I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Contributed by Marilyn Bennett

My all-time favorite country song was “I Never promised you a Rose Garden” sung by Lynn Anderson. If you have never heard this song you might want to go to YouTube to listen, as it is a real classic country western song.

You might be wondering what the song has to do with life in Alaska. Well, let me tell you the rest of the story. One day in June my daughter arrived to show me the three rose bushes she had just bought. The garden center had received a huge overabundance of roses and so was selling them at half price. I was definitely hooked and abruptly went out and bought three rose bushes for myself. These were all floribunda roses, one a brick red color, one white with pink edges and the other a deep pink. I was then committed to creating a Rose Garden, which was very problematical for me.

When I lived in California, I had a marvelous Rose Garden that required very little care to keep it looking beautiful. In southern Arkansas the roses practically took over my gardens. Then I moved to Minnesota and had a rough time nursing my Rose Garden through many tough winters. Now in Alaska I had given no thoughts to having a Rose Garden until I purchased those three rose bushes.

I had been happy planting hostas, peonies, lilies and my various lovely ground covers. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that the pansies that wilted and died in the Minnesota humid summers, not only thrived but came back year after year in a lovely way that threatens to take over my gardens. I love the Asiatic Lilies that grow three feet tall because of the midnight sunshine and the many other flowers that are bigger than any I had in the lower 48.

So why did I rush out and buy three rose bushes? Good question. I came home all excited with my lovely purchases and then the reality of what I had done set in. This purchase forced me to look around and see that none of my out-of-control gardens were suitable for these lovely roses. I knew from growing roses in Minnesota that I should be careful where I planted them, so as to ensure ample snow cover in the winter. Also to keep them away from too much competition from the somewhat invasive plants growing in my current gardens.

I looked around and decided that if I extended the garden against the south facing fence I could give my three roses a sunny area a short distance from the fence. This area is the part of my yard that that collects a snow berm in the winter, so I knew the roses would get plenty of snow cover

My next step was to define the perimeter of the garden bed by laying out a half circle of bricks on the lawn beginning from the current bed along the fence. Then was the fun part of digging out the grass. I don’t know about your house, but at mine this grass is the thickest thatch I have ever seen.

The advantage of this grass is that it can survive months of draught with no apparent problem. This is the toughest grass I have ever had the misfortune to try to dig up. It works well as a lawn, although somewhat bumpy, but not so good for those of us foolish enough to try to dig it out.

After finally getting all the thatch out of my new garden bed I needed to add three five gallon buckets of compost to fill the bed back up to its previous height. Thank goodness we have lived here long enough to have a finished pile of compost. We compost in the slow natural way of just piling up the composted materials and letting nature take its natural course.

My roses look wonderful and seem to be very happy in their new location. I plan to cut them back in the Fall and cover them with leaves and then with snow. We shall see how they still feel about their new garden in the Spring when the snow melts off.

I was a Master Gardner in Minnesota, but up here I am still a novice experimenting with different plants and locations. Even though the winter climate is actually warmer here than in Minnesota, I find the long summer days with no rain creates its own unique gardening experience.