more than reminders. They’re conversations—with memory, with the weather, with some quieter part of me I don’t always hear in the rush of the day.

I’ve started giving myself little nudges in the margins, for days when the words don’t come easy:

• What surprised me today?
• What did I let go of?
• What am I still holding tight?
• What do I want to carry forward?
• What scent stayed with me?

That last one… I’ll be writing about it more in Post 4. Scent has its own way of anchoring us. Of bringing something back without asking.

Sometimes I sketch a rosehip, a feather, the bend of a stalk that refused to stand straight. I don’t aim for accuracy. Just memory. Sometimes I tuck things in. A curled leaf. A flattened petal. The papery skin from garlic I forgot to plant. Each one its own quiet story.

On wet mornings, when my knees ache and the shears feel too heavy, I make tea and open the journal. I don’t always read it. Sometimes I just hold it. Let my eyes fall where they will.

The margins are where the real garden lives. Not in the rows, but in the in-betweens. Where things are messy and meaningful. Where nothing needs fixing.

This journal, like the garden, has grown into its own sort of companion. Neither of them perfect. But both rooted in love, and still learning.

The garden out back always quiets in autumn. Not silent, just less loud. Like it’s letting go of something it held all summer.

This is trimming season, but gently. Not the sort of cutting that tidies for show. The kind that makes room. The kind you do when your hands know something your head hasn’t quite named.

Every year, I end up in the same rhythm—emptying watering cans, brushing my thumb down stems, seeing which ones feel spent. A few weeds get tugged, but some I leave. Maybe I’ll come back for them. Maybe not. The world won’t end.

Pruning takes a quiet kind of trust. You’re not correcting a mistake. You’re believing in rest. In roots doing what they do best underground, without help or notice.

I stop feeding the roses once the nights drop. There’s a part of me that wants to keep going, especially when blooms keep coming, late and unexpected. But feeding too long confuses them. They don’t know when to stop. And there’s comfort in stopping, in letting things wind down.

Clippings go in the compost, always have. I don’t bag much anymore. Just layer stems and old leaves, maybe turn the pile with the garden fork once or twice if my shoulder allows. That warm, earthy smell rising from the centre—it always reminds me of damp library stacks. A strange association, I know. But it makes sense in my head.

And I don’t trim everything. Just the places that ask. Autumn isn’t for stripping bare. It’s for softening. Making space for what’s still to come, without hurrying it along.

Here are three things I tend to remember:

1. Mix your green clippings with dry leaves. It helps the pile breathe.
2. Stop feeding once night temperatures drop below ten. It gives the plant time to settle.
3. Prune lightly. Save the bigger shaping for winter’s end.

These aren’t rules, just rhythms. The kind you come to recognise after a few decades of watching, waiting, noting things down in the margins.

Last autumn I scribbled a line in my gardening journal, right beside a flattened rose petal. I’ll share the full page next time, but the line stayed with me: “cutting back is another way of holding on.”

Letting the garden grow wild in summer (see Post 1) helped me make peace with these slower months. Autumn doesn’t rush. It waits, steady and quiet. And I’m learning, still, how to follow its pace.

So I watch. I breathe. I prune a little, then rest my hands in my lap.

No rush. No pressure. Just a gardener, settling too.

I didn’t set out to stop weeding. It simply happened.

One late summer morning I stood at the back window, tea in hand, and noticed the garden had softened at the edges. The borage had crept across the path. Dandelions, bold as ever, nodded in the breeze. I thought about tidying. But the kettle was still warm and the day already felt full.

It wasn’t laziness. More like a quiet surrender. Not neglect. Just a gentle kind of permission. To let it be, for now.

That week I kept my gloves on the hook. The pruning shears stayed in the drawer. I walked the garden often, but didn’t step in. The roses looked a bit unruly, not unhappy. The bees came thick and slow, their hum louder than usual. I took it as a kind of blessing.

Grief, I’ve found, rarely announces itself. It seeps into small things. Through the compost bin. The undone corners. I didn’t have the words for it at the time, but cutting the roses felt wrong. Like interrupting a sentence still finding its shape.

So I left the garden alone. And nothing broke.

The soil stayed. The stems swayed and held. The roses bloomed with a tired sort of beauty. Not trimmed or showy. Just honest.

By the end of the month, I missed the rhythm. I reached for the shears, not to fix anything, but to say, I’m still here. A quiet gesture.

Letting the garden stay wild reminded me of something I’d almost forgotten. That not all beauty needs shaping. Some of it only shows up when you step back.