An anecdote, whether true of not I don’t know, concerning the pruning of roses relates to the actions of a gardener at the court of George III. The palace grounds of the time contained beds of roses – probably albas, gallicas and centifolias. Although they were tended according to the knowledge of the time, by today’s standards precious little maintenance was done bar keeping the surface of the beds tidy by removing leaves and rubbish when the colder weather set in each year.
It was during one such annual clean-up that this story takes place. Gardeners were raking or sweeping all the loose dry material from the rose beds so that it could be moved to a more open space for burning. One of the gardeners who was working in the palace grounds for the first time could not see the sense in carrying away the rubbish to burn it, so he piled it into a heap adjacent to the rose plants and set the mass alight. Everything burned quite well for a time until the wind changed and became stronger so that the flames blew back against the nearest rose plants. Ultimately quite a number of plants burned to the ground.
The King, who had been absent from the palace for a few days on official business, returned to find his beloved roses desecrated by the actions of a lazy gardener. His fury knew no bounds and the hapless man was dismissed immediately. The next spring, however, the burned bushes grew infinitely better than they had ever done and the summer flowering was the best anyone had ever seen. This, then, became the rather cumbersome method by which roses were shortened back to encourage young growth and better flowering, until years later gardeners began to simply cut back old growth. Thus began the intended pruning of roses, or so it would seem.” (March 2018)
