The first day of summer, June 21, is one of those seminal moments I celebrate by digging through the pile of crucial reading that has accumulated on the floor around my desk.

I subscribe to the "Avant Gardener," a little monthly four-page, no-picture newsletter, that I find always informative and often very useful. An article in point was a three-paragraph discussion in the April issue reporting the results of different methods of pruning roses conducted by England's Royal National Rose Society.

I had always approached my roses, hardy and vigorous shrubs, with sharp pruners and apologies and delicately snipped. This article, however, advocates shearing - that's shearing - roses.

Egad!

So, in mid-April, with the authority of English rosarians encouraging me, I whacked my lovely old pink damask (which was planning to take over Meade County) to 10 inches - every stem.

Then, I moved to my beloved "Bonica" shrub rose and sheared it also to less than a foot. Finished with what I thought of as a rose massacre, I came inside to tremble and recover over a cup of tea.

Time passed. I felt guilty of rose abuse. Days warmed. Leaves on the roses appeared. The plants not only forgave me, they thrived.

Rejoice!

The "Bonica" is magnificent, and the old damask never looked better, although it won't flower until next year. Shearing will be done now probably every three to five years.

Another snippet of information in "Avant Gardener" for rose gardeners is the Good Earth R.O.S.E. committee of the American Rose Society to aid gardeners to grow perfect roses without chemicals.

Less lovely but equally interesting was the recent appearance of (excuse me, please) dog vomit slime mold in the garden. This mold, aptly named, appears in gardens like ours that are heavily composted, especially when the season has been wet.

The International Association of Slime Mold Among Scientists, a legitimate group of serious scientists, have given it the rather elegant and absolutely noncolorful name Fuligo septica.

It is a short-lived, harmless mold that changes from a rather wet, bubbly, yellow mass to a light brown, slightly scabby, dry scum and then to virtually nothing in less than four days.

The May issue of "Avant Gardener" thrilled me. One little article spoke of Meadow Rues, the magnificent Thalictrum. This is a plant that does very well here - in fact, there are some natives - and should be in our woodland and shade gardens. In the same issue was an article about the dog's tooth violet, members of the erythronium family, another plant that could and should be grown here more.

The National Garden Bureau puts out a nice single-page newsletter each month. I am especially supportive of their recent commitment to promote "A Garden in Every Yard … Or Roof."

We here are centuries behind Europe, where green roofs have been the norm for, well, let's be honest - centuries. Canada is ahead of us. There are some sites in America that have used the very reasonable, economical, environmentally friendly green roofs. (Google "green roofs" and see what you get.)

The June newsletter encourages us all to "try something new yourself - become a gardener."

My current, new project is the raised-bed cold frame that is yielding magnificent salads for us and, I must admit, the chickens. They have discovered that their weight on the deer netting allows them to "prune" my lettuce and other greens. We have plenty to share, and when the spring garden is done, the chickens will have full access to the cold frame to scratch and leave their droppings. It's a strange trade-off, salad for manure, but it works if you don't think about it too much.

In this encouragement to try something new, the author of the newsletter, Janis Kieft, lists good reasons to garden. Put these into your gardening philosophy:

- Garden for tradition - keep a family tradition alive or start one. Start small and make it fun.

- Garden to save money. Almost anyone will admit that one pack of lettuce seeds will produce a harvest for all - including chickens and the occasional wandering rabbit.

- Garden for the environment. Consider a "rain garden" that allows water from roofs, driveways and lawns to slowly soak into the ground rather than run off into drains and storm sewers. Rapid City is trying hard to protect Rapid Creek and the storm sewer system. Could there also be education on rain gardens? (Google "rain gardens" and learn about it).

- Garden to attract wildlife.

- Garden to live longer. Unless you are overly athletic, gardening is grand exercise. And the Vitamin D in sunshine is great to help aging bones.

- Garden for solitude and escape. Spend an afternoon with a gardening friend and, as you clean the soil from your fingernails, enjoy the shared delights of the garden -whether it is therapy, solitude, escape, meditation or simply pleasure in the company of the plants.

- Garden to heal. I know many gardeners who have plants in memory of deceased family members or friends. Our garden's peonies remind me of my grandmother Isle Philip, the daylilies of Henry Dale. Many gardens have healing stories.

- Garden to inspire. Think of the poetry, the painting, the music, the literature that has been inspired by gardens. Gardens inspire me to learn. I like that a lot.

It may take me until the next seminal moment (first day of fall) to pick up the clutter around the desk. Or I may not do it at all … because the garden calls.

Resources

- The "Avant Gardener," Box 489, New York, NY 10028. Published monthly, $24 a year.

- The National Garden Bureau, 1311 Butterfield Road Ste. 310, Downers Grove, IL 60515. Go to www.ngb.org

- American Rose Society, Box 30,000 Shreveport LA 71130. For information on the organic care of roses, go to www.goodearthrosecare.com

Cathie Draine is a member of the South Dakota State University Co-operative Extension Master Gardeners and the Garden Writers' Association. She lives and gardens in Black Hawk. She may be contacted at cathiedraine@rap.midco.net