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	Dr. Leda's Rose Journal

I Never Threatened You With A Rose Garden

By Dr. Leda Horticulture, O. R.

February, 2005

....But you got one anyway! Now, gird your loins and enjoy it.

The other day there was a knock on my door. It was Mike, my long-suffering Minister of Lawn Maintenance. "Can you come out here for a minute?" he said. "There's something I'd like to show you."

I followed him outside, where he pointed to the front walkway. There, lined up on the pavement, was a row of six small brown spotted garden snakes, each chopped neatly in half.

"I found two in the front yard and four in the back," Mike announced proudly. Sort of like when the cat brings you a dead gopher and lays it lovingly on your pillow.

"Uh, gee, that's very nice, Mike," I said encouragingly. "Six cute little dead brown garden snakes!" (Continued...)

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"Actually," said Mike, "they're called Ground Rattlers, or Pygmy Rattlesnakes. They're every bit as poisonous as the bigger snakes. And there's more out there. They seem to like burrowing in that mulch around your roses. I think you may have yourself a major infestation."

Well, now. A major infestation of venomous rattlesnakes in my rose beds! Dear readers, can you guess how I reacted to this portentous bit of news? Did I blanch like a sheet and crumple to the ground? Did I stick my fingers in my ears and sing "La la la la, I can't heeaarrr you!"? Did I refuse to come down off the roof until Mike had mixed me a stiff drink and booked me a permanent room at the St. Patrick's Rest & Recovery Home in beautiful snakefree County Limerick?

On average people fear spiders more than they do death. A huge but harmless Banana Spider visits Dr. Leda's garden.

No, of course not. Because I am a Mighty Rose Warrior! And we are a proud, fearless, tough, indomitable breed. Deadly pit vipers in the compost? We laugh, haha! (Nevertheless, the brave she-warrior accepted the stiff drink.)

Where did the idea ever come from anyway, that a rose garden is some kind of namby-pamby trouble-free paradise, a safe serene sissified sanctuary from the risks and calamities of harsh reality? What balderdash! In fact, a rose garden is a gravely perilous arena. You are less likely to be injured while participating in the Pamplona Bull Run than while working in your rose garden.

I remember when I first became aware of the hazardous nature of growing roses. I was brand new to the sport, and upon discovering an aphid on my first rose bush, I had dissolved in alarm. Frantically, I called my friend Christie, a seasoned rose grower who boasted two rural acres of spectacular antique roses in central California.

"Christie!" I sobbed. "The most terrible thing has happened. There's a creepy, gross, highly destructive APHID on my rose bush!"

"Oh yeah," said Christie, with disconcerting aplomb. "I hate aphids. I hear they're pretty bad this year."

"You mean you have aphids on your roses, too?" I stammered.

"Probably," she said. "But I haven't been able to get close enough to find out, because a herd of wild boars has been rutting in the garden all week."

Dr. Leda cautiously ventures out into her rose garden.

Oh.

So there I was, blathering hysterically over one tiny green aphid, while Christie remained cool and nonchalant even though a disgruntled mob of ferocious 300-pound feral beasts with razor-sharp tusks was milling around her property in a heightened state of agitated lust. That's when it began to dawn on me that if I was going to get serious about roses, I'd better butch up.

"Ok, wild boars: no big deal. But rattlesnakes?" I can imagine some of you may be shuddering. "If I had a major infestation of rattlesnakes, I would never ever set foot in my garden again!"

And yet, fellow Rose Warriors, right this minute your very own gardens are in fact teeming with similarly vicious killer fauna, deadly predators hiding patiently amidst the foliage waiting for an opportune moment to strike. Such as:

Sporothrix schenckii: This evil fungus lurks on the thorns of roses and can cause an infection in humans called sporotrichosis, or "rose picker's disease." The first symptom is usually a small painless red nodule that appears several weeks after a seemingly innocent prick by a thorn. Left untreated, the infection continues to spread via the lymphatic channels, causing additional nodules to appear in lines on the skin as the infection progresses up an arm or leg. The lesions eventually open and can resemble hideous ulcerated boils that are very slow to heal. Infrequently, sporotrichosis affects the lungs, joints, or central nervous system and can cause serious illness or even death.

Clostridium tetani: This is the bacterium that causes tetanus, or "lockjaw." The spores, which can remain dormant for over 40 years, are commonly found in soil contaminated with animal fecal wastes (e.g., all that wonderful chicken and steer manure). They enter the human body through puncture wounds (e.g., thorn pricks). These bacteria produce one of the most deadly poisons known to man, a neurotoxin called tetanospasmin which is 50 times more poisonous than cobra venom and 150 times stronger than strychnine. Tetanus infection is highly lethal to unimmunized humans. In the United States about two-thirds of the annual cases occur in people 50 and older, apparently because this age group is more likely to have allowed their booster immunizations (which need to be updated every 7-10 years for the rest of your life, people!!) to lapse.

Are kitchen window gardens safer? No! 67% of all household injuries occur in the kitchen.

Other frightening pathogens that may enter through thorn wounds and cause unpleasant symptoms in gardeners include Nocardia brasiliensis, Mycobacterium fortuitum, Candida parapsilosis, and a host of others. They're eveywhere. And this little list of rosy dangers doesn't even include things like knife-sharp pruning shears, runaway chainsaws, carcinogenic pesticides, killer bees, falling trees, or those wicked renegade climber canes that can suddenly lash out without warning, severely lacerating your face beyond recognition and shredding your eyeballs like confetti.

These are the grave perils we face every day in our rose gardens. But are we daunted or dismayed? Do we allow the forces of evil to divert us from our noble mission? No! We do not! Why? Because--come on now, say it with me--We are Mighty Rose Warriors! And we are a proud, fearless, tough, indomitable breed!

We just use a little common sense is all. We refrain from pruning our roses in the nude. We don sturdy gloves. We use sensible eye protection. We update our tetanus boosters every seven years. We always check for rutting boars before we step out the back door. And from now on, I will also be wearing snakeproof hip waders (available at better boutiques throughout south Louisiana) whenever I work in the yard.

Who knows what alarming menaces may leap out of your rose garden tomorrow? It could be deadly serpents, flesh-eating fungi, rabid tarantulas, the West Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels, or the East Pleasanton chapter of the Red Hat Ladies. It's always something. But I have great faith that each and every one of you will remain valiant and deal with your situation. You will look danger in the eye, and you will laugh haha! And your roses will thank you.