Life In Rose Farm

So many of y’all had questions about the climbing roses we planted and the hardware we used, so here’s a little breakdown to get your DIY project going! 💐🙌

The trellis installation is definitely doable, BUT fair warning - it’s a bit time-consuming and labor-intensive, especially your first go-around. 😅 Once you get the hang of it, though, the end result is absolutely worth the effort!

And if DIY isn’t quite your thing but you’d still love this setup at your own home…well, you know who to call. 😉

A little early birthday celebrating for me and Shaw, doing all the things we love most 💕 So grateful and blessed for another year of life, love, and opportunities to serve and glorify God. 🙏

Cheers to 44 for me and 45 for Shaw! 🎂🎉 Here’s to growing older, wiser…and hopefully better at pretending we’re not getting older 😂

Hope y’all have a beautiful Labor Day weekend! 💐

I’m not usually into trends but this one just felt right 🤷‍♀️

For Southern roses in late summer, the goal is a moderate reset, not the hard pruning you might do in late winter. In Texas and much of the South, a mid to late August prune can encourage a beautiful fall flush roughly 6 weeks later.

Here’s the simplest breakdown:

1. Cut out dead, diseased, damaged, or very weak/crossing canes all the way back to healthy growth. This means any canes skinnier than the yellow #2 size pencil.

2. Reduce the plant by about 1/3. For established shrub, hybrid tea, and garden roses, trim roughly the top 25–35%. Don’t scalp them in August—the leaves help protect the plant from Southern heat.

3. Cut just above a healthy outward-facing bud/leaf node. Make a clean cut about 1/4 inch above it, ideally at a slight angle away from the bud.

4. Open the center a little. Remove crowded or inward-growing stems so sunlight and airflow can get through. This is especially helpful in our Southern humidity where black spot and fungal disease love to party 😂

5. Strip off unhealthy foliage. Remove yellow, black-spotted, or diseased leaves from the plant and clean up fallen leaves underneath. Don’t compost obviously diseased foliage.

6. Water deeply after pruning. Keep the soil consistently moist during the heat, but avoid constantly wet foliage.

7. Pruning tells your roses to get back to work. So, after pruning, it’s important to feed it with a seaweed based fertilizer to give it the nutrients and energy it needs to produce new growth and blooms.

For climbers: don’t cut them back by ⅓ like shrub roses. Keep the long (thickest) structural canes (about 4-5 main ones) and mostly deadhead, remove dead/diseased wood, and lightly shorten laterals.

And the easiest rule to remember: “Late-summer pruning in the South is a haircut, not a buzz cut.” ✂️🌹

Tap the link below for an in depth tutorial video on how to prune over on our YouTube channel 🎥

https://youtu.be/9TjZNnPUVKg?is=am-UP0ME9SJbdeMd

Blessed Sunday, friends! 🤍

Sharing a little glimpse of the very first glasshouse garden Shaw and I designed and installed at our home in Hedwig Village, before life called us out to the country 🌿

After one particularly heavy summer shower, our Crepe Myrtle - absolutely loaded with blooms - was carrying far more weight than her branches could handle and toppled over. But instead of looking like storm damage, those cascading lilac blooms draped across the garden like Wisterias somewhere in the European countryside. 😍

Sometimes a storm rearranges things and somehow leaves behind something even more beautiful than before. Talk about beauty after the storm. 🌸🙏

Harvesting what’s left of these summer blooms before we start pruning back all the roses on the farm next week.

Sadly, these are headed to two funerals this weekend 😭 Saying goodbye to a childhood friend is never easy. I’m praying these bouquets - and their sweet fragrance bring even a little comfort to our friends and their families during such a difficult time.

On a lighter note, for all my local gardeners: despite this brutal heat index, next week is a good time to start pruning your roses and preparing them for fall blooms 🌹✂️

I’ll share a pruning tutorial on Monday so we can all get ready for one more beautiful flush before the season winds down. 💐

Last first day of elementary school for one, and last first day of middle school for the other. And the most bittersweet of all - the last time these two will be at the same school for a while. 🥹

Praying for an incredible year ahead as Ava takes on 5th grade and Loghan crushes 8th! May they learn lots, laugh even more, make beautiful memories, and walk confidently into everything God has in store for them. 🙏📖🎉

Here we go, girls! 💕

This mama will be out pruning as many roses as I can until school pickup, when I finally get to hear all about their first day back. ✂️🌹