Gardening Updates

Miscellaneous gardening notes...

As of April 18, Blush Noisette, on the southwest corner of the house, has 35 tender buds! I don't know if this rose will climb all the way up to the deck this summer. It's supposed to reach 8' but I don't know how long that's supposed to take. A couple months? One year? Five years? Perhaps I should have planted a higher climber there so it would be sure to reach the deck. Today I'm going to read about insecticides. I'd hate for something to attack all those buds overnight.




As of April 18, Pat Austin has 5 plump buds. Yes! I'm really looking forward to seeing copper roses. Since Pat Austin is on the deck, I don't have to worry about deer getting it.

The Fair Bianca on the deck and the two out front have one or two teeny buds. None of the roses planted in the front yard by the road have any buds. The Zepherine Drouhin on the northwest side of the house is growing vigorously and will have to be staked soon. So far no buds on it.




The New Dawn at the base of the deck stairs is also growing vigorously and will need staking soon to train it to reach toward the deck rail.











FACT: If you don't work at a stone wall, it will just be a pile of rocks. Thinking a pile of rocks can pass for a stone wall won't work. The Chief Stone Hefter worked a lot on my pile of rocks this weekend so it's looking more like a real stone wall.

ADVICE: Think plans through or they won't work. If we had followed through with my disjointed plans for the patio, visitors' drinks would slide off the tilted patio table, their chairs would tip backwards and the stone wall would have been completely buried under a dirt & tile patio floor on one side and the raised flower bed on the other side. Good thing we didn't follow through with my disjointed plans. We've decided to make the patio level afterall so that means digging out a bit of yard and moving dirt around. We also decided to make the raised beds inside the stone wall instead of burying the stone wall on the outside with more dirt to make a raised bed. Duh!


No longer are plants disposable. NO plant will ever die again under my hands if I can help it. I'm babying the lavender and hoping against the odds that it will survive.

Dying plants, especially lavender, are heartbreaking to behold. There's nothing I can do now but wait.





Planting two Cascadia Petunias and a geranium in one planter might be crowding. So we now have seven crowded planters lining our deck rail. They look pretty and have the potential to be gorgeous. It took me and our 12 yo son about 1.5 hours to fill the planters. He did a meticulous job watering each plant and then carefully spreading mulch around the tops. I took four cuttings from the geraniums because a storm was brewing and I didn't want all the flowers to be wasted. Fortunately, the rain wasn't a downpour and there was no hail so the flowers I left on the plants fared well.