Recently, I wrote about Growing Older in their Garden, an article about the ways in which we, the professional gardener, can help to make gardens easier for our ageing Clients.
And the other day I was reminded of this small contribution which I made, to help my Client enjoy her garden.
This particular Client lives in a genuine chocolate-box cottage, with roses all round the door, which always sounds lovely - and is, until they start encroaching on the doorway, which these ones were.
Rip!
Snag!
Ouch!
The problem, of course, is the thorns.
Now, at this point I usually become a real botany-nerd, and deliver a lecture about how, despite what Shakespeare said about the rose having thorns only for he who would pluck it, rose don't have thorns, they have prickles. And yes, that means that I should have titled this article “de-prickling” not “de-thorning” but, well, what can I say, de-thorning sounds better.
What's the difference? Thorns are modified stems, they are deeply attached to the plant, and are “living”. Prickles are mere outcrops of epidermis: they have no vascular bundles, which means that they are easily detached, and are like our fingernails, in that they are attached to us, but they are not “alive”. That's a bit of a simplification, but you get the picture.
Does it matter?
In this case, yes: prickles are easy to remove, you just push them over sideways and they snap off, with no damage to the stem, no open wound, no access route for infection.
And quite often, I will deliberately.......
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