Each week, Nancy Strickland, co-owner of Drycreek, has been chatting briefly about gardening with DJ Dead Air Dave on the local radio station, The X (100.1 on your FM dial). You can listen to her gardening tips from the home page of this Web site. This week Nancy tells how local gardeners can be sure it's the right time to prune their rose bushes.

To condense Nancy's advice on pruning:

"A lot of people say tax day, but we say it's time to prune your roses when the forsythia bloom. Because we have so many climates up and down the mountain here, if your forsythias are blooming in your neighborhood, it's time to prune your roses. But if the forsythias are not blooming, then wait."

If you grow roses, what better excuse is there for finding a nice sunny spot for a forsythia bush? Not only will it add springtime color to your yard; it will also alert you and all the rose lovers in your neighborhood it's time to prune the roses. This is an example of Green Philosophy. As Nancy said, "Plants give us lots of things, they feed us, they give us piece of mind and shade...plants will tell you things...you need to listen!"

There's a pretty good article about how to prune roses at the University of Illinois Extension Web site called Our Rose Garden. As you will see, the horticulturists at the University of Illinois agree with Nancy about the forsythia.