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Dr. Leda's Rose Journal |
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Rose Pruning Quiz:
What Kind of Pruner Are You?
By Dr. Leda Horticulture, O. R.
January, 2003
Determine your rose pruning personality quotient! Take Dr. Leda's official Rose Pruning Personality Diagnostic Test, so you can stuff yourself into the proper pigeon hole.
Directions for taking the test: Circle the letter which best describes you.
Only Four Weeks Left!
Your rose is waiting breathlessly for you! Only a few weeks until ordering ends, so order today and we'll reserve your roses until spring, when we ship it at the time you specify.
Rose Pruning Personality Diagnostic Test
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| The Histrionic Pruner |
- Pruning a rose reminds you most of:
- Giving your best friend a home haircut.
- Mowing the lawn.
- Performing brain surgery.
- Bullfighting.
- Slaughtering an entire village of innocent civilians.
- Which of the following best describes your pruning attire:
- Thick leather gloves and sturdy work boots.
- Bare hands, jeans, and a T-shirt.
- Goatskin gloves from France, a suede jacket from Italy, knee-high green Wellies from Edinburgh, and a tiara on loan from Glamis Castle.
- Toreador pants, a bolero jacket, and a bright red velvet cape.
- Kevlar gloves, safety goggles, and a hooded asbestos suit.
- Which tools do you prefer to use when you prune?
- Freshly sharpened secateurs and loppers.
- A chainsaw.
- A protractor, a scalpel, sterile sponges, and an autoclave.
- A scimitar and an epee mask.
- Forty-three rose books, a Valium, and Dr. Tommy Cairns' phone number.
Directions for scoring the test:
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| The Laissez-faire Pruner |
If you answered "a" to at least two of the above questions, odds are you're what psychorosologists call the Conventional Pruner. Your friends probably describe you as sensible and cooperative, while your enemies can't come up with anything worse to call you than "plain vanilla." You are willing to take small, calculated risks ("So what's the worse that can happen? If it turns out hideous, she won't speak to me for a few months. Anyway, it grows out fast...") but you shy away from larger ones ("Heck no, I'm not cutting that vicious unruly Mermaid all the way back in October just because it's blocking the front door, the back door, and the driveway. We'll just use this ladder to climb through upstairs windows until January."). According to your kindergarten teacher, you were always the child who "follows directions and plays well with others." Your roses will thrive.
If you circled "b" twice or more, you may comprise elements of the Laissez-faire Pruner. Although many people think pruning is the most important rose chore, you understand that it is actually one of the least. Long before the Royal National Rose Society of England announced that classical pruning techniques are not really necessary, you were out shaping your roses quickly with hedge shears and a chain saw, and probably only doing it every third year at that. You have far better things to do with your time, such as lounging by the fire sipping hot brandy and drooling over rose books. Besides, you prefer to leave a bit of wildness and character to your roses. And your roses will bloom and thrive just as well as anyone's.
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| The Nervous Nellie Pruner |
If you answered more than one question with "c," you are probably a typical specimen of the Perfectionist Pruner. A card-carrying member of the Felix Unger School of Rose Pruning, you tend to go for the ultra-fastidious precision cut. You believe there is One Correct Way to prune roses, and you may be just the teensiest bit compulsive, dogmatic, and rigid about your pet theory. You are probably what the Jungians refer to as "the Introverted Thinking Type," and of course we all know what the Freudians call you. Friends may occasionally suggest that you're overly-scrupulous, fussy, or excessively detail-oriented, but you know their livers are shriveling and turning green with envy over your perfect roses. Your motto is: "Anything worth doing is worth doing better than everybody else." Without a doubt, your roses will thrive.
A heavy dose of "d" answers indicates that you may be a Histrionic Pruner. You tend to be creative, theatrical, and temperamental; chances are good that at least one person has accused you of being a drama queen. But you know you're really just a frustrated artist, and rose pruning, like everything else in life, has become a dramatic medium for expressing your hostilities as well as your exuberance. You wouldn't hesitate to sculpt your old Bourbon roses into topiary busts of the Empress Josephine, or your modern floribundas into the seven faces of Tom Carruth. Your roses will thrive anyway, and you will bask in the attention they attract.
If you're heavily skewed towards the "e" answers, it's a safe bet that you're a Nervous Nellie Pruner. This is probably your first year growing roses, and the very idea of pruning them leaves you feeling fretful and insecure. You're convinced that if you prune too hard, your roses will go into shock and die, but if you prune too lightly you'll be blackballed from the local rose society and fined by your neighborhood homeowners association. At the same time, you tremble for your own personal safety. You're scrupulously up-to-date on tetanus boosters and prophylactic rabies shots; you collect anecdotes about thorn-induced sporotrichosis infections and suburban myths about gardeners who've had their eyelids shredded and their noses ripped from their faces, mauled beyond recognition by rabid roses. You sometimes feel like you'd rather go skinny dipping in a school of hungry piranhas. And yet, in spite of all your worries and trepidations, your roses will thrive.
If your answers look more like a bowl of alphabet soup, you may, like me, be a poster child for Multiple Rose Pruning Personality Disorder. The bad news is: there's no known cure. The good news is: yes, surprise surprise, even without years of expensive therapy, your roses will thrive! Mine certainly do.
Is anyone beginning to notice a trend?
