Mid-Atlantic Gardening: Blooming season off to an early start?, 1 by GardenQuilts

GardenQuilts wrote:
My irises have buds, but not blooms, yet. I had to cut back my Wildeve rose because branches were blocking the iris stalks. (Eve is larger and healthier than expected, gives me a chance to improve my pruning skills. She has so many new canes, I am less worried about cutting some of the old ones.)

My pruning efforts are still like my dog grooming efforts. I research and try my hand at it. The results are steadily improving, but still in need of more improvement. I have a dog grooming video, but the dog in the video stands perfectly still. Tiffany does not stay still at all! I need to use a muzzle, especially when working on the back end. She is getting even more stubborn in her older years. She is cooler, at least.

I need to get one of those long handled tree pruners to get some of the canes at the base of Wildeve. It is own root and has been adding canes from the base of the plant. I cut back some branches and canes that were blocking other plants and plan to prune more after her first flush of blooms. Here is a picture of the base of the plant. New canes reached over 6' last year. I really need to thin some of these canes out. I wish I had space for her to grow to full size, but I have to keep her in bounds in my current cluttered cottage garden.