The Rose Adventure

2010 Getting in the planting groove

2010-01-29T10:15:00.000-08:00

Recovering nicely from two years of gardening neglect. Well, it was actually depression after my father-in-law died and I was no longer his caregiver. I didn't do much gardening outside but I did do some in the house.

Lost a couple African Violets but managed to bring a Poinsettia back to life. ha ha. The Poinsettias are at least two years old now. No red leaves but they don't need sun and are a nice green spot in the dining room.

Also nursed a spider plant back to full health. The two Trumpet Flower cuttings are now small potted plants on the kitchen window sill. Best of all, one of my orchids is going to bloom! Wow! I haven't had any orchids bloom since my father-in-law died. I am very happy.

The new David Austin Rose catalog arrived today

2009-10-28T18:27:00.001-07:00

I held the catalog in my hands and it felt strange because I have become so unattached to my roses this year. :( So sad! Probably because the Chief Mulch Master managed to kill at least six of the roses by covering them with pine straw last fall. WITHOUT my blessing. But I didn't have enough valid info to tell him that was an unwise decision so the pine straw stayed. And with each rain through two seasons, the poor roses were bathed in an acid bath. :( So sad! I didn't know that was happening and it took a while to figure it out. By then, six rose bushes were dead and a couple are struggling along.

The New Dawn at the base of the deck stairs fared the best. This photo was taken in mid May of 09. I sure wish the New Dawn was a repeat bloomer. The canes go all the way up the deck stairs. During the summer, the canes continued to grow and now they grow along under the kitchen window. We're talking over 25'! WOW! So it's possible I will have my kitchen window framed in roses next spring. :)

The roses in the barrels on the deck are ok but they didn't bloom much, no doubt to the acid problem. They were covered with black plastic over the winter so not as much water ran down through the pine straw mulch. I plan on moving two of the barrel roses to the yard and getting some prolific repeat bloomers for the barrels.

I'm also growing two trumpet flower plants from cuttings my mom gave me. Her plant this year was huge. I hope my little baby Trumpet Flower plants make it through the winter so I can plant them outside next spring.

Freezing

2008-10-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

Last night the temp was supposed to drop below freezing. I figured my roses would be fine but moved the planters on the deck inside. I covered the kitchen island with plastic bags and also the dining room table and had the Rose Support Team schlep all the planters and pots in. There were only 16 so the boys didn't complain too much.

Here is a picture taken this morning before I had the boys take the planters and pots back out to the deck.

Tonight the boys will have to schlep them all back in again. And then the next night...

The boys enjoy weight lifting so I'm just giving them slightly more awkward weights to lift. I told the guys the sooner they get the garage ready with the plant stand then the sooner the musical planter game will be over. The plant stand was a shooting range all summer in the backyard.

little shoots

2008-06-09T10:57:00.000-07:00

Not in the ground, but rather little shoots in the spirit, the kind that have to come up after a major upheaval and turning of soil.
My sense of humor got kinda shot the past three months. Ever since March when my father-in-law died. He funded all my rose plantings. He had a terrific, unstoppable sense of humor and still laughed up till he lost his voice a couple days before he died. He loved flowers of every kind. I suppose I let my humor go with him. But I noticed small shoots coming up the other day. It's impossible to live this life without humor and more impossible to keep a blog without humor and most impossible of all to tend, um...

LIVING:
Fair Bianca on the Deck
Fair Biancas 1 & 2 in the front yard
Molineux on the Deck
Lost Tag Forgot Name DA rose on the Deck
New Dawn at the base of the deck stairs
Graham Thomas in the patio area
Jude the Obscure in the patio area
Pat Austin in the patio area
Eden in the patio area
Another Lost Tag Forgot Name DA rose in the patio area
Happy Little No Roses Yet in the back yard
Another Happy Little No Rose Yet in the back yard
Bright Red Forgot Name rose by the swing
Blush Noisette in Prince Charming Serenade Spot
Zepherine Drouhin by the chimney
Scepter'd Isle by the mail box
Jude the Obscure in the ditch
James Galway in the front yard
Queen of Denmark in the front yard
Rose of the Nifty Thorns in the front yard

DEAD:
Molineux in the patio area
Pat Austin in the patio area
Some Lovely Red and White rose in the backyard
Another Lovely Red rose in the backyard
Two More roses in the backyard
Two Roses in the front yard

WAITING ROOM BUCKET:
Pat Austin
Heritage

without some kind of sense at all.

At least I pruned them all at the right time, after the first flush of blooms.
The scent from the Blush Noisette is really strong. I'm going to plant another one of those next year. It's cute and quite healthy.

So many changes...

2008-05-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

There has been so much happening since my last post that I barely know where to begin. The biggest change is that my dear father-in-law, Robert Monroe, departed from this life on March 6th, 2008. It has taken me two months to leave the dark season of sorrow behind. I didn't even notice that spring came and went and now summer is nearly upon us.

I can't update all my rose adventures in this one post so it will have to be spread out over a number of posts. My roses are beginning to bloom!!!!!!! I'm fairly certain that the deer are either shot or they no longer remember that I have roses. Either way, I haven't seen them since last fall. The roses all have big juicy buds on them and nary a deer in sight.

I've taken some photos during the spring and will gradually post them and the accompanying text to this blog in the coming days. I only bought two new David Austin roses this year. At the time of purchase, I wasn't sure what my gardening life would be so I stayed on the conservative side. The bare root Pat Austin and lovely Heritage are still in a bucket of water on the deck. Shame on me! I'm probably going to take the Molineux out of one of the barrels on the deck and replant it in the patio area. It's not doing well in the barrel. I'm going to experiment by putting both the Pat Austin and the Heritage in the same barrel. It's not advised to put two rose bushes in one barrel but I really can't think of anywhere else to put the Heritage for now.

A couple days ago I got all the Cascadia petunias in the planters with the new geraniums. The white petunias are paired with the red geraniums and the red petunias are paired with the white geraniums. Last year I decided to go with brighter color on the deck, thus the new red addition. But now that everything is blooming, I seriously miss my beloved pink. Pink is cooler and more soothing to look at out the back door and I really need that now.

Roses under Wraps

2008-01-01T21:42:00.000-08:00

It's funny how much I've become attached to the roses on the deck. They made a valiant effort to keep putting out buds for weeks, even after a couple frosts! Of course the buds turned brown from the cold but that didn't stop the bushes. They still got new leaves too, even though I cut them back.

We're supposed to get a couple nights well below freezing. So I decided tonight was the night to cover them. I'll miss the green on the deck.

Tonight the Chief Mulch Manager told me there was no mulch but he made a valiant effort to look for some around the house anyway. There was a little left around the roses in the planters but the rest had blown away with fall's winds and rain. We covered the roses with double layers of black plastic, and pushed the planters right up against the house and back door. They probably weigh 100+ pounds each so it took three guys to lift them and move them. The next time I have planters, I'm going to drill holes around the top so rope handles can be inserted for moving the planters if necessary. It's really, really awkward lifting a barrel that weighs so much!

I'm going to figure out a way to decorate the black plastic so it doesn't look like I have big black blobs right outside the back door. Since it's winter, I should make them look like snowballs or something.

I'm really excited about what spring might bring. This will be the third year for the roses. Blush Noisette growing down below the corner of the deck kept getting clusters of roses well into fall, despite me not watering it and despite the drought.

We twisted the thorny New Dawn up around the hand rail as it grew all summer so it would reach the top of the stairs. It's amazing how high that one goes! If I undid all that twining, the vines would probably be 15' long. I'm not going to cut them for winter just so I can see how they fare.

It wasn't the brightest move to wrap the thorny vines around the handrailing though, making the railing a serious hazard to use and virtually unusable now. But hey, I'm still new to rose growing. How do other people get roses up around their decks and railings? You just have to go down the steps carefully and watch where you place your hand on the railing. No big deal.

It's hard to predict which roses will live through the winter. If any die, I want to plant a similar rose in it's place. But that means I have to order now before they sell out. If I order replacement roses, and the current roses don't die, I'll have to figure out where to put all the replacement roses.

Such predicaments gardeners face! It's not like I can give a plant to a friend. "Here, I don't have anywhere to plant these rose bushes, which will grow 15' high, 5' wide and need a lot of water, pruning and protection from deer. You can have them for free." Yep, my friends will line up for my generosity.

Winterizing

2007-11-08T09:41:00.000-08:00

Last night the weather was supposed to dip below freezing. To 29, actually. At 10 pm, last night I remembered that. The Rose Support team obligingly dragged the monstrous 6' high, A-Frame plant rack made of two by fours into the garage. It spent the summer in the backyard as a shooting gallery, covered with cans and various shootables. The plant rack is in the middle of the garage again, covered with all the terracotta planters from the back deck.

Last night before doing all that heavy lifting, the Rose Support team asked me "So... do you want all the dead plants in the garage?" Um, just because a flower isn't flowering doesn't mean it's dead. Just because it has drooping leaves doesn't mean it's dead. Nor do brown leaves mean dead. I'm sure the lack of sun in the garage will have a quick effect on all the geraniums, cascading petunias and poinsettias.

I haven't watered the planters in a month. Now that the plants are in the garage, I feel compelled to water them. There's nowhere for runoff so I'll have to water sparingly.

As for the roses, I'll have to watch the three potted ones on the deck carefully. They are still getting new growth and occasional roses. I hate to cut them back yet. Last year they made it throught the winter fine until I uncovered them just a week or two too soon. A killing spring frost killed my beloved Pat Austin. Next year, I'll pull out the current rose (can't even remember the name now) and put in a new Pat Austin.

Next year will be the third year for the Fair Bianca, second year for the Molineux and first year for another Pat Austin on the deck. I'm really looking forward to spring because I finally learned how and when to prune. Proper pruning of roses makes a HUGE, HUGE difference in the performance of the plant.

Pruning

2007-10-28T13:05:00.000-07:00

I can't figure out if I'm supposed to prune now or not. I just watched a bunch of YouTube videos on pruning. According to the videos, I'm 8 months too late. O_O

I checked out HeirloomRoses.com. They've got a couple I'm interested in for next year but I'll probably just stick with David Austin. I was only going to get three new DA roses for next year but my list is now around thirteen and increasing. But finally, I know what I'm doing!

Do all gardeners sacrifice plants to ignorance? I've got a really expensive ignorance going if that's the case. Or perhaps the more pc and elegant description is "Gardener Error". Hopefully, next year will be the best yet, with not even one rose lost due to Gardener Error.

I'll have to type up my final DA wish list, along with my plans for the new roses.

Gardening Roses

2007-10-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

Yeah I'm still here. My gardening activities don't go much further than the deck right off the dining room though. I probably spend at least 30 minutes a day out there doing gardening stuff. Mostly plucking off spent blooms from the geraniums, snipping off dead leaves, watering, and giving all the deck plants doses of Miracle Grow.

The drought this summer was really rough on some of the new roses. I wasn't able to water the ones in the yard much, which made it doubly worse. I'm amazed that we only lost three of the new roses. They only got watered about once a month too! I'm thrilled that the Molineux on the deck is still graced with occasional blooms, as is the Fair Bianca. It's October and I'm still getting roses right outside my dining room! Way cool.

Because of the scorching 100+ degree heat this summer, even watering the roses on the deck didn't spare them from damage. I lost some leaves and buds burned up crispy before even blooming. Now that the heat is past, the roses are rallying and I've got a dozen buds and blooms in various stages on the deck roses.

Scepter'd Isle, planted up by the mailbox, turned out to be the star this year. I wasn't able to prune it or water it, but over the summer and into the fall, it got a couple dozen blooms. DOZEN, mind you! Probably due to it being Year 2 and also the deer disappeared. No I did NOT have anything to do with the deer disappearing. But I did pray repeatedly for their demise and I, ahem, cursed them into oblivion. You know, "Curse you, you dastardly deer! You SHALL NOT PASS!" kinda stuff.

Jude the Obscure, down in the patio area, surprised me by growing. Poor Jude had such a rough start. As a tender bare root, it was neglected and abused in the garage during pre-planting for months, suffered torturous shredding by the deer after planting and then incinerated by the sun without even a drop of hydration. Despite all that, Jude is giving me Magnificent, Heavenly Blooms this month! Wow.

There aren't many blooms, but the growth is vigorous and very promising for next year. It's the scent of Jude the Obscure that has elevated it above all the other roses so far. The scent of the half dozen blooms here and there sends me into rapturous swooning. Such ecstasy! Honestly, my eyes actually rolled back as I closed them and buried my nose in a Jude the Obscure bloom. Inhale slow and deep... exhale... inhale slowly, concentrate on the scent. Where does the scent take you? Can it be described? Can it be memorized like a painting or caress or flavor?

Jude the Obscure is officially my favorite rose scent. It's a lot stronger this year than it was last year. I would Totally wear a perfume that managed to capture Jude! It's a rather exotic, complex scent, with a tropical fruit, perhaps Mango, laced with a subtle sandalwood, white wine and a rare flower. Orchid perhaps? Oh Jude, such scent sublime!

Now that our lives are finally settling in a workable schedule with my father-in-law still living with us, I'm going to be getting back to more gardening. And posting to this blog. I've MISSED it! I was down walking around the overgrown future patio area today and envisioned having friends over for a "Come Smell My Roses" party next summer. Woot! Something so exquisite just HAS to be shared.

Roses.

2007-05-31T09:48:00.002-07:00

Roses. Not many because the deer have disgusting, voracious appetites. But enough that I'm willing to pay $20 per bush. Which means that I wait a whole year just to get one rose that the deer miss. Yesterday I cut them and put them in a vase. Then I set the vase down where ever I was so I could enjoy the rose scent.

Is it worth it to grow a rose that takes a year of watering, fertilizing, pruning, just to get a couple days of scent?

Yes.

4 Roses in the Ground!!!!

2007-03-13T19:45:00.000-07:00

WOOT! I don't have time to add the photos here but just HAD to post that we've got 4 in the ground - William Shakespeare, Tradescent, The Generous Gardener and Wildeve.
=D
I'm stoked.

They've arrived!!!

2007-02-28T11:27:00.000-08:00

This is it. No turning back. I'm starting over.
The box got here last night and my heart did a little flip. =)

My heart did a little flip probably from excitement.
...thinking...
...no...
It probably flipped because we haven't dug 22 big holes, nor have we purchased and installed the patio stone, nor have we purchased the mulch, manure and peat moss.

Most likely my heart flipped because last year's roses look like this:

Eden (in the future-patio area)

Jude the Obscure (looking fairly obscure)

Graham the Dead (looking more obscure than Jude)

Blush Noisette (marking the Serenade spot by the deck)

The deck roses are ok, I guess. They spent the winter by the back door so I could keep an eye on them.

So here I am spending a couple hundred to repeat last year's Rose Adventure.
hmm...
I'm pretty sure I had fun last year.
...thinking...
...no...
I'm fairly certain the roses were beautiful.
...thinking...
...no, that's not it...

Probably I liked the smell of the roses.
...not frequently enough to remember this chilly February day...
I guess I spent that money on HOPE.
Festoons of it, bushes of it, vases around the house of it, enough to leave anonymously on neighbors' doorsteps. And yes, Hope will have a lovely fragrance.

In which case, if one can buy Hope for a couple bucks, then that's a real bargain. For now, this is what Hope looks like:

Ugliness vs Beauty

2007-02-20T16:34:00.000-08:00

Today my father-in-law managed to escape when I wasn't looking. Alzheimer's sure is a rough disease. It's a prison of confusion and ugliness. It's a maze of torturous proportion. It's a video set on endless looping. Alzheimer's can turn a simple object or false memory into the center of the universe and then force it's victim to pay homage for hours on end.

Fortunately for both my father-in-law and me, he got distracted by piles of pine needles on a junked car windshield in our side yard. He spent the next hour hand-picking pine needles off the windshield. By the time he finished, he was content to go back in the house. Which meant I in turn no longer had to look at the disgusting junked car covered with pine needles.

Yup, the junked car is a view you'll never see in my rose blog. There's actually two cars, one pickup and an old van that are good for nothing but an ugly view. Even more unfortunately, they're in shade so I can't buy some kind of creeping, rambling roses that are good for covering whole buildings. Believe me, I tried and one of these days I'll find the perfect plant to cover the whole mess.

In the meantime, I choose to turn my back on the ugliness in life and only focus on beauty. Which is why, this day, February 20, 2007, there are no less than 22 bare root English Roses from David Austin on their way to my house. If Ugliness wants to put up a fight, it might as well give up right now. Beauty is going to win.

=)

And one of these days, my own home-grown roses will grace my table instead of store-bought roses.

Rose plan for 2007

2007-02-15T09:40:00.000-08:00

It's still winter here. Nothing is growing. Everything is cold. I'm a caretaker for an Alzheimer's patient around the clock.

Therefore, I can not explain why my table looked like this a couple days ago.Note all the little paper tags placed on my garden layout. Note the green sheet of paper with more rose lists. Note the store-bought roses in the vase. It all adds up to... 22 new roses.
Twenty two.
Well, plus two more that the kids picked out at the last minute.
Which means my beloved Rose Support Team will have to dig 24 big holes around the property. That's 8 more than last year.

I did have the decency to ask my two main diggers if they minded digging some holes. They didn't mind! Which is really good because that will make the chore much easier once the roses arrive. And I also cleared the location of 24 more roses with the Rose Support Team. I asked important questions like: Is there a telephone line in this location? Are there septic tank issues in this spot? If I put a rose here, will we hit the TV cable? Which means this year we won't cut our phone and cable lines repeatedly like last year.

What possessed me to get so many? Why roses? Why this year?
After last spring, I told myself I would NEVER buy that many roses again. But then... the catalog arrived. I spent a long time gazing at David Austin rose photos on the Garden Web Rose Forum.
And I resurrected my visions of rose festoons.

Twenty four doesn't sound unmanageable right now. I'm optimistic!

The Gardener is IN

2007-01-22T17:14:00.000-08:00

Have I done any gardening?
Well, if manually squishing hundreds of aphids off a six foot indoor, um, "#14 PREMIUM FOLIAGE IN GARDEN 6.51 GAL SKU 39438" counts, then Yes. I have no clue what the plant is but it's coming back now that I'm watering it.

My Christmas pointsettias have dwindled from a lush 7 to an emaciated 5.

My prized 10 year old Jade Plant, started from a leaf as a gift from my great grandmother's ancient Jade, was accidentally left out one bitter, frosty night last November. I brought it in the next day but the leaves started shriveling and dropping so I lopped off all the branches. Alas, now two months later, I have declared the plant officially mushy and dead. But I can't bear to throw it out yet so I've placed the three African Violets around the Jade trunk in memoriam. Fortunately, about two years ago I had started another Jade tree from a leaf. It's teeny and the cats keep biting the leaves but 10 years from now it should look lovely if the cats don't kill it.

The Chief Plant Rescuer built an industrial size A-frame shelf unit to hold all my deck planters in the garage. Now the cats have more options for playing and sleeping at night.

I mulched the roses on the deck but never had time to do anything at all to the roses in the yard. That grieves me to no end. I had PLANS. I bought MULCH. I've got BAGS of rooty-looking stuff that never got planted from last fall! I feel SICK every time I look out the back window. bah.

sigh.

I've decided that I'm going to order more roses. Despite my lack of time, I suspect that holding a bare root rose again will motivate me to pick up where I left off three months ago.

I'm going to let my most favorite people in the world pick out their favorite roses from the David Austin catalog and plant them in my yard. Then when my most favorite people in the world visit, it will be rich handing them a rose. Well, actually, some of my favorite people live here. I suspect it will be much easier motivating them to water, mulch, swat deer and squish beetles off a rose they like.

Oh and yes, in addition to squishing aphids, I've taken a lot of photos. Mostly of stuff like the doomed aphids.
Eventually, the photos will get uploaded with commentary.

I'm not here.

2006-11-07T20:52:00.000-08:00

I'm not here.

I'm far away.

Life is difficult.

So the best thing to do is look for the good.

I got word today. The assisted living place can't handle my Alzheimer's-stricken father-in-law. So we have to bring him home this weekend to live with us. As determined as I was to make the roses live, I'm determined to make this household thrive. I will look for the good.

But right now, I'm not here.

The Reason I Don't Post Often

2006-10-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

The main reason I don't post often is because my father-in-law's health took a turn downhill a couple months ago. I spend at least 30 hours a week tending to his care now.

When I planted the roses eight months ago, I was abruptly thrown into a foreign world, a world of black spot and mulch and manure. A world where one inch of green growth was new and exciting, a world where bugs were no longer cute and friendly. When I planted the roses, I expected lots of back-breaking labor rewarded with lavish armloads of roses and heady aroma. It never occurred to me that life would head in a different direction.

When my gardening time got suddenly and severly limited, I discovered that I didn't need festoons and armloads of roses. Having a jaw-dropping display of pink petals around my mailbox was no longer important. Making sure the Queen of Denmark didn't get dwarfed by James Galway was no longer a priority. What I did discover was that a good laugh with my elderly father-in-law warms my soul more than any plant I could ever grow. Fertilizing a friendship has a more lasting impact than fertilizing a plant.

It was my father-in-law who helped fund this rose adventure. He's as thorny as the Queen of Denmark on some days and if he were a rose, I'd be tempted to get those pruning shears and chop... um... well... take off no more than the top two thirds of the stem, leaving two or three clusters of leaves at the base, keeping in mind the desired shape of the rose bush... Other days, he's as sweetly scented as the Blush Noisette. Dad won't be with us as much anymore now that he'll be moving to assisted living. These days are precious. If I could make a toast with a rose, I'd say Here's to G Bob, who pushes me to near insanity while his twinkling eyes and smile still make me laugh.

Orchids and Fair Bianca

2006-10-11T20:50:00.000-07:00

The orchids were for daughter's 26'th birthday. She sure was surprised to get flowers delivered! What fun!

The yellow orchids look dramatic with the red-dyed eucalyptus, a perfect fit for our daughter's personality. When I ordered the arrangement, I didn't pay attention to the eucalyptus and was going just for color. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that our daughter had an allergic reaction to eucalyptus once. She was visiting a friend in a warm room that had a big eucalyptus wreath on the wall and she turned beet red and passed out. She insists that she's outgrown the allergy thing but we don't want to find out so the arrangement is staying in the dining room where there is plenty of air flow.

It was quite a struggle to get the orchids and eucalyptus to stay in the pretty, red globe vase. I had to fuss with the arrangement numerous times. We tried using a smaller glass filled with water and a plastic water bottle hot glued in the middle. Neither worked. Filling the vase with glass marbles worked but doesn't look nearly as pretty because you can't see through the marbles. Still, it's a stunning fall display.

Today I checked on the roses and found a gorgeous, huge Fair Bianca bloom. Wow! It smells wonderful too! The Fair Bianca seems much happier now that the temperatures are cooling off. The bushes in the front yard are getting more buds too. That's nice to know because Pat Austin seems to be done blooming for the year and the Scepter'd Isle is slowing way down. This means I'll have roses for a long time next summer. The Fair Bianca would have had lots more blooms if I had known how to prune properly. I can't wait till next spring to see what a difference good pruning will do for the roses. I didn't get "festoons" this year but maybe next year I will.

Fair Bianca

2006-10-02T20:55:00.000-07:00

There are five glorious, bug-free, scented blooms and lots more buds on the Fair Bianca on the deck. The two Fair Biancas in the front yard have nothing. Which means fertilizing, watering and pruning DO make a difference.

I think I finally figured out how to prune a rose bush. First, you start in the spring. That's where I went wrong. Back in the spring, I was so excited to see growth on the rose bushes that I didn't want to cut a single leaf off. But that just turned my roses into Jack-in-the-Beanstalk wannabes.

I kept cutting off the spent blooms from the Fair Bianca on the deck and that made the rose happy. It's still making more buds. At some point this month, I'm supposed to let the blooms turn into rose hips so the bush will settle down for the winter. I'll have to find out more about that.

Smoky Mountains - wow!

2006-10-01T20:41:00.000-07:00

We spent a couple days in the Smoky Mountains this past week. I've never seen the mountains from so up high. The house was so far away from roads and people that the only sound we heard was the wind in the trees. Occasionally there were distant crows but mostly just wind in trees.

The first time I stood on the deck, I was surprised that tears fell down my cheeks. Tears? What for? I was strangely moved and couldn't tell why. The tears fell unchecked and I struggled to figure out what moved me so deeply. I actually wept.

I praised God for his magnificent handiwork. The vastness of the mountains seemed to say "I AM here. I AM here."

The house was built on a shelf cut into the side of the mountain in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Behind the house, the stone hillside disappeared into forest.

Fall is coming to the mountains. Already there are reds and golds sprinkled around. We're going back in a couple weeks to enjoy the autumn colors.

This photo is a lone maple leaf, fallen on the lichen-laced hillside behind the house.

I'm glad we have an opportunity to go back to the mountain house so soon. I shall savor every second of the supreme splendor. Truly magnificent.

Mold

2006-09-22T19:45:00.000-07:00

We moved a large hardwood log in the backyard. I'm fairly certain it was oak. Well, actually I didn't move the log. My brother was visiting so I said something like "You know all about cutting down trees and stuff so how should I move a large log?"

So he moved it. That was so nice of him! It was a good thing the log didn't take long to move because I forgot he had a sprained ankle.

When my brother rolled the log over, we saw the strangest, velvety blue mold on one side. The brightnesss of the blue was startling.

I have no idea what kind of mold that is. Too bad I don't know how to find out. What if it's good for curing some kind of rare disease?

There's mold growing on the outside of the terra cotta pots on the deck now. I was going to wash it off when my expert gardner mom told me people pay money to get a pot that looks like that. They even buy paint to FAKE the mold on it. Honestly. And there I was, about to scrub off all that unsightly, slimey stuff. Go figure.

Frog

2006-09-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

It's been ages since I posted. Every day I spend a little time with the roses and deck plants. Alas, the plants were neglected while I was on vacation so the petunias and geraniums took a serious hit. Several are now dead.

I cut some of the petunias way back, almost to dirt level and some are rallying, some are still just a stick.

This morning I had my nose in the geranium while removing dead leaves. I better pay attention more next time.

If the frog hadn't moved an eye, I would have missed him altogether.

[Click on the photos for a bigger version.]

The other day I was working on the deck for about an hour, watering and pruning. Then I went in the house and cleaned my bedroom for a while. After 30 or so minutes of cleaning, I sat on the edge of the bed with pen and journal to write something. I was writing for a couple minutes when PLOP!!! a huge grasshopper dropped off the top of my head right onto my paper. GASP!!! I covered it with a shirt and finished my writing.

What chills me is pondering the fact that the grasshopper was on my head at least 30 minutes. Am I getting so old that I can't feel a grasshopper on my head? If I had not noticed the frog, and he jumped, would I be walking around with a frog on my head? How long till I noticed? Would I care?

I like his yellow spots.

Jude the Obscure Bloomed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-08-23T13:34:00.000-07:00

Wow! It bloomed!

Actually, I have no idea when it bloomed the first time. It probably bloomed late at night when I was sleeping just to get even for all the mistreatment I gave it. Then it dropped all its petals right before I looked that way. I've seen Jude the Obscure petals around the bush a couple times in the past month but nary a rose.

Yesterday I looked down from the deck and saw two buds. Woohoo! Upon closer inspection, I saw that a bug had eaten a big hole clear through to the center of the bud. Grrr. I considered pinching the bud off but then decided to let it go another couple days before I plucked it off. I’m SO glad I didn’t pluck that bud off!

Today, I looked down from the deck and saw... a rose in full bloom! The Jude had bloomed! I raced down the stairs while calling to the boys "There's a new rose! There's a new rose!"

Ah, how lovely Jude the Obscure is! I will definitely plant more next spring. The scent is unreal. It's a luscious sweet, peachy-almond, apple tea fragrance with a touch of mango. If ever I wanted to eat a rose, this one is it. No wonder some bug munched it.

The color is a creamy pale peach. I was expecting an ivory rose but the pale peach with hints of sunlight coming from within will look nice next to the Graham Thomas, if ever the Graham survives.

The Fair Bianca on the deck is rebounding and the Scepter’d Isle and Pat Austin on the deck are healthy. Roses are glorious. Simply glorious.

My eyes got all misty when I smelled the Jude. It reminds me of a place long ago. Perhaps walking through an apple orchard in the spring? Perhaps standing under my parents’ apple tree at the top of the hill on a cool summer’s eve? Even if I can’t bring back the visual memory of an event, I’m driven to bring back a scent from long ago. A scent is a living connection to something I can’t touch or hold or keep.

I’m a little wistful thinking about fall being just around the corner. There were too many days this summer when I had to be away from home. Plants didn’t get watered, pruned or talked to as much as they should have. I’m feeling all angsty and depressed now that winter means no more gardening. Do other gardeners feel this way? I’ve never dreaded the cold breath of winter before. In fact, winter was always my favorite season. This depression is a first for me. I’ve got such a doom and gloom attitude and it’s no fun at all. What do gardeners do all winter?

This whole adventure started last January. I guess I can wait till January of 07 and continue the rose adventure all over again. Only this time, I’ll know what to expect when a box arrives full of bare root rose bushes in the middle of icy February. Last year’s purchase of 15 rose bushes was on a whim. This year’s purchase of 20 rose bushes will be 100% intentional. I plan on having 100 rose bushes on this property within the next 5 years.

Five days later...

2006-08-22T07:05:00.000-07:00

Friday the 18th was the wedding. Today, five days later, I'm still exhausted from the wedding. Last night we took lots of decorations and orchids to the newlyweds' apartment and decorated it. It's amazing how different a living space looks with greenery. Just one big fern placed in a corner makes a huge difference. We hung ivy garlands above the windows and honeycomb bells, strands of pearls and lots of flowers here and there around the apartment. The newlyweds will love it! As we worked, daughter said we were "reverse vandalizing" the place. Funny.

For the wedding, we wired together long garlands of real ivy that we pulled up from the side yard. We hung the ivy garlands above the front window and the sliding glass door in the dining room. We placed ivy garland over the top of the china cabinets in the dining room and living room. We also wound the garland around the railing in the living room and hung white, wired-ribbon bows. It looked gorgeous.

I wish we could have afforded real flowers but the extraordinary silk ones we found looked amazing. There were flowers everywhere! Daughter helped make the bride's and maid-of-honor's bouquets from a combination of real and silk flowers. I figured out how to decoratively wrap the stems with ribbon by following book directions.

The magenta orchids did not match a single thing. So we used the four vases of orchids to brighten up dark corners. That worked very nicely and the shadowy corners helped tone down the bright magenta color so it didn't clash with the barely pink roses. Everything was so lovely.

Here is a photo of the cake, two vanilla layers with a lemon-orange cheesecake layer in the middle, taken after I finished decorating it the night before the wedding. The pastillage roses turned out perfect. The cake was stored in layers in son's big refrigerator and delivered to the restaurant the morning of the wedding.

I like how the cake turned out. I made enough cake for leftovers and the restaurant staff hoped for a little bite. I left them a big chunk to share. Son wanted his favorite, simple birthday frosting on the cake, loaded with shortening and butter, so that's what I put on the cake. The staff made no comment so they probably thought the icing was appalling. I do make a melt-in-your-mouth French Buttercream that has a whole pound of butter and NO shortening and NO grainy powdered sugar but that's not what the bride and groom wanted. Life is sweet when you keep is simple.

Here's a photo of the bride and groom sitting on the deck after the wedding. Just one day after this photo was taken, the Pat Austin rose had dropped her peachy petals. Two days after the wedding, the Cascadia petunias were so anemic that I had to drastically prune them. It is very fortunate that the deck looked so nice the day of the wedding.

The Fair Biancas on the deck and in the front yard had some perfect, bug-free blooms. But no rose was so fair as the bride and no flower would give me as much pleasure as seeing my son radiant with joy with his new wife. God is good to me.

Three Days till the Wedding - Orchid Overkill!

2006-08-15T21:57:00.000-07:00

It is 1:11 am Tuesday night, August 15 and I'm tired. This evening the orchids arrived. I had no idea 60 orchids were soooo many! I had no idea magenta was so bright! We have the orchids crowded in four vases but they could easily be spread out amongst 10 vases.

Alas, I think we have Orchid Overkill. The orchids are bright magenta colored. If I spread them out over the house, our guests will be overwhelmed with so much magenta. So I'll have to think of a way to tone down the intensity.

I'm seriously considering sticking some of the orchids in the dirt in the geranium planters on the deck. "Why yes," I'll say to the guests "aren't those orchids lovely? They are really pretty to use in floral arrangements. Just look at how many there are! Why, there are so many, I would be delighted to send a few home with you."

Four Days till the Wedding!

2006-08-13T20:52:00.000-07:00

I had to count out the days on my fingers. That must mean something but I don't know what.

Yesterday I took time out from making icing flowers and did some work with real flowers. The wedding is so close and there's so much to do so I'm not sure why I went out to the deck in the first place.

The first thing I saw was a planter that had the remains of a palm in it. Why on earth would a gardener plant a palm in a hanging basket? Duh. I bought the hanging basket pre-planted at Home Depot two years ago. It looked cute, with a little palm tree in the middle and some geraniums and begonias in it. The geraniums and begonias were happy but of course the palm tree grew straight up until it hit the roof. It was very healthy but I could tell it needed to be in a better spot than 3' under a roof. Don't palm trees get really big? I kept the hanging basket on a table this year and it did fine until a freak frost killed the palm. So I chopped the palm off.

Yesterday I saw the sawed off stub of the palm tree in the hanging basket and decided to yank it out. I pulled and it didn't budge. I yanked at it and pulled and struggled and ended up lifting half the dirt out of the basket. What I pulled out was downright creepy. It was a massive root system, all gnarly like some tendrilled disease. Shiver! I told one of the boys to plant it out in the backyard somewhere just in case it might grow and filled in the huge gaping hole in the planter with more dirt.

I guess struggling with that root was a good thing to do. All day I had bent over a table forming delicate flowers out of sugar paste by hand. Tearing through the dirt with bare hands was enormously satisfying. I think I even grunted once.

Here are some of the flowers I've been working on the past three days.

Sugar paste, or "pastillage" is really fun to work with but you have to work fast because it dries out quickly as you work. The roses have to be made in stages over a course of days to allow for drying. This photo was taken before the green calyxes were added.

The sprays of blossoms are made of hundreds of tiny white flowers, each cut out of sugar paste and then cupped and formed by hand. They add the "baby's breath" element to an icing floral arrangement. Sweet.

Cucumber-on-a-Rope

2006-08-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

That's what we are officially growing now.
I was running around getting ready for the wedding and forgot to water the plants two 100 degree+ days last week. Alas, the cucumbers gave up the ghost. But we've got the coolest Cucumbers-on-a-Rope now! I can see it now, fruit and veggie-shaped soap on a rope, a hot item sold by Bath & Body... Just remember that I had the first idea for this.

"WHAT are those mangy looking vines on the picnic table?"

la la la ...where seldom is heard, a discouraging word... la la la...

At least I got to be an Egyptian Princess today. I sat in queenly pose on my deck throne while Pat Austin slowly fanned me with 5 magnificent blooms. Sheer bliss.

Well, I suppose I should prune the Pat Austin rose back a bit so it's not so far above eye level. Then again, since the Pat Austin roses tend to nod, they look pretty good up high.

The Scepter'd Isle is having a severe case of
Jack-in-the-Beanstalk-Wannabe. sigh. All it wants to do is climb, climb, climb. The height of one cane is downright frightening. I'm going to need a ladder soon to trim the top off. I keep hoping for blooms but if they grow at sky-scraper height we won't see them anyway. I'll have to say to my guests "Please come see my beautiful pink Scepter'd Isle roses" as I hand them a pair of binoculars.

The wedding is just 8 days away! I'm frustrated over all that has to be done yet. Instead of making the front garden nice, I'm having to invest time & money in stuff like curtains, carpet cleaning and decluttering. Still To Do is make 300 more icing flowers for the wedding cake, sew Austrian crystals on the bride's reception dress, sew ribbons on the bride's shoes, scrub and wax the kitchen/dining room floor, decorate the entire house, learn how to make a bridal bouquet, boutonnieres and six large table arrangements and finish the patio. sigh.
I suppose the patio will have to wait. sigh.

I keep talking to the geraniums, petunias and roses that they better put out some serious performance for the wedding guests! The petunias got drastically pruned about 11 days ago but they're still not looking very promising. I trimmed at least 18" from them, which created a pile of clippings.

Blogger difficulties

2006-08-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

For past last three days I've been having trouble uploading photos to blogger. I'm not sure why. But that's why I haven't posted. What good is a gardening blog without pics?

I'm working on a couple posts that have a lot of internet links in them to tide me over till blogger fixes their uploading problem. And of course, I'm gardening like mad, even in 104 degrees.

The petunias are going to seed and I have a cucumber!

2006-07-29T12:41:00.000-07:00

Ach! I'm not done enjoying the petunias! Bah. I'm not sure what's going on. I saw this crispy little, brown nub on a petunia this afternoon and wondered if it was diseased. I broke the shell open thinking a bug had eaten through it but it was hollow and little black seeds fell out. Surprise, surprise! Seeds! Here's a photo of one of the seed cases. It looks remarkably like a dolphin. You can see the old, wilted petunia "cigar" still attached at the side. Maybe I have to be more diligent at picking off the old blooms.

...pondering that...
...which means I'll have to pick off at least 50 spent blooms a day from the 16 Petunias...
”Sorry, kids, can’t take you anywhere because I have to de-cigar the Petunias.” “Sorry son, your wedding can’t start until I’ve de-cigarred all the Petunias.”

Our son't wedding is three weeks away. The petunias just have to hang on! The deck roses just have to bloom more! The cucumbers just have to be put out of sight.

The cucumbers will have to be moved from their sprawling position on the picnic table on the deck. They're gangly and ugly and still struggling to survive in the little starter pots we bought them in. The roots are growing out the bottom of the pots so I put more dirt under the pots.

I don't know where I can plant them that the deer can't get them. Maybe the cucumbers can spend the weekend of the wedding on the deck stairs. Our guests aren't likely to go down the deck stairs anyway. If the cucumbers are really happy there, I'll just leave them there.

Then a wedding guest will look down the stairs and gasp "There's something growing up your steps!" "Ah, yes," I'll say. "That's the cucumber that got away from the deer. It used to grow way over there, out by the compost pile, but every night it crept closer and closer to the deck to get away from the clenching jaws of death. The petunias and roses cheered it on, 'You can make it! C'mon, you can make it!'"

The other day I was sitting on the deck talking to my mom when I interrupted my own sentence with "Oh my goodness, I've got a cucumber! I've got a cucumber!" My mom wasn't sure what I was talking about. She's heard of people having a cow, having a big head, having a baby, but not having a cucumber. Hanging from a sad vine was a 5" long cucumber. I had no idea! And there were 10 more in various stages of growth. How can this be since the cucumbers were never planted? They didn't even get full sun all day and were practically baked to death a couple times on the 99+ degree days. I can't count the number of times I resuscitated them.

The cucumbers have had such a hard life. I better find out how big a cucumber should be before you eat it. I fear a couple may have gone to seed.

Bag 'O Beetles

2006-07-23T18:21:00.000-07:00

What happened to the gardener? Are the roses blooming? Did the patio get finished? What was the final decision on the moat?

Actually, we're still undecided about the moat. The patio is unfinished and it doesn't look like it will be finished this year. The roses bloom and then immediately get destroyed by the Japanese beetles. Overnight two beetles can ruin a rose. Totally disgusting.

Equally disgusting is my Bag O' Beetles. It's the only way I can think of to get rid of them. My expert gardener mom squishes the beetles with her bare hands! Impressive! Disgusting! Gasp! I don't think I'll ever become an expert gardener if it means you have to squish beetles with your bare hands. I can't even squish them with gloves on. I can't step on them or smash them in a bag. So I knock them off the roses into a plastic bag and leave them to their fate.

At this point, I disconnect. Don't ask me what happens to the beetles after they go in the bag. I don't know and I don't want to know. It's impossible for a gardener to connect to both plants AND bugs. Plants and bugs simply can't share space in my brain. Either I consider the roses, for which I paid hundreds in cash, time and effort, or I consider the beetles, which are so disgusting that they mate in broad daylight right on top of a rose while eating it. I've declared these gluttonous pests to be Rose Enemy #2, next to deer, so the beetles get the bag.

Cigar-Smoking Petunias

2006-07-10T19:36:00.000-07:00

Ha, ha ha, that sounds dreadful! Actually, the title of this entry is The Life Cycle of a Petunia Bloom. The cigars don't come in till the end of the life cycle. The roses are getting eaten by disgusting Japanese Beetles and every day I go out and swat them off. So this entry is focusing on a different plant than roses until I figure out how I'm supposed to annihilate the entire Japanese Beetle population within 50 miles.

Right now, the Cascadia Petunias are blooming nicely. Note the cascade of white blossoms over the railing, like a clear waterfall rushing over green moss with white, foamy bubbles in the spray.

Ah yes, the blossoms are in their prime. It won't last though.

First, the petunia blossom begins all crumpled up, like a piece of pleated and crushed silk.

The blossom lengthens and the end thins out and whitens.

The end starts to open up.
And then...

Ah yes, they have reached their full glory!

Which lasts approximately one day and then come Petunia Decline.
Which isn't nearly as pretty.

But first, check out the center of these pretties.

My, what green lips you have, Miss Petunia! The green pistil in the center of this flower reminds me of the big-lipped, singing creature in Star Wars, Sy Snootles. If only a Petunia could sing...

Remember Banana Flips from the 70's, a soft, round, cake-texture cookie folded in half around a fluffy cream filling? The stamens of the petunias look just like Banana Flips! The stamens pop open and flip inside out so the pollen filling is on the outside. Yum. This photo was taken before the flip.

After peak performance comes Petunia Decline. It's not so bad. Instead of nice, white bubbles with clear water, the cascading blossom looks rather like muddy water.

It gets worse.

The blossom shrivels further and looks very sickly.

But the worst stage is the last...

Right before The End, the petunia smokes a cigar. Ghastly!

Now why would such a pretty gal sully her looks by smoking a cigar?
Yesterday I spent over an hour pulling cigars away from the petunias. tsk, tsk.

I read somewhere that if the spent blooms are removed, the plant will produce more flowers. I can't imagine doing this job daily but it was very satisfying thinking my chore might create more flowers. Actually, from across the deck, you can't even see the cigars anyway.

Behind the spent bloom is the beginning of the next bloom. It looks like a little green nub.

The nub gets longer and the cycle starts all over again. Daily.

When they're not smoking cigars, the Life Cycle of a Petunia is a gorgeous, constant foamy waterfall.

Lots of action on the castle grounds

2006-07-01T21:54:00.000-07:00

A princess is allowed to do nothing on her balcony, especially if a prince isn't likely to appear.

All it takes is a little attention to detail to see things that otherwise get missed. Princesses are notorious for missing details because they're much too preoccupied with themselves.

Today, while doing nothing on my balcony, knowing a prince wasn't likely to appear, and disgustingly preoccupied with myself, I had a little thought. It was Look! It was such a tiny thought that I almost didn't think it.

Look!

So I did.

And the first thing I saw was a castle guard on the lavender. He was shorter than most, only about 1" long. But he had made it this far so I knew he'd grow big and strong.

Which is good because there was a thief in the castle!!! Ugh!!! The thief had already stripped dozens of leaves from Fair Bianca and was in the process of taking more. We quickly pulled him off the rose and gave him a grisly end.

It's a good thing we got rid of the thief because the queen had left bowls of emeralds all around one of her lavender plants. That was a totally irresponsible thing for her to do. tsk tsk. The glittering emeralds surely looked tempting to a thief.

The glitter no doubt attracted all manner of folk to the castle. Such as the masses of maidens and noble ladies.

They flocked through the halls, giggling and whispering, shocked and intrigued at the queens lavish display of her wealth.

Meanwhile, a small troupe of jesters and acrobats carried on across the courtyard. The maidens giggled at the jesters' antics as they juggled their sunny yellow clubs.

It was the job of the acrobats to entertain the queen. But the queen was much too hot and bored to appreciate their riotous tumbling.

I looked over at the queen. She was so hot that she didn't even bother to arrange her robes neatly. Rather, she semi-reclined in her throne, her skirts all in disarray.

A peasant looked on from afar, wondering if he should hold his petition for another day. With all the heat, the cucumbers were failing and the queen simply had to do something about it.

The peasant waited until one of the queen's advisors appeared. Alas, his pinched scowl didn't make him appear approachable on this hot day. The peasant sighed.

The best action was taking place near the railing. I noticed a young princess leaning against the terra cotta wall demurely covering her face with her fan. No doubt a suitor must be near.

Ah yes, a noble prince stood handsomely across the castle grounds, watching her intently.

And that's what I saw when I looked.

The restorative power of flowers

2006-06-29T19:29:00.000-07:00

It wasn't just the flu, it was strep throat too. Bummer. And a wicked cough with 70% hearing loss. And NO ac to boot with humidity high enough to rain in the house. So I was drooping at the dining room table nearly overwhelmed with morbid self pity when my eye caught a flash of brilliant fushia orchid. No I didn't grow them. They were a gift to myself on June 16 two weeks after my husband had forgotten our anniversary.

There I was, head on the table, feeling low when a little thought came along... how can you feel sorry for yourself when you have a vase of orchids on your table? Look at them! They are amazing! Look outside at your deck, all covered with flowers. You are fortunate indeed.

My pity left right then. I kicked it out and I didn't let it come back. Indeed, how can one focus on anything dismal when there is so much beauty just waiting to take center stage? See here, orchids! Look there, petunias! Everywhere are green trees and grass and roses.

The orchids are now 2 weeks old and they look just as gorgeous today as the day they arrived. My strep throat is almost gone, my hearing is returning and we got the new heat pump fired up today for the first time so we're chillin' nicely. I can't wait to do more gardening again. The orchids and roses showed me Life Is Good.

Resting

2006-06-25T19:20:00.000-07:00

The flu pretty much wiped me out. I think I did something with the plants a couple times but don't remember what. I remember getting my hands in dirt but don't recall why. I vaguely recall carrying buckets of water to help wilting plants. I don't know who was wilted more, the plants or me.

One thing is for sure. Every year from now on forever more, my deck shall have boxes of flowers on the railing, tomatoes and roses in barrels, and a bench for resting. Good things are worth repeating.

Gardening, Photographing and Coughing

2006-06-19T17:41:00.000-07:00

Gardening is possible when one has a cough. You just need a little help. I had to get the Rose Support Team to help carry all the water. It's been 9 days since I got the flu and now I'm coughing my way out of it. Today, the Rose Support Team and I delivered 18+ gallons of fortified water to the roses around the property. All four bushes along the road out front have been stripped by deer. I never got to see the James Galway bloom, with all it's fat buds too. I never even got to see the buds of Queen of Denmark. That just plain stinks. At least Blush Noisette is hanging in there, with a flush of new buds and a couple blooms so far.

We watered all the potted plants on the deck. I potted the last three green pepper plants that were starting to die in the little plastic tray. And then, just to cheer them up in their new dirt, I gave them a couple cups of rainwater from a bucket on the deck. 15 minutes later, to my horror, I discovered that the bucket of rainwater was actually caustic, soapy scrub water left over from one of the kid's chores. GASP!

By the time I found out, one of the peppers was near passing out and leaning way over. Immediately I dumped tons of fresh water on the pot. And more. And more. And more in hopes of rinsing all the chemicals out of the dirt. It must have worked because by nightfall, the peppers were sticking straight up and looked to be 2" taller. I should have measured them before planting. Now if they can just live through the night...

This evening, we picked and ate our first tomato. That was right fine!

I had to sit and cough a spell so I played around with my photos. Make sure you click on the photo to see a larger version.

Cherry Blossoms. The harshness of this photo is fascinating. It's far different from the soft pink and white color version.

Fire Rose. The extremely rare kind the slowly grows out of hot lava.
(Sssh, Pat Austin's in disquise.)

The extremely photogenic Pat Austin poses again.

Ah yes, Pat Austin stylin', Miami style. I used colors reminiscent of our bright days in Miami, coral pinks and seafoam greens. Alas, my stylin' rose would never pass inspection by Coral Gables' color police. My choice of Sherwin Williams Coming Up Roses and Aquarium colors aren't on their Coral Gable's approved color list. I once heard that only certain colors of flowers could be grown there too. Ghastly if it's true! I'd die of color starvation if I lived there.

This is Rise n' Shine. I'm crazy over dew. Make sure you click on the photo to see the larger version.

This last will be printed to frame if I don't paint it first.
Petal Puddles.

Cascadia Rootings

2006-06-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

Cutting - part of a plant cut off. Rooting - part of a plant that was cut or broken and now has roots on it. Which means I can officially call my broken Cascadia petunia fragments... "Cascadia Rootings." Woot!

A couple weeks ago, heavy rain knocked a couple branches off the Cascadia Petunias. I stripped the leaves off the ends of two of them and stuck them in dirt. They were green a long time but eventually one died. So I pulled the other one out of the dirt because it still looked living and dropped it in a dish of water, which is now called the Mini Pond.

The Mini Pond was just a puddle of rainwater in a gardening dish into which I dropped a couple plants that needed care.
Weeks have gone by and I'm still lacking in time/knowledge/terra cotta pots/ice tea/personal backhoe/whatever in order to plant them. So there they stay.

The Mini Pond is turning into a veritable ecosystem. I didn't plan on keeping it more than over night, but so far, three broken petunias and two Jade plants are thriving in it. I accidentally spilled a little soil mixture into the dish so maybe that provides a little nutrition to the plants. The petunias now have tiny roots at their broken ends. Yay! I'll keep them in the dish until the roots are long enough to plant. The whole thing will get dumped if I see one squirmy mosquito larva though.
...thinking...
I suppose I could get a bigger dish and a goldfish to keep the mosquitoes in check...
Hmm, does this mean I'm starting a water garden? In a dish on the picnic table? That's an exciting concept.

Next year, I'm going to buy red Cascadia Petunias as well as white. The red sure does brighten up the deck. You can see a Red Cascadia at the right hand edge of this photo.
Once the patio is finished, we'll have a couple big planters of red and white cascadia petunias along with more geraniums and ferns.

Most exciting is counting SEVEN new buds on the Pat Austin. I can't wait till that one blooms again! I wonder if each successive wave of Pat Austin blooms will increase the number of blooms as the summer progresses? At what point does a rose bush stop making roses? None of the other roses are faring as well as the Pat Austin. The three Fair Baincas have no new buds. The Scepter'd Isle on the deck has a couple tiny new ones. One Scepter'd Isle by the road had lots of buds but I don't know what happened to them. The last Scepter'd Isle by the mailbox is constantly getting munched by the, ahem, deer.

Almost as exciting as seeing new Pat Austin buds is getting a little peek at our first tomato ripening on the plant on the deck.
Sweet!

Na, na, na, na-na. Take that, you ravenous deer. You can't get my tomatoes, green peppers or cucumbers. You can't get my Pat Austin, Scepter'd Isle or Fair Bianca. Ha!

The Art of Lawn Mowing

2006-06-15T19:29:00.000-07:00

I've finally figured out the Art of Lawn Mowing. It goes like this...

First you buy an expensive mower. I'm not sure why.
The ads all say "Do you want to be the envy of your neighbors? Just buy this nifty model..." I doubt my neighbors will ever be impressed with my expensive mower. My neighbors all have nifty mowers worth more than my car.

After you get the expensive mower, you're supposed to impress your neighbors with your neat and tidy rows of mowing. I saw that in a picture once. It said your mowing rows should look like this:

l l l l l l l l l l
l l l l l l l l l l
l l l l l l l l l l
l l l l l l l l l l

So of course I tried it. I mowed like this:

l l l l l l l l l l
l l l l l ... and then there was a stick. So I kicked it out of the way while my mower kept moving and went around like this: C

I continued going l l l l l and then there was a rock. So I threw it out of the way while my mower churned up dirt and went around like this: C

My expensive mower has one of those power drives so I have to keep it slow enough for me to walk, not run behind. If you're going even a teensy bit too fast, when you go around even a little obstacle, the centrifugal force is frightening. This afternoon, while mowing around little obstacles, I almost got thrown off my mower a couple times. And it's not even a riding mower!

Most of those little obstacles were rare, young flowers so I mowed around them like this

l l l l l lOl l l
l l l l Ol l l l l
OOl l l l l l l
l l l l l l O l l

They were rare until I discovered a huge rangey mass of them by the edge of the woods. Which made it obvious they were neither flowers nor rare. So all my carefully mowed-around O's had to go.

I think this is where the neighbors are supposed to be impressed. First, it takes great skill to mow like this:

l l l l l l l l l
l l l l l l l l l
l l l l l l l l l
l l l l l l l l l

It takes even more skill to mow like this:

l l l l C l l l l
l lOl l l l C l
l C l O l C l
COOCOOC

(That last row is where there are lots of sticks and rocks and faux rare flowers to mow around.)

The final step in the Art of Lawn Mowing takes the touch of a real artist's hand. Carefully preserving rare flowers that are actually weeds means executing the final mowing technique. If your neighbors weren't impressed before, they will be now as they watch sublime mowing like this:

888888888
\9\C888/88
////888888
889999/C/O
8989898989

It usually takes the mower on the Rose Support Team one fill-up of gas to mow the entire backyard. This afternoon, I mowed half the backyard. And then the gas tank ran out. Which means I must be really impressing my neighbors with my artistic mowing technique and I'd say I've mastered the Art of Lawn Mowing.

Rain, rain, go away...

2006-06-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

Rain, rain go away...

It's been raining all day without letting up.

All the Cascadia Petunias are sighing and hanging their heads.

The small Jade Plant was so waterlogged, I had to take it inside and prop it up with a plastic fork till it gets its spine back.

Rain, rain, go away, please come back some other day, after we've had a full week of sunshine so I can water all the plants with Miracle Grow.

Sunday, right before the storm rolled in, I finally had a new batch of soil/composted manure/peat moss to pot up the cucumbers. They were dreadfully rootbound. The photo isn't clear because I was hastening the process less I got struck by lightning. Plus, rogue raindrops were pelting. Does holding a camera make one more of a lightning target?

Of course, after taking this photo, I had to work really fast getting the six cucumbers, three geraniums and remaining Red Cascadia potted up before the downpour. What a rush! What excitement! What dirt-slinging, thunder-cracking thrill!

The only pots available for the cucumbers were the occupied geranium pots.

Which meant I had to remove the geraniums and plant them in bigger pots.

Which meant I had to make room next to the last Red Cascadia for one of the geraniums.

All in all, having the 10 plants exchange pots with each other, with no one left out, before being hit by lightning, worked out just fine.

Fleeting Beauty and Dew

2006-06-09T07:02:00.000-07:00

[Note: clicking on any of the photos in my blog will usual open up a larger version. Make sure you click on the photos in this entry to see the closeups.]

The fleeting part is being so busy that I can't stop to either smell or watch the roses grow. I miss having the luxury of standing amongst my beauties to enjoy their splendor. The past week or so, all the roses have gotten from me is a quick "Ah, you're still there, gotta run" or "How pretty! Gotta run!" or "Good, you're not dead, gotta run."

This morning I was up earlier than usual and stole the minutes it took to take some photographs of flowers all dewed up.

Here's a photo of the free Red Cascadia Petunia that Springhill sent me. They actually sent three red Cascadias when I told them one white petunia (out of 15) never grew. Getting three red Cascadias was a super sweet consolation! Now that I see how pretty the red petunias are, I'm planning on getting some next year. The dew really sparkles on the red Cascadias. Click on the photo to see a larger version.

The Cascadia Petunias are amazingly gorgeous. The three red ones are still young so they aren't all sprawled out yet like the white ones. Once they grow even bigger, the weight will cause them to cascade down over the railing. Seeing a six foot long waterfall of white petunias is going to be way cool. Alas, since the deck faces a farm field out back, only the deer will get to enjoy the petunia waterfall all summer. I'll just have to drag my guests down to the backyard so they can turn around to see the petunias. Yep.

There are about five different shades of pink/coral geraniums in the boxes with the white petunias on the deck railing. This is one of the more pale ones.

I finally figured out which miniature roses to mourn, now that most have bloomed. By process of elimination, I've been able to figure out the dead roses are: Orange Honey, Green Ice and Sugar Plum. Rats, I really had my heart set on seeing Orange Honey and Green Ice. All three dead roses were crucial to my color schemes in the pots too.

Toy Clown doesn't have buds yet. Well, Toy Clown might not have leaves either... I'll have to examine that pot more closely and see if Toy Clown is still living. Earthquake looked too sorry for a photo so I guess it's not the "morning type."

Check out the gorgeous dew on the Rise 'n' Shine miniature rose. This blog has a small version but the full size photo really shows the detail of the dew. It's fascinating how the surface of different flowers holds dew. I may have lost four miniature roses but the ones that did bloom are wonderful!

If I had known how easy it was to get a plant in the ground, I would have planted them in a more timely fashion.

...thinking... ...no, better make that:

"If I had known how easy it was to get a plant in the ground, I would have planted them sooner," she said while there were... ahem... no less than THIRTY FOUR angry plants on the deck impatiently waiting to get out of their teensy, shipping containers... Gasp! Two flats of flowers are actually leaning away from each other in claustrophobic faints... panting, panting for more space.

I better add Potting Soil and Composted Manure to my shopping list this weekend or the plants might do something drastic.

Rise 'n' Shine really is a pretty little yellow rose. I should have put three of these in one pot for a real show on the deck.

Lavender Lace is the biggest of the miniature roses. It's about 1 1/2" across. This rose looks more lavender in mid day light than at sunrise.

Stars 'n' Stripes seems to put out more buds than the other roses. Today I'll fertilize the three pots of miniature roses and see if that helps them get more blooms.

Sheri Ann is such a pretty color. It looks less orangish later in the day.

I like how the petals curl into points on the Sheri Ann and Rise 'n' Shine roses.

Ok, seeing these photos has me convinced I'm really missing some important beauty out there.
If I don't have time to plant the plants, smell the roses or watch them grow, my priorities must be outta whack. Time go get out the old TO DO list and see what can be crossed off.
Let's see... scratch off
- - - Wash Floors
- - - Clear Dining Room Clutter
- - - Mail Bills
- - - Drive to Appointments
- - - Work...
There, I'm feeling more optimistic already!

Painting Roses

2006-06-06T19:07:00.000-07:00

Literally. That's what I've been doing
to enter a nature-inspired art contest.
I'm not expecting to win but it sure
was fun. I used my own roses as
inspiration. First I printed up a normal photo of three of my roses. Here's a pic of two of them.

Then I played around with the photos and emphasized the edges with editing software. I did this because I can't draw a rose very well. By focusing on the edges of the rose petals, I was able to see how they overlap better.

I cut apart the black & white rose pics, taped them to the back of a sheet of paper canvas and traced the lines.

I loaded my brush with paint and after just one stroke, figured there was no way I could follow all that drawn detail so I just winged it and totally ignored most of my tedious pencil detail. Here's the final painting. It has gems glued on for dew drops but then I found out
attachments weren't allowed so I had to take
them off and paint on dew drops or my
painting would be disqualified. I entered the
gem version as Entry #1, the non-gem version
as Entry #2.

Then I found out that I was only allowed to use 6 colors or less, and it was implied that meant including any blended colors. Not stated in the rules. Hmmph. Which meant my first two paintings were probably disqualified.
Double Hmmph.

So I made another entry that pretty much
follows my drawing and didn't use shading or
blending of colors. After painting, I erased all
my pencil marks. I really like how it turned
out and did a little whoop-de-do dance
when it was done. I'm stoked!

Then I found out that one of the rules states it was supposed to be emailed by 6 pm tonight which means it was probably disqualified. The other rule states midnight as the deadline so I hope the judges use Rule #2 - Midnight deadline.

Anyway, I'm not expecting to win. But it sure
was a heap of fun to paint! And if I do win, I'll
get a 5 day trip to California! Woot!

Sun-dappled Petal Puddles

2006-05-30T17:59:00.000-07:00

One of the most enchanting stages of a rose is after they've cast their petals. Yesterday three big Pat Austin roses nodded sweetly at my guests. Today, they dropped their petals so I have the most marvelous, sun-dappled petal puddle on the deck!

Like spatters of paint on canvas, the rose petals spill over my deck. Like the little sparkles sun makes on water, the rose petals on my deck catch my eye and make me stop and look.

For this reason alone, I am going to get at least two more roses for the deck next year. I just have to figure out which roses keep pretty petals after they've fallen. Fair Bianca petals don't keep their pristine whiteness after they drop so they're out. Scepter'd Isle petals don't stay pink long. I can't find anywhere on the internet that lists the durability or color of various rose petals after they've fallen. Surely I'm not the only one who is interested in growing roses just for the beauty of the petal puddles.

Pat Austin petals are amazing! Like pieces of a spring sunrise they have shades ranging from yellow to pale pink to a peachy orange. They keep their color over a couple days after they've fallen too so I'm definitely getting another Pat Austin for the deck next year.

Getting more roses will max out all available sunny spots on the deck. I carefully evaluated my deck sun needs. We must reserve space for a round table with four benches, three lawn chairs, two tomato plants, a beach towel-size tanning spot for me ...and a partridge in a pear tree.

In order to accommodate the new roses and the pear tree and still have room for guests, we're drawing up plans to make a lower level on the deck! Wow. How exciting! I can picture this, I really can! Well... we're not actually drawing up plans yet. But I'm making progress in persuading the Chief of the Rose Support Team that adding a lower deck to our To Do list isn't unreasonable. In fact, a lower deck is important enough to me that I've moved the Moat to the bottom of the list and the Hedge Maze got bumped several spots down.

A lower level deck will create a fabulous railing-free view of the back yard from the dining room. Plus, I'll have lots more room for plants. There won't be a lot of sun on the lower deck because it will extend under the maple tree but there will be plenty of room for partial-sun plants.

A lower deck will also give me more room on the sunny upper deck for roses. Then the petals will flutter down to the lower deck. That's the closest I'll get to recreating the extraordinary experience of sitting in a cherry tree in full bloom, with the soft petals fluttering around me. My mom had a cherry tree and I always climbed up in it during its full pink glory every spring. It's such an ethereal thing, having petals fluttering around, like a spring version of snow. No wonder so many people throng around Washington DC's Cherry Trees when they bloom every year. I saw those Cherry Trees in DC in bloom last year for the first time and can't wait to go back. Maybe next year.

The more gardening I do, the more I realize I'm trying to recreate experiences from long ago and far away. It's actually working. ...dreamy sigh...

...just Watchin' the Plants Grow...

2006-05-28T19:58:00.000-07:00

Ssssh, I discovered a secret activity that gardeners do. It's called Watchin' the Plants Grow. I discovered it quite by accident when I found myself frequently standing in the middle of the deck, just staring at my plants. My eyes feasted on green-ness, bright petals and new lines of shadow that had never been on my deck before. I mentioned my penchant for standing & staring to my mom and she said "Oh yes, I do that too! I'm sure the neighbor thinks I'm nuts because I stand in the middle of my yard so much. They probably wonder what I'm doing!"

I know what I'm doing... I'm watching my plants grow. When you look at your plants often enough, you notice when a leaf lifts up just 1/2" after you gave it a nice drink on a hot day. You notice when a flower puts on a new dress. You notice when a bug or butterfly is taking a fancy to your blossoms. When you look at a plant often enough, you start to believe every day can be a new beginning, a second chance. You start to understand that even the smallest action can make a big difference. You marvel at how a seed can make a tree and no longer take for granted how a tiny plant can grow big enough to give you a juicy tomato to eat.

I like this new awareness very much. I plan on spending many hours this summer just watchin' the plants grow.

Rose & Plant Update

2006-05-27T18:42:00.000-07:00

More Scepter'd Isle roses ...dreamy sigh... I'm glad I planted three of these. The one now blooming out front by the road is just as nice.

The plants on the deck are hanging on, despite not being planted yet.

The Cascadia Petunias are doing well! I lost two branches in the thunderstorm the other day but stuck them in some dirt and they still look alive. No wilting yet and one actually bloomed. I don't know if a Petunia can be grown like that or not. I'll see.

The Fair Bianca's, on the other hand, are looking frightful. I think they can't handle as much rain as the other roses. Here's a pic and the roses look so dreadful that I quarantined this photo with a red border. Keep out. Do not pass. Hopefully it's not contagious.

The James Galway roses are slowly opening up, with no evidence of deer munch marks. =) They don't look much different from the Scepter'd Isle at this point. I wish now I had picked a different color.

All this intense gardening with more deadlines (as in PLANT TODAY OR I WILL DIE) is getting to be too much for me. Even with the help of a Rose Support Team, I am getting very, very tired. I feel as though I just had triplets: No sooner does one plant look ok than another needs tending. I'm hovering. I'm obsessing. I'm practically roosting. And the patio isn't done. sigh.

The Zepherine Drouhin bloomed!

2006-05-25T16:49:00.000-07:00

It's gorgeous! There are two blossoms on the Zepherine Drouhin and here's a photo of one before I cut it. I discovered a deer ate every single bud from the Scepter'd Isle by the mailbox ( I won't even comment on that) so I didn't want to lose this blossom.

I cut the lone blossom from the Scepter'd Isle by the mailbox too and stuck it in a little glass cordial along with the Zepherine Drouhin. It's possible that deer only like buds because I noticed that none of the roses in bloom are missing, only buds. Tonight I'll put some hair over the James Galway buds. That seemed to work with Blush Noisette. I'll be sick if the deer eats the James Galway buds, especially since I've never seen them in bloom yet and they're so close to showing.

This last photo is a closeup of the Zepherine Drouhin and Scepter'd Isle roses. I shot it in my kitchen window late this afternoon during a thunderstorm. The backlighting was provided by God via lightning and bright, torrential rain. I can't figure out how to get a bigger photo to post in this blog but if you click on the photo, you'll see a larger version. I'd love to do a stained glass window inspired by roses. I set an even larger version of this photo as my desktop and it looks dreamy, almost surreal.

The Latest Rose News

2006-05-23T18:57:00.000-07:00

Graham Thomas is making a valiant effort to live. Daily I'm observing improvements. The more I see yellow roses online and in catalogs, the more enchanting they become and the more I want to see Graham bloom. I'll be getting other yellow roses for sure next year, including a couple Graham Thomases just to cheer this one up.

Alas, Jude the Obscure is still looking scared and squeamish with arms up in air. I can almost hear its quavering voice go ooooOOOOOoooo.
I'm super sad about the Jude because I was really looking forward to the fragrance. In fact, it was the rose I most wanted to smell. sigh. I'm going to get two more Jude the Obscures next year and give them a proper planting.

Hello down there, you little Blush Noisette! Looking down from the deck, there are more blossoms visible on the Blush Noisette. Which means the deer hasn't been back! Yay! That's soooo encouraging.

The deer haven't messed with the Fair Biancas in the front yard either.

The most surprising Rose News of the day was learning what a "moss rose" was. I can't find any evidence that the Scepter'd Isle is a moss rose but it does have some of the piney-scented, glandular growth on the buds and stems that is characteristic of moss roses. I even commented on that spiky growth in an earlier blog entry, thinking the aphids put it there or it was a disease. And then I tried to figure out how to brush it all off. Duh!!! That spiky stuff is simply a normal part of a moss rose. How many more roses am I going to destroy because of my ignorance?

The most exciting Rose News of the day is seeing hints of two new blooms. Zepherine Drouhin on the side of the house has some deep pink buds. They look like they'll bloom tomorrow or Thursday if it doesn't rain like forecasted. We bought the trellis for the Zeph but haven't put it up yet. So the 3' high main shoots are bending way over, almost touching the ground and there is new growth coming up along the main branches too. I don't know what will happen when we tie up the branches. All the leaves will be facing away from the sun.

And last but not least, James Galway up by the road has the most luscious buds I've ever seen. No doubt all the layers of ruffly petals are just bursting to show and I can't wait to see them! If I was a deer, these plump buds would look irresistible.
... um ...
surely not...
gasp...
please tell me I'm not starting to think like a deer.

Scepter'd Isle, Rose Therapy AND the Stone Wall is Finished!

2006-05-21T21:24:00.000-07:00

Beauty. Sheer beauty.
The Scepter'd Isle rose bloomed today. The petals look like fragile shells of pink porcelain. Click on the photo to see a larger image of this beauty.

I kept staring at the rose, wondering how a living plant in this world of unrest, error and decay could be so perfect. We had accidentally overdosed this plant with soap when it had aphids so I expected the first blooms to be damaged. Much to my surprise and delight, the first layer of browned petals peeled open to display the most flawless rose I've ever seen.

The Scepter'd Isle is the fourth rose to boom out of eleven different kinds we planted this year. I hope the remaining seven take their time to blossom. I will mourn greatly when the last bud of the season blooms so I hope they hold on all the way till the first frost. In the meantime, I am becoming completely and totally addicted to growing roses. How many roses can fit in one acre? I'm going to find out.

I'm already planning next year's rose order. Pat Austin surprised me with being the first rose to bloom and my favorite so far. It is so bright and gorgeous that I just have to plant a bunch next year, with some in the front yard. That stunning, blushed copper rose will be seen all the way to the road for sure. Splendid!

Here's a pic of the latest Pat Austin blossom. It is more orange than the first couple blossoms, with a more pronounced yellow on the backs of the petals.

In order to plan next year's rose placement, I have to figure out the sunniest spots. Our property has trees all over it so I'm going to draw a detailed sketch and then chart the sun's movement on it over the next couple months. That will determine where the roses go. Hmm... well... that's an excessive amount of work. Um, bordering on insane. How will I explain to the Chief what I've done all day?

"Honey I'm home. What did you do all day, dear?" the Chief Wallet of the Rose Support Team asks.
"Well, for starters," I say, "let me show you this graph. If you look closely at the numbers, you'll see that the proportion of roses is directly related to your wife's happiness. Oh yes, and please note the cost effectiveness of Rose Therapy on this spreadsheet I've prepared..." Rose Therapy: The use of Roses in restoring well-being and sound mind. Cost: Inconsequential. Location: Outside. Value: Priceless.

In order to figure out the sunniest spots for next year's roses, I'll have to stay outside a lot. Which means I need a laptop so I can continue my work outside. Yes! I've been wanting a laptop for ages. I'll work the laptop expense into the Rose Therapy Budget.

Today we put in a dedicated effort and managed to finish building the stone wall. Yay! The Rose Support Team did a magnificent job. Such expertise! Such sweat! Such muscle! The wall looks great and I'm thrilled that we got it done.

The Rose Support Team also moved the unsightly black ash heap in the middle of the back yard. The Chief affectionately called it "The Burn Pile," because that's where he burned all the raked leaves and pine needles from the yard and dumped the wood stove ashes. I called it the "Why do Guys always have to make such DANGEROUS, HUMONGOUS BONFIRES" pile, with no affection whatsoever. I have commandeered the back yard and have officially declared the Burn Pile CLOSED forever. We moved the remaining black stuff to another area of the yard which I have renamed "The Compost Pile." heh heh. The guys simply have to figure out another way to get their semi-annual Fire Fix.

Sheri Ann and Gardening Homework

2006-05-19T20:46:00.000-07:00

The miniature Sheri Ann rose from Spring Hill Nursery bloomed today. How pretty it is! It's small and sprightly, with a faint fruit punch fragrance.

I planted the nine miniature roses from the Spring Hill collection in three pots but killed four. Because they aren't marked, I have no idea which is which until they all bloom. I'm really hoping that the miniature Orange Honey, Toy Clown and Green Ice roses from that collection make it. Alas, I won't know until everything blooms to find out who's missing.

The rose that bloomed is much prettier than the photo in the catalog. Usually it's the other way around, with the catalog making you drool. I had to hold the Sheri Ann between my fingers to steady it because the wind was blowing briskly when I took this shot.

Here is a photo of the latest additions to my ever-lengthening Gardening Homework list. Ooo, I just love getting boxes in the mail that have airholes and say "Perishable" on the side! Yes! This Wayside Gardens order is comprised solely of "deer-resistant" plants: 3 Munstead Lavenders, 5 Garden Phlox, and 2 Bicolor Butterfly Bushes. I had a non-gardening friend visiting so she helped me open the box.

"What's this?" she asked in amazement as she pulled a leafy plant out of the sea of packing peanuts. Judging from her expression, I think she was expecting something fun, like new clothing or books. Instead, she looked like someone opening a box of laundry and half-eaten spaghetti. Shocked and baffled. I could see her struggling to match my enthusiasm over this shipment of strange, weedy-looking plants, especially after she looked at the invoice.

I showed my friend the pictures in the catalog and told her about each of the plants. "Well, that plant doesn't look anything like the catalog!" she exclaimed after comparing items. I guess there are folks even more beginner than me so I explained how catalogs send out baby plants but feature the plant in full bloom.

I ended up talking my non-gardening friend into buying a tomato plant next time we go to the farmer's market and convinced her she can have fresh tomatoes all summer. This gardening stuff can be contagious and my friend is catching it. Yay!

The copper tags that came free with the order are really nice. They're way heavier and classier than they look in the catalog, and infinitely better than the tacky store tags currently on some of my plants. I had removed some of the David Austin rose tags during planting and it took a couple months to figure out which roses were which. I had to wait until they were sufficiently grown so I could identify them by the leaves and thorns. Copper tags would have prevented the plant identification problem.

We tried out the Rose Pharm soap on a couple roses. It arrested the aphid march, much to my relief but was easy to overspray. We have to be more careful next time we treat the roses. The best part is it's 100% pure and smells nice and pepperminty, much better on a fragrant rose than some of the noxious bug sprays out there. The peppermint smell quickly dissipates so it doesn't interfere with the rose fragrance.

sigh. I think my mom was right - I'm biting off more than I can chew. The stone wall around the patio isn't done yet which means we can't put in the raised bed next to it. Which means the new plants from Wayside are going to be homeless for a little longer. I hope to get them potted this weekend because I don't want to lose them. I've already killed four minature roses and a lavender so far this year. Every day I look out my kitchen window at the struggling Graham Thomas and Jude the Obscure. That scene provides all the Plant Abuse Guilt I need to last a whole summer.

Oh, the best part of the day was this --> cutting and giving away 4 Fair Bianca blooms from the bushes in the front yard to a neighbor from down the street. Mmm, that fragrance just has to be shared.

A Serious Smell-Fest

2006-05-18T17:40:00.000-07:00

That's what I had this evening. Heavy rain was coming in and I kept hovering around the deck in the dark, wondering how the roses would fare. The blossoms were getting misted and closing a bit because a cold front was moving in. I finally made the decision to cut the two newly-bloomed Pat Austin and Fair Bianca blossoms. It's amazing what a difference just three roses makes to an entire deck. Having no roses in bloom on the deck is a very sad thing to me. It's like all my honored guests left. Fortunately, more roses are on the way.

I put the roses in a mug of water but they kept trying to get away, wanting to sink, swim or jump out because the stems were too short. The only vases I had that would hold up the roses were cordials.

I lined the three cordials all in a row - one Pat Austin, one Fair Bianca, another Pat Austin, and the little cup of Blush Noisettes which were fading fast but still had a heavenly scent. Then I sniffed them one at a time, over and over.

There's a right way to smell a rose.
1. There can't be onions in a skillet nearby, garlic in your teeth or chlorox in the tub. No scented candles either. In other words, no smellular distractions.
2. Don't answer the phone. In other words, no cellular distractions.
3. It's nice to put some music on that you really like. Slow selections are best so you don't end up hyperventilating on a rose.
4. If the roses are cold and wet, wait till they dry; the fragrance will be stronger.
5. Take is slow.
6. Most important of all, don't plan on what you'll smell. Don't think "Oh, this is just a rose so it will smell like a rose." If you do that, you'll miss out completely. There is so much depth to a real, rare, homegrown fragrant rose. If you predict what you'll smell, your mind will manipulate the truth and you might end up thinking you're holding a bar of cheap soap.
7. Pick up a rose and hold it so close that the velvety petals kiss your nose
8. Close your eyes and slowly, deeply, inhale.

Some people hardly breathe at all. That's not good for the health! Not breathing is even more unproductive if you want to smell something. To inhale properly, your whole abdomen and chest should move and fill with air. If you're not used to inhaling deeply, you'll feel an uncomfortable tightness as the lungs stretch out more than they're accustomed. Try it, it feels good. To smell a rose, the whole abdomen and chest should expand as you inhale slowly through your nose. Move the rose aside and exhale through your mouth. Relax. Repeat. Keep relaxing and repeating.

It's best to have two or more different kinds of roses, smelling them one at time, savoring each fragrance. Spicy, fruity, cloves and anise, sugary sweet and green tea. Warm and musky, sensuous and sharp.

Tonight as I smelled the Blush Noisette, I remembered something. It was a memory so vague and far away that it actually startled me. I was young and walking around a house, a very old house, that had chipped paint on the white siding. The hot, afternoon sun made the house look hazy and there was a white picket fence. Growing against the house was a trellis covered thickly with the most glorious scented, pale pink roses. I remember stopping and standing by those roses.

The Blush Noisette fragrance brought back a memory I didn't even know was there. I don't remember where the house was or how old I was. But the smell of those old roses long ago left an indelible imprint and I'm ecstatic to have it back.

Rose Rescue

2006-05-17T18:44:00.000-07:00

Last night I couldn't fall asleep because I kept imagining a deer crunching at mouthfuls of the Blush Noisette. What made it worse was that I was deeply stressed over one of the kids who was out late. How can I watch over my children and keep them safe if I can't even keep a stupid deer away from a rose? I prayed a while and felt better about the son in question. There's only so much a mom can do and sometimes a good talk with God is enough.

At 1:34 a.m. I went outside and spread a bunch of hair over the buds of the Blush Noisette. I had removed the hair the other day when friends visited because there's nothing so gross as a beautiful rose all webbed in hair. yuk. But I forgot to replace the hair after they left, a most grievous error on my part. If that deer chomps on my roses tonight, I hope my hair gets stuck annoyingly between his teeth for a long time. Deer don't floss.

While I was outside last night, I snipped off the 4 Blush Noisette roses so I wouldn't worry about them disappearing overnight. I looked out over the moonlit field and asked God to tell the deer to eat somewhere else. Leave my roses alone. They are mine. The pleasure they give is mine to use as I want and I've already decided that it's for me, my family and my friends, not uninvited animals. I asked God to watch over my son and send any trouble elsewhere. My son is still mine for a little bit longer. sigh.

Back inside I placed the 4 Blush Noisette blossoms in water in a doll cup. The roses smelled wonderful. Here's a photo I took this afternoon. The fragrance is definitely stronger today and I do detect the clove now. I carried that little cup of flowers around to each room I went today so as not to miss one sniffable moment. What loveliness!

The Scepter'd Isle on the deck is taking its sweet time opening up. But each day I get a little more glimpse of this gorgeous pink beauty.

I don't know what those spiky things are on the green parts of the rose. Maybe the aphids put them there. Those spiky things look like the sticky hairs on a Sundew Plant. They're very hard to see without a magnifying glass but I still find them disturbing. I'll have to find out what they are and what can be done to remove them. Maybe they can be brushed or buffed off somehow.

Declaration of War

2006-05-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

Let it hereby be known that from this day henceforeth, I, the
Gardener, do declare Official War on the "Unmentionable Animals," heretofore known as Deer. I, the Gardener, am entitled to all rights, privileges and means available to me, in order to fight on behalf of the innocent, henceforth known as The Roses. I, the Gardener, shall pursue with vengeance any perpetrator, be it two-legged, four-legged, six-legged, amoebic or moldy, that interferes with the wellbeing of the aforementioned innocent Roses.

Accepted, Stamped, Notarized, Eyes Squinted & Teeth Gritted;
Signed, Sealed, Delivered and Spittin' Mad,
this Sixteenth Day of May, Two Thousand and Six.

======================================
So There. Ok, now that I have that out of my system, I'll start from the beginning. It's been 18 days since I last counted buds so one member of the Rose Support Team and I started on the deck and filled out our little Rose Maintenance Chart.

Fair Bianca #1 has 10 buds, with one about to bloom and one rose missing because I gave it away.
Pat Austin has 7 buds, with three roses missing because I cut them after they faded. No new buds.
Scepter'd Isle #1 has 22 buds. It has yet to bloom but has doubled the number of buds since last count. Sweet!

At the base of the deck stairs, New Dawn still has 0.

Out in the yard around the future patio, we checked for more buds. Graham Thomas, that sad, sad, rose, of course has 0 buds on its feeble 1/2" long replacement limbs. Poor thing. I'll be treating it tenderly for years and hopefully it will forgive me for the Dungeon Water Torture.
Jude the Obscure still has eerie arms reaching up, no new growth and no buds. I'm not sure what it's doing. Maybe having to look at the Graham Thomas right next to it has it scared to death and frozen in a permanent "I surrender!" position.
Here's a photo taken April 25 of these two. There hasn't been much change since then, aside from Graham Thomas losing all limbs, so I might as well use the same photo. Click the photo to see a larger shot of this forlorn scene.

Eden is still at 0 buds.

Moving on, the Blush Noisette had over 100 buds at last count. It now has... counting... 49, 50, 51, 52.

52???

No way! So we both count a second time. And a third time. Yep, 52. That's when my stomach lurched. =O

100 minus ANY means there was mischief. 100 minus 52 means at least 48 buds are missing!!!

I was flabbergasted. I was flummoxed. I was puzzled. There are five blossoms on the Blush Noisette. There are numerous buds. No branches appear missing. This is Garden Mystery #1. "We puzzled and puzzled 'till our puzzlers were sore. Then we thought of something we hadn't before." We checked for evidence. We looked at the base of the rose and saw this disturbing crime scene. It's not a photo for the faint of heart. The arrows point to the... um... mutilated evidence. All around the base of the rose in the mulch were... BUDS. Cut off in their prime of life!

We had no choice but to formulate a scenario:
Along came the...Unmentionable Animal. It sniffed the roses and decided to leave the blossoms alone. Afterall, I did say I wouldn't mind if the deer stopped to smell the roses. But no, a sweet whiff wasn't enough for that animal. That dastardly deer had to stick his quivering snout into my tender, unprotected rose, and rip out a mouthful of precious buds. He stood with his mouth slobbering over my rose bush, crunching with his mouth open, buds falling unceremoniously from his greedy mouth.
Simply disgusting.

Upon closer inspection of the crime scene, we discovered a small branch amongst the fallen buds.
What's this? Up close it looks like eggs of some sort. The Rose Support Team formulated an alternate crime scenario:
Several rasping beetles landed on the Blush Noisette, munching left and right, tearing off rose buds. Then finally, after having dined till full, laid some eggs. I made the executive decision to run with the deer story.

We checked the other roses and discovered the Scepter'd Isle by the mailbox now has 24 buds, up from 2 at last count. But there is evidence that a deer had stripped one of the branches. It must have been two weeks or so ago because there is new growth on that branch.

Fair Bianca #2 has 29 buds, up from 19, with one rose missing because I gave it away. Fair Bianca #3 has 9, up from 7, with one rose missing because I gave it away. No evidence of any deer mischief.

We gathered up the severed Blush Noisette buds and placed them in a cup of water for viewing. I don't know why I did that. It seems inhumane to let them just lie there and dry up.

Why would a deer eat just the leaves on one branch? Why would a deer eat a bunch of buds but leave whole roses intact? Why would a deer not eat all the little buds? I just don't understand how a deer thinks. Not sensible creatures, those deer.

Let it be known henceforth that the Unmentionable Animals are declared NOT smart.
Let it be known henceforth that the Unmentionable Animals probably can't even scheme.

This means War. sigh.

The Chief of the Rose Support Team always says "You gotta be smarter than the materials you're workin' with." Which means I'm going to win this War.

Graham Thomas got a new cane!

2006-05-14T18:57:00.000-07:00

It hailed this afternoon. Almost all day I looked out the windows watching the rain. When I wasn't watching rain, I was reading gardening websites and finding more gardening websites.

But the best part of the day was when I went out to the patio area to check on the "volcano roses."

Upon close inspection, the Graham Thomas was found to have new growth on it! It's not dead afterall! Joy, joy, it's alive! I, the non-gardener who used to kill every plant, discovered leaves on a geranium I froze and tiny roots on a cutting from the Queen of Denmark. But best of all, Graham Thomas has traded in his black canes for a bunch of new green ones. We're celebratin' tonight!

Who knows, maybe Lavender # 3 will spring to life. I'm hopeful.

More Blooming Roses

2006-05-12T19:28:00.002-07:00

Today the Fair Bianca in the front yard bloomed and the one on the deck is about to bloom! Oh glorious fragrance!

The scent is soooo extraordinary. It has a distinct sweet anise tone to it. Fair Bianca is described as having a strong Old Rose scent with "an unusual heliotrope note" so maybe that's the anise I smell.

I don't think I'll ever tire of that fragrance. Fair Bianca is the rose I kept in a vase by my bed all last summer while visiting my mom. My dad was in the nursing home so each day was filled with sadness and anxiety and we clung to hope. But at night, in the dark in my bed, I would hold that rose to my nose and let the fragrance cover me like a soft blanket. It was the last thing I smelled each night before drifting to sleep and oh so comforting.

I'm glad I planted three Fair Biancas this year and I plan on getting three more next year. They're just too gorgeous, too white, too pure and perfect. I want to be surrounded with them and have enough to give away. The folds of the petals all ruffled together remind me of crumpled fresh, white sheets. I could just get lost in all that fragrant whiteness.

It's mid May and Fair Bianca is sold out. I haven't checked the David Austin website lately so I don't know how long it's been sold out. My mom says lots of places sell out of popular flowers or plants so you have to order early if you want something. I'll put my order in next January too, just like I did this year.

The Blush Noisette got its first bloom today too! It's a delicate pale pink with a mild, sweet candy fragrance. David Austin describes Blush Noisette as having a rich clove scent but perhaps it will get stronger as the plant grows.
I can't wait to see this rose in full bloom! If it gets over 100 blossoms this year, it can only get better next year.

Also today, another Pat Austin bud bloomed. This photo shows the difference in color between the new rose on the right and the two on the left that are three days old. When this rose is older and more established, I'll bet it's splendid, covered with all shades of coppers and peaches with touches of shell pink. I really like how the colors change on this rose. Every time I look out the window at Pat, she's changed her outfit again. She just can't make up her mind what to wear! Cute!

Those Scheming Deer

2006-05-11T18:49:00.000-07:00

I had not seen any deer for a couple weeks until last night. My mom says those nasty creatures often wait till veggies, fruit or flowers are nearing their juiciest stage and then... CHOMP! Off with their heads!

I took a photo of the deer in our yard last night. Just look at that insolent expression! Check out those beady eyes! By the time I took this shot, the deer was already done with Rose Recon. No doubt he was scoping out the territory and planning his next Munch Menu.

Hmmph.

I checked the other roses around the yard and some have a couple leaves stripped from the branches. Just like a kid who takes one bite out of each cookie to leave a clear message... This one is mine!... that deer is marking my roses. Grrr.

After the deer left, I took a photo of my precious Blush Noisette for posterity's sake. It's the rose with over 100 buds, the one where my Prince Charming is supposed to stand to serenade me. Just look at that defenseless plant! So pure, so innocent. The buds deserve a chance to bloom. They must live! Yesterday I posted a view of this rose from the deck. But this photo is a deer's eye view... Such tenderness... Such succulence... Such mouth-watering juiciness... Ah the irresistible crunch between the teeth...

Oooo, I'll be steaming mad if the roses get chomped! To quote my dad, "The deer love anything that costs money." I'll have to look closely at the photo of the deer and see if there are $ signs in its eyes.

If deer are so smart, we should use them for experiments instead of using lab rats. I'd like to see a bunch of deer in a maze alright. Put up a couple signs that say "Expensive roses THIS way" and I'll bet those deer would figure their way through the maze right quick. I'd add a couple electrified gates here and there though. For scientific purposes, of course.

Last night at 11:30 pm, I walked down in the moonlight to see if the Blush Noisette was still there. It was. So I spread some of the hair from my hairbrush over top of the buds. It was a desperate move but I was desperate to help that rose live. This morning I checked the rose and it was still intact. One night down, about 147 to go.

Bloomin' Roses and Farmers Market

2006-05-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

Pat Austin on the deck delivered twin beauties this morning. They are way different in color than the first two. Now I know why the rose is described as "copper-colored" because these are bright orange. They are gorgeous!!! The scent is different than the first two roses also.

I was never one to appreciate orange flowers and the Pat Austin is the token orange flower on our entire property. But if I had known how healthy this rose was and how quickly it gets established, I would have bought a lot more of them. They are such an unusual and attractive color that I'm planning on getting at least 3 next year to put in up by the mailbox. We'll just have to move the phone cable again in order to plant them. But I want to share the splendor and I still think behind the mailbox is the perfect location.

The Pat Austin is the only one amongst my 15 bushes that seems to resist aphids and disease. The leaves and flowers are completely blemish free.

The Fair Bianca on the deck has numerous buds about to bloom. I'm curious about the color because they're supposed to be white. There is a lot of pink in those buds.

Hello way down there,
you little blushing Noisette!

This is the view of the Blush Noisette eight feet below as you lean waaaay over the deck railing. Not exactly what I planned. I planted it there so it would climb up and join us on the deck. Good thing I didn't stress over installing a trellis. That not-so-entusiastic climbing rose shows no signs of wanting to climb in any direction, let alone the deck. As an apology for its "shortcoming," at least it's offering me over 100 buds so far. I can't wait to see the blooms, even if I do have to look over the railing with binoculars.

We went to the Farmer's Market for the first time over the weekend. What a fabulous place! I've been wanting to go for years and years and don't know why it took me so long to get there. I didn't even know they had a website. duh.

We only had time to explore a fraction of the booths but saw tons of plants and fresh produce temptingly displayed. I bought two quarts of the reddest strawberries I've ever seen. Yum! We got two Bush Tomatoes for the deck, hereby named the "Deck Tomatoes" or "the Tomatoes that Got Away from the Deer."

We also bought a bunch of other plants on impulse. I know you should never do that. I can say no to car salesmen, hotdog vendors, and door-to-door broom hawkers. But I'm a newbie at gardening so if someone says "You really should have this for your garden," my eyes instantly glaze over and I reach for my wallet. This means I now have to figure out where to plant 18 miscellanious flowers, 6 cucumbers and 12 green peppers.

The only sun on the deck has already been reserved for the roses. Which means we'll probably have to plant the veggies in the yard somewhere. Most likely they'll end up as sacrifices to the deer. sigh.

Mower!

2006-05-05T15:16:00.000-07:00

We got one! Woohoo! Yippee! You can see our new mower in this photo. It's the red thing with the handle sticking up. Um, the grass is a little high. That's why we bought the mower. The new mower is WAY faster than the Scissors Mower.

I used a Scissors Mower once. It was one weekend when the kids were driving me crazy and I was determined to sit and read in our sunny backyard alone to regain my sanity. Since our backyard had not been mowed in months, it was nearing official "Jungle" status. I'm not one to give up so I whipped out my sewing scissors, got down on hands and knees and insanely snipped my way through 2 foot high weeds to clear a 5' square plot of backyard.

That sure was a slooooow mow and I got stares over the fence by my neighbor. At least I had my little private plot of bliss. I plunked down the lawn chair right in the middle and enjoyed the afternoon, despite the blisters and bugs. The bugs were awful and they let me know I was intruding on their sacred ground so my bliss was interrupted by frequent smacking. The kids probably asked the Chief "Where's mom? We can't find her." to which he would have to say "I have no idea. But last time I saw her she was headed for the jungle with a pair of scissors and a book..." At some point I think I regained my sanity but don't quite remember.

Since the Scissors Mower incident, we've gone through three different backyards and countless disposable mowers. We recently found out that those mowers were created to last just one season so they have tons of junky, cheap parts inside. They're actually expected to break! That's why the price is kept cheap. Outrageous! I convinced the Chief Wallet of the Rose Support team it was time to invest in a real machine so after a little surfing, we printing out a page of info and headed off to a Tractor & Equipment place.

I was a little intimidated when we got there figuring it would be like a car dealership, with salesmen hovering over my every move and trying to talk me into mower "features," such as leather grip handles, cup holders and overhead umbrellas. There were mowers everywhere but no salivating salesmen. A steady stream of men moved in and out of the building while we were there and they all seemed to know exactly what they wanted. I was the lone female and wondered what would have happened if the Chief Negotiator wasn't there with me. I'd probably walk out with a bill of sale for a hot, Little Red Riding mower, complete with cup holder, umbrella and windshield wipers to boot. Fortunately, we ended up with a little more horsepower for less bucks than planned and just 20 minutes after arriving, loaded an 83 pound dream machine in the back of the van.

It's a beauty alright. We picked Snapper for its reliability. Our model, RP216018KWV, is equipped with a 7@3350 hp Intek OHV motor. I interpret that as "doesn't cough when mowing up hills fast."

Funny how guys are impressed with a product solely named with letters and numbers. The Chief says "That's a pretty impressive B&S Intek OHV 7 you got there" and others nod with respect. Then someone else says "Well I've got a Kohler 23 HP V-Twin OHV Zero Turn." Then everyone is rendered speechless, which is interesting because they hardly said anything at all to begin with.

I personally need a more substantial name than RP217018BV. Something like Cherry Gloss Ninja Surge Power Mower. The key word is "Ninja." Any product that's glossy and has "Ninja" in it has to be good. Our new mower has a Ninja Mulching Blade which I interpret as "shreds pinecones, watermelon rinds and bird carcasses left by cats." I need that kind of power and security and the Cherry Gloss part is just plain cute.

When we got home, I gave the machine a test drive in our backyard. At only half speed, I had to jog behind it to keep up. At full speed, I would have to sprint. Why on earth do they sell mowers that go that fast? I'd have to get a personal trainer or running lessons just to mow. Then my neighbors would really have something to watch.

The kids would ask "Where's mom? We can't find her." and the Chief would say "Oh, she's that blur in the backyard being dragged behind her new Cherry Gloss Ninja Surge Power Mower."

Color-changing Roses

2006-05-04T20:42:00.000-07:00

I noticed that the early colors of a rose aren't necessarily the final color. Pat Austin had more yellow tinges in its earlier bud form but now the peachy color is spreading more evenly across the petals. Still, when the sun heated up the afternoon, Pat Austin had a distinct pink blush on the inside tips of the petals.

My Pat Austin isn't anywhere near as bright copper as other photos I've seen. I wonder if the soil has something to do with that. I think the color of my Pat Austin is prettier than the "copper" color advertised. Perhaps it has to do with how old the rose is, with the color getting brighter in later seasons.

The Fair Bianca rose buds have a streak of red down the side, the same red streak the new Pat Austin buds have. But the Fair Bianca roses are white so the red streak is a real mystery.

THIS is what the Rose Adventure is all about...

2006-05-02T12:47:00.000-07:00

Swoon.
...silent awe...

...mmmmmm...

Pat Austin, with it's blushed, cupped petals, is a glorious rose. I knelt by the planter and drew in a long, slow breath of the heavenly fragrance this morning. NO rose I have ever received in a bouquet ever smelled like this one. Never. The Creator of the Universe surely gave us a glimpse of heavenly splendor when he created and scented the roses.

I'm finding out more about rose fragrance. Describing rose fragrance is as complicated as wine tasting, with all the "undertones", "overtones", and "background notes".

According to Roses for Dummies, only 20 percent are intensely fragrant while 25 percent have no fragrance at all. I found out that a series of genes is responsible for the fragrance in a rose, thus the complexity. Various chemical groups are associated with different scents, including aromatic alcohols, aldehydes, carbonic acid, essential oils, resins and phenols. The genetics of scent is quite unpredictable which means crossing one fragrant rose species with another might make a rose with no fragrance. Add to that the complication of how individuals perceive scent. No wonder there's such a buzz in the rose world when a new fragrant rose is developed.

Chapter 5 of David Austin's The English Roses is all about fragrance. According to David Austin, "Rose breeders, over the years, have tended to ignore fragrance in their breeding programmes. This is because people seldom buy a rose for its fragrance; they nearly always have the appearance of the flower in mind when they are making their choice." That's really silly because people make such a to-do over rose scented perfumes, toiletries etc. Do we not want to acknowledge where the scent comes from? Is rose perfume less mysterious when we know where it comes from? I guess I'm a minority because I bought my 15 rose bushes almost entirely on scent alone. I do plan on stopping frequently to smell the roses. I'm hoping to have enough roses to cut and give others a chance to smell them too.

In reading descriptions of rose fragrance, I found terms such as "spicy" - more along the lines of cinnamon and cloves, and "tea" - literally like tea leaves. The English Roses covers yet more:
"Myrrh" - sweet anise, prominent in Ayrshire roses
"Fruit Fragrance" - apples, peaches, berries, and citrus to name just a few
"Myriad Fragrances" - Lily of the Valley, Lilac, wine, honey etc.
"Musk" - a secretion of a Himalayan musk deer.... deer?

DEER????

Ok, I had to quickly pass that musk section in the book because I did not want to equate any rose on my property with any redeeming quality whatsoever associated with deer, even exotic Himalayan types. I'm going to watch closely to see if deer are more attracted to musk-scented roses. I suppose it's ok if the deer stop and smell them so long as they don't eat them.

I went out to the deck to smell the Pat Austin rose at least two dozen times today. And I'll have to confess that I cried this morning when I smelled this very first bloom from my Rose Adventure. Far away, several states away, 500 miles away, lives the source of all my gardening inspiration. I miss her laugh, her encouragement, her tears. I miss my mom.

How could I have thought that 15 David Austin English Rose bushes would be a worthy substitute for my mom? I bought them on impulse on her birthday one cold January day of this year. But I realize now that 15 isn't enough. I'd have to plant a thousand rose bushes to even come close to the scent left by her life. I would have to grow a thousand exquisite orchids to give just a hint of her originality and creativity. I would have to buy a thousand tulips to portray her strength and a thousand cascading petunias to demonstrate her shower of affection and love on every person she meets.

As I looked at the petals through my blurred tears, I finally realized that what my mom planted was far bigger than the gardens in her backyard. Everything my mom loved - roses, gardening and all people, now lies within my own reach. What my mom planted will be passed on. If I, an extreme novice gardener who can't seem to grow anything or fit in anywhere, can grow a rose, surely I can reach out to others and leave a sweet scent in their lives. Like my mom so beautifully does.

Well now, how can I garden while bawling my eyes out? My mom would say "Get over it, Julie!" and then we'd laugh up a storm. So by golly, I'm determined to beat the deer, build a patio, plant heaps and heaps of stuff that I don't even know the names of and put in a hedge maze. One plant at a time. And who knows, maybe I'll figure out a moat too.

Another mail order source - Wayside Gardens! Woohoo!

2006-05-01T19:14:00.000-07:00

Yay! Another online gardening source to order from. Wayside Gardens. Yes! I practically hyperventilated exploring that site. The Quick Facts sidebar is so handy to get info about a plant. That info alone is worth repeat visits to the site.

The first thing I placed in my shopping cart was Rose Pharm Insecticidal Soap. I must say that pink canister is mighty cute. I can see it displayed sweetly on the buffet in the dining room next to a pair of gardening gloves and a gardening book or two. I better buy some gloves then. The spray does have a funny name though and sounds like something Bath & Body would sell to keep your bugs clean. I hope it works to keep the aphids off my roses.

The second item I placed in my cart was lavender because I fairly destroyed my first three. Well, one is doing ok, the second is in Plant Rehab but the third is nothing but a tombstone.

Very sad.

The lavender I bought was Munstead, well known for it's fragrance. What a thrill that will be. Yes!

The plant I wanted the most from Wayside Gardens ended up being sold out. Rats. I clicked Buy Now the instant I saw it and got a pop-up that said "Hydrangea Kardinal is sold out. We would like to recommend the following item in its place..." and then displayed another hydrangea not nearly as spectacular. Ooo, I was not happy. No sir. The Kardinal blooms in shades of lavender, blue and mauve all at the same time. The description of the Hydrangea Kardinal on the website was:

One of Europe's best-kept secrets, this exceptionally floriferous Hydrangea displays the entire range of purple and blue, from deep lavender to dusty mauve -- often within a single 6-inch flowerhead! Needless to say, it is absolutely unrivalled as a cutflower, where a single bloom makes a varied and colorful bouquet, but I have to admit I am too fond of the sight of a fully-blooming garden specimen to cut many of the plentiful blooms. The flowers open a rich lavender-blue, then quickly change to various shades of lighter lilac and purple, eventually settling on a pleasing mauve. Spectacular by itself or planted among pink or white Hydrangeas (my favorites are the color-stable pink 'Forever Pink''Annabelle'), and the billowing white clouds of 'Annabelle', it reaches only 4 feet tall and 3 to 4 feet wide -- small enough for the patio, yet large enough to make a dramatic impact even in a large bed or border.

I'm the type of person who clicks on every square inch of a gaming screen just in case there's an easter egg somewhere. I don't give up on internet shopping cart technology either. So I went back to the site numerous times over a two day course and finally sneaked three Hydrangea Kardinals into my shopping cart. Woohoo! I won't be surprised, however, if I get an email that says "Ma'am, we repeatedly told you we were SOLD OUT. Please do not click on BUY NOW so much next time!"

I also ordered two Bi-Color Butterfly Bushes and a Wayside Phlox Collection, which contains five garden phlox in various colors to put in the Snake Garden. I call it the Snake Garden because somewhere in that little side plot in the back yard lives a poisonous snake. It will NOT be me that plants the butterfly bushes and phlox. I think the Rose Support Team should have a little nature challenge now and then to keep them sharp.

That Hydrangea Kardinal and the Bi-Color Butterfly Bushes remind me of a flower that grew in the backyard in our Miami house years ago. It was a lantana. I have yet to find a source for lantana so I'll just keep hunting. Our plants had shades ranging from cheery gold to bright pink to scarlet. I just love flowers that look like God washed them with a whole rainbow of watercolors. Alas, the only info I found about lantana was that it was a weed. No matter, I'm good with weeds anyway so it should thrive.

I'm having a hard time figuring out how to garden in moderation. I want to buy every plant I see and include all sorts of landscaping design. The last time I talked to my mom, she told me I'm trying to accomplish in one year what normally takes people many years. I don't know about that. All I know is that my heart thumps wildly with excitement when I see a gorgeous plant. And since I'm a new gardener, 99% of the plants I see are gorgeous.

Who am I? What happened to that woman who just three months ago spent all her time at the computer or crafting table? What happened to that woman who thought a well-spent $20 was buying a printer ink cartridge but a 5 buck geranium was an outrageous extravagance? What happened to that woman who would rather read about a flower than touch one? I don't recognize my own self. I'm changing. What am I becoming?

I feel as though I'm joining a mystery. Each time I touch a leaf or hold a fist of dirt in my hand, I feel as though I'm leaving my life of paper and entering a world where things live. It's exhilarating. I'm constantly breathless and loving every minute of this new gardening rush.

The Pat Austin is opening up. There are literally no words to describe it's seriously swoon-worthy scent.

Spider Appetites

2006-04-30T19:24:00.000-07:00

The other day I saw a spider on the Septre'd Isle on the deck. Of course I left her alone because spiders will keep harmful bugs off my roses, right? By eating them, right?

This morning I checked up on the spider to make sure she was doing her job. She was merrily spinning a web around one of the buds.

Then I noticed a green speck on a leaf nearby. Lo and behold, it was the dreaded...

Aphids! Ugh. A whole fat family of them - Papa, Mama and Baby Aphid. They were greedily sucking the life out of my rose leaves.

The spider was nearby so I waited for some real action.

She moved around a bit, flinging web from leaf to leaf and finally got to the Aphids' feasting grounds.

I coached her... C'mon, you're almost there... just leap up and grab one!...

The tension grew as the spider crept up over the leaf. You're nearly in position... one swift jump and you'll have a juicy treat...

I held my breath as the spider got closer and closer when suddenly...

...that stupid spider turned away from the aphids and crouched in a menacing position toward me and my camera!

Duh, spider! Turn around, your meal is behind you! Aren't you hungry?

I waited so long that I got annoyed. So I took this shot and named it "Spider Annoying Me." Then I left because I couldn't stand it any more and let the spider eat in peace.

When I returned an hour later, the spider was nowhere to be seen and the Aphid Family was fatter than ever. I ended up mashing the aphids with my fingers.

Bah, humbug. Do spiders not eat aphids? Are spiders so dumb they can share a leaf with aphids and not even know it?

I still haven't bought any insecticides yet. But aphids are showing up more frequently now and it's hard enough just to keep them off the roses on the deck. The other 12 rose bushes in the yard are on their own.

Pat Austin's about to give birth!

2006-04-28T10:47:00.000-07:00

wow.

There are ten more buds on the Pat Austin. This is the juiciest one.

This is almost as exciting as giving birth!

For a while this afternoon, I was afraid to leave the deck lest Pat Austin's bud burst open while I was gone. I guess roses don't bloom quite that fast, even though they look like it.

After counting more buds on the Pat Austin rose, I decided to make a chart to keep track of them all. I call it my Rose Maintenance chart. It has columns for the date, number of buds, number of blooms and "Troubles & Fixes." I'm clueless and a little scared about what might go in that last column. Probably stuff like aphid treatment, fertilizer and Beheading by Deer. ugh.

We counted all our buds. As of today, April 28, we have...

On the Deck: Fair Bianca #1 has 11 buds, Pat Austin has 11 buds and Sceptre'd Isle #1 has 11.

In the backyard: New Dawn at the bottom of the deck stairs has 0, newly planted Graham Thomas, Jude the Obscure and Eden each have 0. Marking the place where my Prince Charming is supposed to serenade me is Blush Noisette with an almost obscene ...drum roll.... 92 buds!!! 92!!! We counted twice to make sure that number was right and laughed at the sheer absurdity.

In the Side Yard: Zepherine Drouhin has 2.

In the Front Yard: Fair Bianca #2 has 19 buds, Fair Bianca #3 has 7 and the Sceptre'd Isle #2 by the mailbox has 2.

I had removed the tags from the three roses by the road and unfortunately did not glue the little rose pictures accurately on my paper layout. Therefore, we don't have a clue which rose is which. I didn't want to write the wrong numbers on my chart so I grabbed a nearby piece of bark and wrote the rose bud count on it. Mystery Rose #1 has 3 buds, Mystery Rose #2 has 0 and Mystery Rose #3 has 0. Mystery Rose #3 had a lot of eaten leaves. Grrr. I must get some insecticides before the problem spreads. We couldn't find any visible evidence of what ate the leaves. I won't know till they bloom which rose is James Galway, Queen of Denmark or the last Sceptre'd Isle.

That's a grand total of 158 rose buds! Mmm, mmm, mmm, I can almost smell them now. Splendid.

Rose Update

2006-04-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

The volcano roses, Graham Thomas and Jude the Obscure, that we planted the other day aren't happy with their new life. Spending 67 days in the dungeon made them look positively anemic. Jude has numerous creepy white arms reaching up and Graham, with its one lone white cane and sickly detached limb, is bowing over. I wonder if dropping rose food pellets in the buckets of water would have made a difference. The plants desperately needed sun but at least they would have had something to eat.

Eden isn't nearly as blanched looking but is drooping dramatically more than Graham and Jude. I don't know anything about plant "shock" but Eden looks pretty shocked to me. Sad, sad, sad.

Zepherine Drouhin on the northwest side of the house is growing fast. Still no buds on it though. But my info says it does well on a north wall so we'll see if that's true. We may have planted it too far from the house though. I'll have to figure out a way to make some kind of stepped lattice for the rose to climb to reach the house.

There are buds on the two Fair Biancas in front of the house. One bush seems to be doing much better than its twin, even though they both started out looking the same and were planted the same. I'll have to watch and see if one is getting more sun than the other.

Blush Noisette is teasing me with a grand promise of blooms. Alas, this lovely display will be approximately 8 feet below the deck this year so I'll have to lean over the railing to see it. But I have visions of its loveliness, even if it is short.

If I had a Prince Charming that was so inclined, I'd send him a message, written on a scroll, that said... "Dear Prince Charming, Please stand by the flourishing pink rose bush under my deck if you are inclined to sing to me. Your song will rise with the scent of roses and bring a merry blush to my cheeks. Yours truly, the Moatless Princess." Yep, that's the message I'd send to a so-inclined prince.

BUGS!!!

2006-04-23T14:07:00.000-07:00

I merrily took a photo of the most plump Pat Austin bud this afternoon, never suspecting I was actually taking a photo of teensy, insidious bugs. I uploaded the photo, zoomed in and WHAT is THAT! Gasp! Peril! Terror! Dread!

My gardening is one gasp after another. I don't have any insecticides yet and I have no clue what to buy. I'm going to march right back up to the deck and squish those nasties off my roses by hand. sigh.

The Lavender Lives and Rose Volcanos

2006-04-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

Well, the second deadest lavender is making a concerted effort to live. Every day I check the three lavender plants. There used to be one teensy leaf-looking thing left on the most dead lavender but even that is gone now. All that's left is a little bump of dirt, just big enough to hold a tiny tombstone. "Here Lies Lavender Plant #3. It Smelled Nice, albeit Briefly." I'm hoping the plant is so desperately busy making roots underground that it has no energy left to stick out any leaves.

The expensive roses in the garage weren't doing so hot today. My beloved Graham Thomas actually had a slew of canes turned brown. How could I have let that happen to a $20 rose bush! Gasp. So late this afternoon, we planted them. Amazingly, those three rose bushes lasted 67 DAYS in buckets of water in the garage. Never again will I order roses without having a plan in place FIRST of WHERE I'm going to plant them. And we will "heel them in."

The last three roses are the highest climbers. We planned on putting them in the raised beds around the patio with something to climb. But the patio with raised bed is still in the Extremely Much Assembly Required stage. So we made three volcanos of dirt and planted the roses on top of the volcanos. Now all we have to do is put the patio in up to the level of the rose volcanos. I'm fairly certain we're supposed to create the raised bed first and then put in the plants. But today we put in the plants first and then we'll have to shovel the raised beds around them. The way I figure it -> if my dad can build a house first on the ground and then dig out a foundation under it second, surely we can plant some roses first and then put in a raised bed around them second.

After we planted the rose volcanos, the Chief Shoveler on the Rose Support Team accidentally hit one of the two remaining green canes of the Graham Thomas rose with a shovel and broke it. We were both silent for a minute. With solemn ceremony, I cut the precious stem off and then stuck it in the dirt nearby just in case it decides to grow. Besides, the Graham Thomas looked so forlorn with just one anemic branch sticking up that I figured it should be able to commiserate with it's freshly amputated limb.

On a happier note, I counted a total of perhaps 18 buds on the deck rose bushes! With more on the way. And there are now buds on the two Fair Biancas in the front yard too. Woot!

Gardening Updates

2006-04-18T07:28:00.000-07:00

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.

Coughs, Rocks, Mold, Geraniums

2006-04-15T19:34:00.000-07:00

1. We're all sick with colds and coughs so gardening was limited the past week.
2. The Chief Rock Finder brought home some rocks the other day.
3. Despite the coughs and colds we moved rocks, piling them in the vicinity of the patio wall.
4. I discovered mold on the languishing lavender in the garage.
5. I panicked at seeing the mold so we planted the twelve ground phlox in the front yard, the nine miniature roses in three pots and the three lavender plants in two pots. The lavender will have to be moved to the raised bed around the patio eventually. But I thought it best to plant it immediately.
6. We trimmed all the dead growth off the lavender. It looks extremely sad. I don't know if it will make it.
7. Being ill, I forgot to tend the newly planted miniature roses the next day so parts of them died from lack of water and the heat.
8. I cut off the shriveled parts of the miniature roses.

I'm noticing a change in my attitude. Plants used to be disposable. Plants used to have little value. But never have I felt so rotten as when I saw my dying lavender. I had connected to it. I wanted it to live. I did not want it to die. Expense or no expense, the lavender represented something good and green, fragrant and hopeful and I wanted it to flourish. I feel ashamed and sad.

I was too sick to go out today but the Chief Wallet of the Rose Support Team and our daughter went to a real, true nursery today, the Homewood Nursery & Garden Center. I felt bad that I wasn't up to going with them. Last week, a friend took me there and it was exquisite walking around looking at so many fantastic plants. I impulsively almost spent hundreds but my gardening friend was more sensible. So I ended up spending nothing but got tons of ideas. Today at the nursery, our daughter picked out 7 geraniums in pink, salmon and coral for my planters on the back deck. She also bought some heather for her heather garden and a maidenhair fern which she promptly named Cyril.

I'm very excited about the geraniums and will plant them tomorrow, along with the still-ok, not-moldy Cascadia Petunias.

Roof Tiles, Stones and Snake Hotels

2006-04-11T19:54:00.000-07:00

[Note: This entry was written on Saturday, April 08, 2006.]

"I don't know, man," yelled the Reuse Center forklift operator as he slowly lowered the heavy pallet of dirty terra cotta roof tiles onto the back of our old pickup. "I don't want to break your struts, ya know what I mean?"

He was right. The back of the pickup was sinking so low that either the shocks were about to blow or the front end of the pickup would shoot up off the ground. "Sorry, but you're gonna have to load them by hand," the man said as he moved the pallet back to the ground.

We didn't mind. Well, I should say the Rose Support Team did not express any displeasure at having to load 409 terra cotta roof tiles on the back of two vehicles in the rain. I was hoping the rain would stop by afternoon but it didn't. With or without rain, I was so pleased at getting the stack of tile within my budget of 50 bucks that I think the guys caught my excitement. The Rose Support Team formed an assembly line and in no time at all loaded almost half the tiles into the back of my van. The rest were lifted via forklift to the pickup truck.

"You know those are roof tiles. They're not strong enough to use for a patio because they're just roof tiles," the man cautioned.

Bah. Where seldom is hearrrrd, a discouraging worrrrd... Discouraging words won't stop me from putting in a patio! I blew the entire budget getting the plants so from now on, we're landscaping on a shoestring. I figure it this way - if the tiles break, they break. So right from the start, I'll plan my patio design to look good with broken tiles.

Woohoo! We're going to have a patio! Sweet. I never thought it would happen this year. According to my calculations, each tile covers 108.75 square inches. With four hundred nine 14.5" x 7.5" tiles and a pile of broken ones, set 1/2" apart, we can cover at least 340.84 square feet for the patio.

This morning was the first time we actually sat down together and seriously discussed ideas for the backyard. Before this morning, it was all rather vague and a patio wasn't even in the picture. After all, we're on a shoestring budget. But the Garage Garden is growing Jumanji-style; the roses are climbing, the phlox wants to creep and the petunias want to cascade. The nine miniature roses, three lavender plants, and baggies of dry echinops and poppies seem to be giving up and only utter a forlorn sigh when I enter the garage so we have to move quickly.

I decided I only want to plant each plant once. According to the gardening books, moving plants is hard work. I'm not sure I can motivate the Rose Support Team to do frequent transplants. Also, the gardening books give the impression that frequently moving plants might cause them "stress". That's a new one to me. How does a plant get stressed? This means my remaining three climbing roses just can't be plopped down anywhere lest I give them undue "stress" and they decide to not bloom for me just for spite so this morning we had no choice but to sit down and come up with a real plan. No more dreaming. No more stalling. We made a real, bona-fide, little-circles-and-squiggles-drawn-on-paper plan. We even used colored pencils.

The design we came up with for the backyard is especially attractive because it's made to grow. It's open-ended so we can add to it year to year. Sections of hedge have room to stretch. Beds are placed so they can be made smaller or bigger. Grass areas are smaller, meaning more economical to keep nice but can easily be turned into a hedge maze if we want. There's space to put a porch swing in a secluded spot at the back of the property, an above-ground pool for the kids and a spot for a pergola. The final design is one of continuity, not a haphazard look. Well, it's my personal, optimistic opinion that we are achieving continuity. Best of all, I have another year to come up with boxwood money for the Hedge Maze. Yes!

As we planned the landscaping, the most inspiring amongst our resource materials spread out over the dining room table was the Stonescaping Idea Book by Taunton Home. A Hedge Maze is very important to my comfort but seeing rocks in the backyard is more so. Rocks are permanent. They lend a feeling of security, strength and tranquility. I enjoy their color, their texture, their shadow and even their earthy smell. They remind me of home and my dad's stone walls.

My mom doesn't think as fondly of the stone walls on their property. "All those lovely stone walls you see out there are really homes of snakes," she tells me. "Many snakes. Snake hotels! Do you want snakes everywhere?"

Now I'm not sure there are actually that many snakes living in those walls. I've never seen one in all the years I've visited. But I must say I had not thought of our patio wall becoming a snake hotel. We did see one slithering, hissing brown snake in the backyard flower bed last fall. We never did see where it went as it disappeared under all the sticks and dead leaves in the garden area. The Chief of the Rose Support Team suspects it was a poisonous one. Hopefully our cats, owls and deer will keep the snakes from seeking accommodations in our snake hotel. "Sorry pal, we're all full this week. Move along to the shed next door or stay and be dinner."

The Stonescaping book doesn't mention snakes. But it does specify rocks under foot should be 2 to 3" thick. Maybe that's so a snake will be less likely to live under it. The terra cotta roof tiles we got are only 5/8" thick. So we're taking a risk in using them for a patio. I'm going to search the internet for info about using terra cotta roof tiles for a patio. Surely, someone, somewhere, has tried it.

I'm rather fond of the ideas in the Stonescaping book that suggest placing the stones 3 or 4" apart and planting thyme or blue star creeper in between. I think a mixture of spongy moss and thyme between terra cotta tiles would make a lovely surface for the patio. The extra inches between the tiles will give us even more coverage too. Hopefully, the roots of plants won't lift the thin tiles. I'll just have to make sure the kids jump on each tile every day to keep the tiles down and the snakes out. Or maybe we'll take advantage of the two nail holes in each tile and nail them to the ground. That oughta work.

Curving around the back side of the patio is where we're putting the stone wall. It won't be very high, just high enough to hold the raised bed behind it. Our property offers nary a rock so we'll have to get them somewhere else. The Reuse Center sells rocks exactly like the thousands on my parent's property for $2.00 a piece! Imagine that! That means a stone maze will cost a zillion more than a boxwood hedge maze. Rats. But that also means my mom's snake hotels are worth thousands of dollars! I'll have to tell her. Maybe that will cheer her.

To save money, we'll start the wall by rearranging some of the rocks already on our property, such as taking some from the rock borders around the front flower beds. Adding to the rock wall is going to be a lifetime hunt. "Hi dear. How was your day at work? Did you bring home any rocks today?"

Now that we have a plan, I can focus. I'm focusing on the patio area so we can put the stone wall around the edge of the patio and put in the raised bed behind the stone wall around the patio so we can plant the climbing roses and languishing lavender in the raised bed behind the stone wall 'round the patio. Then we'll be set to have a picnic, jump on the tiles and make sure the snakes don't move in.

Like a bunch of dominoes, gardening is. You can't do one thing till you do a dozen others. No, make that 409 others. Stacked. Without any snakes in between.

I Completely Forgot about the Pool!

2006-04-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

[Note: our internet was down for a bit. But we're back online again faster than ever. I've got quite a few gardening entries to catch up on. This entry is from Wednesday, April 5th, 2006.]

Optimism run amok. That's what happens when a new gardener believes she can install two arbors, build a pergola, plant numerous flowers with varying heights and sun needs and keep deer away from expensive roses. That's what happens when a new gardener's optimism is convinced ground will grow anything and moats are feasible landscaping options.

Unfortunately, my newbie optimism completely forgot about the pool.

The kids want one. Not a big pool, just big enough to swim a couple strokes before you crash into the other side. Maybe 23' long, 12' wide and four feet deep, with a slightly sunken deep end if we can find a suitable spot in the backyard without running into the septic field.

This is a huge complication. Where will the arbors go? The pergola? The patio? The hedge maze and rose obelisks and the moat? What about the precious patch of full sun that is getting whittled smaller and smaller? What about the precious gardening budget that has already been whittled down, down, down, .... nearing the size of single pencil stake in a birdbath-size veggie patch? Looks like it'll be a One-Tomato Garden this year.

Hail!

2006-04-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

Hail! Literally. It hit the front door like a blast of gravel. I peeked out the front door to check it out. That was scary! The weather was freaky, going from warm and bright, to black skies, high winds and hail in a very short time. So quickly that I had no time to check on any rose bushes.

We had removed the mulch from a couple roses in the front yard but not the ones on the deck. The deck plants had the most leaves and seem very robust. They're growing up right through the mulch, despite the couple below-freezing days we had a week or so ago.

I took a photo of the penny-size hail on the deck in the middle of the storm. The white streaks in the photo are actually falling hail. The hail piled up around the rims of the planters and accumulated on the deck.

Amazingly, we had sunny skies less than two hours after the storm passed and the roses on the deck didn't look damaged at all.

I didn't check the roses in the front yard because I figured if the leafy ones on the deck were fine, the canes in the front yard are probably fine too.

A "Bird's Eye View Garden"

2006-03-28T20:41:00.000-08:00

That's what we need!!! A "Bird's Eye View Garden!" I just figured it out this evening and I'm really excited about it.

We have a Serious Landscaping Problem. No wonder I've been having trouble figuring out the backyard. Too bad there isn't a "Can This Backyard Be Saved" TV show because our yard would definitely qualify. Here are the obstacles we have to overcome:

1. When you look out at the backyard from in the house, you see.... AIR! The very first view our guests get of our backyard is air because the house is a split-level. So the sliding glass doors open to the deck, which is about 10' above grass level.

2. Whatever landscaping we do in the backyard has to look good from a bird's eye view. So that means the placement of the arbor and pergola have to look great from the top. As the guests slowly walk down the stairs, the arbor and pergola still have to look good from all angles.

3. As guests look out over the backyard from the deck, they should find it inviting. Otherwise, they're not going to want to trek down 12 steps to get to grass level.

4. The yard is flat, flat, flat. No texture. No interest. No enticing nooks and shady crannies. It's the blahest yard I've ever seen.

5. Deer.

Now that I've finally figured out the obstacles, it should be way easier to plan the landscaping. (Ha, I'm actually sounding like I know what I'm talking about! Scary how education just creeps up on ya.)

No wonder I haven't been able to shake the idea of a hedge maze. The "Bird's Eye View Garden" stuff is the perfect reason to have a maze. And a reflecting pool. And a meandering stone wall and rose covered trellises and a prince down below singing love songs...

I need texture! I need interest! I need to add mystery to an utterly boring and naked yard. Which is why I just ordered some new gardening books. They sound super. I can't wait to check out Creating Beds and Borders: Creative Ideas from America's Best Gardeners (Fine Gardening Design Guides) by Taunton. Our backyard desperately needs lots of beds and borders.

I also got Stonescaping Idea Book by Taunton. That's my new Plan B for a hedgeless maze. I think a stone maze would look fun from the deck. I haven't looked into the price of stone and really, really hope it isn't as expensive as a zillion boxwood plants. My parents' home is built on top of their own stone quarry but they live 500 miles away. So to rent a truck and harvest a free truckload of stone from them would probably be more expensive than buying it local. My dad made the most splendid stone walls and I'm hoping to duplicate some meandering walls in the backyard.

I can't wait to get the new books and they better get here quick because the Garage Garden is looking scarier every day. I'm afraid we'll have to move the tools out to the backyard to make room for the Garden in the garage if we don't do something soon.

Garage Box Gardens

2006-03-27T20:38:00.000-08:00

The only interesting gardening-related event the past week was 12 yo son putting spare coconut fiber basket liners to good use. Yes, he's playing a gaming device and yes he's unaware that I took the photo to share with his Grandma. We've always encouraged the children to be creative.

Today I checked on my garden growing in the garage. I have plants growing in boxes, a garbage can and a pail. They all look sprightly to me. That's good because I need all the encouragment I can get now that I've managed to kill another plant. I had no idea the temp would dip that low on the back deck the other night. I forgot I was letting last year's hanging basket get a little suntan. It's a good thing I haven't gotten around to planting everything out back yet.

Do all gardeners have plants destined for the outdoors growing in their garages at this time of year? I don't know what I'll do if the (I don't remember how many I ordered) Cascading Petunias arrive while the weather is too cold for them. I counted six rosebuds on the miniature roses in the garage and they're not even planted yet!

More boxes with air holes

2006-03-22T20:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday there were the three Purple Fragrant Lavender plants in the box on my doorstep. Even though the stems are only about 3" high, there was a rush of lavender scent whooshing from the box when I opened it. Wow. What an exquisite experience! To be able to hold the live source of my favorite scent is to feel very close to the Creator. The plants are quite healthy looking. I hope they can wait till the weather warms here before I plant them. I'm pining for confirmation that we won't have any more nights below freezing.

Today's air-holed box contained 9 small pots of Carpet Phlox, Moorheim Beauty, White Delight and Sapphire Blue. I'm assuming the remaining 3 Scarlet Flame plants will arrive in a separate box. The plants look healthy although they probably could use some sun. I can't wait to see them spread out all over our front hillside. Yes! I'm hoping that's the perfect spot because the soil is acidic from all the pine needles and there is partial shade.

The other day a friend sent a link to this funky-looking ScareCrow Motion Activated Sprinkler Sytem. And for the first time, I'm spending my days thinking more of actually enjoying my flowers than dreading their death-by-consumption. Yay for technology! I'm going to do some serious surfing for, what did she call it?... yeah, an "animal deterrent". Nice.

I'm starting to feel like an infomercial for Spring Hill Nurseries. I'm so new at gardening that I barely know what other nurseries are out there. I have yet to check out any local nurseries here. My mom has, on numerous occasions, encouraged me to support my local nursery because "they know what grows best in your area." She's absolutely right. In the meantime, I'm thrilled to death that my first experience with mail order gardening is a positive one. Quite Nice.

Boxes with Air Holes and Ready-made Gardens

2006-03-17T14:01:00.000-08:00

Even before I opened the door, I could hear their pitiful cries coming from the front porch. There, tossed casually on my doorstep, was a box. Around the sides of the box were air holes. Coming through the air holes were squeaky voices crying "Plant me!" "No, ME!" "No, I'm thirstier than you because I have NO dirt!" "I'm DYING, PLANT ME FIRST!"

I carried the box inside and inspected the contents - one white plastic bag labeled Mixed Oriental Poppies and two white plastic bags of Echinops Ritro. All looked dead, typical and I suppose perfectly normal.

The Echinops bag lists:
QTY: 3
Height 30"-38"
Spacing: 12-24"
Depth: Crown at soil line
Full Sun to Partial Shade.

I don't know what "crown at soil line" means. The Mixed Oriental Poppies bag lists:
QTY: 3
Height: 24"-48"
Spacing 18-24"
Depth: Crown slightly below soil line.
Full Sun to Partial Shade.
May Contain: Brilliant, Q Alexander, Royal Wedding, Prince of Orange.

I'm feeling more and more royal every day, now that I've declared myself Princess, I'm planning a moat, "crowning" plants and planting "princes". Alas, I just don't feel confident I'll do these flowers justice. That's probably why princesses hire gardeners and landscapers.

When I bought the Echinops, I had visions of my mom's gardens. Her Echinops and Poppies stand exquisite and stately between the arbor and the water garden. My backyard has no picturesque places to fill. I'm starting from scratch. I'm trying to oasify a dessert, a parched, arid plain where the unmentionable animals reign defiantly.

Today I decided to study landscaping books to help me figure out where to put the poppies and thistle. The other day a friend and I sat at lunch and she said "So, where is your garden? In the backyard?"
"No," I replied, "it's all over the front and backyard."
She laughed and said "What do you mean, 'it's all over'? You told me you were gardening, so where is the garden?"
After I told her about the roses in the front yard, by the mailbox, around the house, on the deck and in the backyard, she said "That's not gardening, that's landscaping!"

Landscaping? Landscaping? Is that what I'm doing? sigh. So now I'm studying landscaping books and pre-designed gardens. I discovered a number of nurseries online that sell entire, ready-made, gardens. Ripe for the planting. I should have just gone with one of those instead of trying to do it on my own. These ready-made gardens come complete with little sketches labeled "Plant Bulbs A in this spot and Flowers B in spots m and q."

Wayside Gardens has a Tuscany Garden ready to plant on your Mediterranean deck.
Spring Hill has a complete Three Season Garden plan that keeps on blooming and blooming.
Audubon Workshop has gardens to attract birds and butterflies.

And then there is a book called The Garden Planner. It looks good. I just ordered it and hope there are treatments for my yard. I need something like Deer-Resistent, Soil-less, Poor Drainage Garden.

The BBC website on Gardening has a great feature to let you plan a garden virtually. You download and install the program and then design a garden according to the area you want to cover. I had fun designing a garden in a distorted horseshoe shape and stuck random plants and trees all over it. I can see that I need more guidance. I'll have to study their design contest winners. That's new to me that people actually compete for gardening design. Wow. I'm hoping to explore the program further and see if they have a custom moat feature.

My optimism has me believing I can build and install two arbors and a pergola, plant numerous flowers of varying heights and sun needs, and keep deer away from expensive roses. My optimism makes me believe the world is my garden and moats are a feasible landscaping option. My optimism has me convinced anyone can grow roses. You just have to listen to them and give them what they need. "Plant me!" "I'm thirsty!" "Ah, more sun." "Watch out! Deer!" "Woops, there goes Sceptre'd Isle's crown..."

Using Moats as Landscaping Features

2006-03-13T18:36:00.000-08:00

This morning we planted three roses on the deck in the three big planters. White Fair Bianca went in the terra cotta planter in the corner of the deck above the Blush Noisette down below. Hopefully the pink Noisette will climb high enough up the deck rails to be a nice contrast to the white roses. Splendid copper Pat Austin went in a whiskey barrel across the deck. The last Sceptre'd Isle went in the remaining whiskey barrel at the top of the steps and will be the perfect topper for the New Dawn climbing the stair rail.

The terra cotta planter took 25 gallons of topsoil/peat moss/composted manure/Perlite mixture and each whiskey barrel took 30 gallons. Moving 85 gallons of dirt is no fun task. So before we move any more roses to the deck to keep them away from the deer, I decided to look further into Using Moats as Landscaping Features.

I searched all over the Internet for "Using Moats as Landscaping Features" but didn't turn up a single "How To" article. So I looked up the definition of "moat". Moat: A deep defensive trench surrounding a castle and usually filled with water. That definition was not very encouraging.

Check out this photo of a castle moat. I'm not sure my property is big enough to feature such a massive trench unless we completely reroute the septic drain field. And then there's the Wikipedia article on Moats, "...deep and wide water-filled trenches, excavated to provide a barrier against attack..." I especially took note of this sentence: "Moats sometimes had long wooden spikes in them to prevent enemies from swimming across." It never occurred to me that deer might be able to swim. So I'll have to line the moat with either spikes or alligators.

A little more surfing led me to this site, Harvesting Rainwater for Landscape Use, by the University of Arizona Cooperative. What fascinating info! A quick survey of the diagrams got me all excited thinking at last I found what I wanted. However, the site is all about harvesting rainwater via berms, bins, moats and landscaped basins. That's great for those wanting to do landscaping in arid climes but alas, I still was no closer to getting my anti-deer moat.

I finally felt I was getting somewhere when I stumbled upon this site: Proposed New Standards for Exhibiting Primates in New South Wales: Using Moats as Exhibit Barriers.

It's basically about keeping primates IN but I figured it would work just fine for keeping deer OUT. Until I read this statement: "A moat of particular size in one zoo may have proved a satisfactory barrier for a particular species where it did not in another."

Which actually means, If the animal really wants to get across, nothing will stop it so you better watch out.

I'm not one to give up easily but figuring out the particulars of a moat has me completely stumped. To figure out the size of a moat, you have to use an actual formula. It goes like this: (length of humerus + length of radius) divided by (length of femur + length of tibia) x 100.

If you do the formula right, it should give the minimum height of the moat wall above water level. Which means I have to catch a deer and measure its legs before I can plan my moat.

Even if I get that far, the next part is iffy. "Trying to find information on how far [a species] can jump is very difficult." and "...species that are prepared to crash down through a lot of vegetation..." to get where they want to go. And lastly, "We wanted to know how far they can jump horizontally so the moats could be wide enough to prevent them jumping out."

What is jumping horizontally? I have NO idea how far/wide/high a deer can jump/leap/cartwheel/thrash and crash. And I'm sure if a deer smells the roses on 15 plump bushes it's more likely to be motivated to do whatever is necessary to reach them.

It's a lonely thought to think I can't consider a moat unless I own a castle in hostile territory. Therefore, tomorrow I shall declare myself Princess, my home a Castle, the Rose Support Team my Henchmen and the deer shall forever be dragons.

[I have just been informed by the Rose Support Team that they refuse to dig a moat but have suggested they are willing to tie jingle bells to all the rose bushes. Tomorrow I shall look into Deer Defense by Bells.]

Tar & Feathers and Pot Preparations

2006-03-12T17:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Saturday, I met my non-gardening deadlines and obligations with great success. Woot! But I failed at getting all the roses in the ground Friday. That was a completely unrealistic goal but my optimism is usually out of control anyway. Might as well apply it to gardening too.

Friday's gardening consisted of panicking over the water-logged David Austin roses. All of a sudden, right in the middle of typing, I leapt up, ran to look at them in the garage and decided we had to resuscitate them immediately. So I gave instructions to the Rose Support Team and went back to my typing.

Half an hour later, I checked on their progress. They had properly dumped out the water from the garbage can, hosed off the bare roots, placed about 6" of fancy dirt mix in the garbage can and added the roses. That's when the mistake was made. The Rose Support Team proceded to shovel dirt over the roses and buried them up to their necks, leaving the roses looking like they were tarred and feathered. Gasp! Can't be good.

Roses for Dummies didn't turn up any statements such as "Do no coat the bare root rose canes with dirt," but it looked too awful to be good. We finally figured out a way to clean off the dirt without getting too much water in the garbage can. We filled a spray bottle with water and misted the roses until the dirt rinsed off. Boy did that take a long time! whew.

I read you're supposed to "heel in" a rose if you're not planting "right away". Judging from the little diagram I have, "heeling in" is planting shallow and leaning over. I suppose that's so the roots get confused and go sideways instead of downward so the plant is easy to rip out again. You're supposed to "heel in" if not planting "right away" but what does "right away" mean? When is "not right away"? I had NO idea it would take me so many weeks to figure out how and where to plant the roses or I would have "heeled in" the whole batch. Hopefully, letting the roses spend a weekend in a garbage can of dirt will make them appreciate their new home on the deck all the more.

We're getting closer and closer to the deck planting too. As the sun was setting this evening, we raced over to Home Depot and bought 5 coconut fiber hanging plant liners and 3 big buckets for watering. I looked all over Home Depot for "snap-on bucket comfort handles" but couldn't find any. We finally asked an employee and he laughed and said there was no such thing! WHAT? No Bucket Comfort Handles in this day and age of comfort and high tech? The employee said people just cut a section of garden hose to put over their bucket handles and told me I could have my own island retreat if I would market my idea for the bucket handles.

I have no time to pursue a career in Bucket Comfort Handles and I'm not about to sacrifice a perfectly good garden hose for bucket-carrying comfort. Fortunately, after explaining what I wanted, my husband, resident expert on all pipe and carpentry issues, suggested I try ArmaFlex tubing, used for insulating copper pipe. For just $1.89 we got a six foot length of spongy, black ArmaFlex tube, enough to cover the handles of an entire bucket brigade. It even has a convenient slit on one side with self-adhesive strips for attachment. Very sweet.

By the time we got home, it was dark. That seems to be the story of my life - Gardening at Night. I did not want to give the neighborhood yet another high wattage, spotlighted Gardening at Night show, so we worked in the dark.

I used a pocket knife to cut the coconut fiber liners into pinwheel-looking shapes that will fit flat on the bottoms of the big terra cotta planter and two whiskey barrels. We'll use the scraps in the smaller planters. One summer I had a little planter on the deck and every time it rained or I watered the plant, dirt seeped out the little drain hole and got all over the picnic table and I kept having to add more dirt in the top. Why do they put drain holes in planters? To let out the excess water, not dirt. So how do you keep the dirt in while letting water out? This gardening business is FRAUGHT with unanswered questions. Too many questions, not enough answers, so I make up my own. Which is why I bought the coconut liners when I saw them.

Dear husband drilled drain holes in the bottom of the whiskey barrels. He asked me how many holes to drill but I had no idea. Fifteen seemed way too many so we settled on three.

The whiskey barrel shavings smell downright alcoholic. We saved the shavings but don't know what to do with them. Maybe toss them on the grill next time we barbecue chicken. Since there seems to be some tarry substance coating the inside of the barrel, our shavings are somewhat tarry. Now that will be a new grilling taste: Tar & Feathered Whiskey Chicken. Mmm, mmm.

Deer Dread

2006-03-09T17:17:00.000-08:00

The day was gorgeous outside, perfect for gardening. Six David Austin roses still wait in a bucket of water and they now have leaves on their canes. Nine Spring Hill Nursery Miniature Roses are shooting roots out of the bottom of their bitty boxes. The new bags of mulch, composted manure, peat moss and top soil sit forlornly in the backyard while I spent the day hunched over the computer or dining room table all day working. sigh. I have deadlines to keep and there was no room for gardening. And today I got an email that my six Oriental Poppies and six Echinops Ritro have shipped. I don't know where to put them! As soon as I can, I'm going to get lavender. At least the deer aren't supposed to like lavender. Since I'm crazy over lavender, I'm rather fond of the idea of an entire backyard of the stuff. Would deer wander through a maze of lavender? Would it make them sneeze? Is there any plant that deer are allergic to?

I had to stay indoors but the boys got to play outside. They had great fun trying to fly a 9" kite. As the sun slowly slid from view, our youngest son ran in, breathless and said "It's not just a couple, it's a whole herd! At least 11! In the neighbor's field behind our house!"

I got this sick, nauseous feeling and felt like throwing up. Am I a fool to think I can grow roses? I've only ever seen 5 deer. But 11? There's no way I can keep back 11.

Which means, I've got to plant all nine of the miniature roses on the deck, perhaps dig up one of the Sceptre'd Isles to move to the deck and make the raised beds really raised.

And get busy on the moat. I wonder if Alligators can handle North Carolina weather.

Garden Fever and Catalogs

2006-03-06T17:09:00.000-08:00

I think I have it. Garden Fever. Gasp of dread. The weather has been cold all weekend and today we had rain. Bummer. I couldn't find Garden Fever or an antidote for it in the medical dictionary or thesaurus. But I did find Cabin Fever: anxiety caused by living indoors for a long period of time; claustrophobia; winter blues and seasonal affective disorder. Oh, and the last definition was temporary insanity. I think the definition of Garden Fever must be: Temporary insanity caused by anxiety over long periods of winter, juxtaposed with the desire for the seasonal affects of living outdoors under sky blues while working in an orderly garden.

Because of the weather, I couldn't plant the last Fair Bianca on the deck today along with the last Sceptre'd Isle and Pat Austin. Nor could I plant the nine new Miniature Roses: Toy Clown, Earthquake, Lavender Lace, Orange Honey, Sugar Plum, Green Ice, Sheri Ann, Rise 'n' shine and Stars 'n' Stripes.

So late this afternoon, as an antidote to my Garden Fever, I tried to find more info on my roses. I found two really great web sites. The first is HelpMeFind.com , "A site devoted to roses and all that is rose related, including selecting, buying, breeding, caring for and exhibiting. We have cataloged over 26,000 roses and have more than 29,000 photos along with thousands of rose nurseries, public and private gardens, rose societies, authors, breeders, hybridizers and publications from all over the world." I could spend hours wandering around this site.

Check out the funky feature on that site where you search for a rose that "sounds like ____". I did words like "teapot" and "glue" but the results didn't actually rhyme. So I cheated a bit and typed in "Zeppelin Druid" but I didn't get Zepherine Drouhin as I hoped. Still, it's a fun feature to play with.

The other web site is Dave's Garden. Really nifty site. Especially the feature where members of the community can upload photos of plants. I got to see 10 photos of Pat Austins. Awesome.

All that reading made me so excited. I decided to turn my Garden Fever into a full-blown case of Gardening Belief. Garden Fever makes you long for what you don't have and you get real grumpy. I was SO grumpy today. Gardening Belief gives you hope that what you don't have might turn into something eventually. Which is why I'm considering another order from Spring Hill Nursery.

Spring Hill has this nifty feature that lets you search for plants by type, amount of sun exposure, zone, color, and, most important, usage. Usage options include DEER RESISTANT. Forget color, cut flower and rock garden categories; I go straight to what really counts - the Deer Resistant category. As a bonus, if you purchase a deer-resistant plant, you just bought yourself a long-lasting category plant. No deer, no death-by-consumption; a real Two-fer-One deal!

Running full steam with Gardening Belief, I called my mom and told her about the stack of gardening catalogs in today's mail. I asked my mom which companies were good. "Oh, that one always goes straight into the garbage," she said about the first. "Nothing I've ever bought from them grows."

It never occurred to me that plants you buy from the catalogs might not make it. I know there's a certain percentage of Fail Factor for cheapy plants purchased from a flea market. But catalogs have a reputation, right?

My mom had never heard of two of the catalogs I received. I told her all about the gorgeous photos. "You know they paint the plants, don't you?" she asked me. I pondered this while she added "Check out the blue flowers. No blue flower was ever as bright as they show in catalogs. Plus, the leaves behind the flowers are all washed out because they don't paint the leaves."

whew. I sure do have a lot to learn. In addition to a garden-vision factor and garden-numbers factor, I now have to add a vendor-trust factor. We're not talking elementary math any more. No, no. We're getting into advanced physics. We're getting into something like, um, maybe Bio-agricultural Engineering Statistics of Modern Grafted Plant Species Physics.

I totally made that up. But it's enough to cause some kind of fever.

It's all about NUMBERS

2006-03-04T19:24:00.000-08:00

Ok, just when I saw the light at the end of the tunnel with all this rose planting, TEN more roses arrived from Springhill Nursery. They are miniature all right but they've got thirsty and hungry roots just the same. I was hoping they wouldn't get here till April. But then, I should have taken note about the small print that said " Plants will be shipped at the proper planting time for your area of the country." Since I've never ordered plants in the mail, I had no clue to their shipping schedule. Actually, I have no clue whatsoever about the proper planting time for my area. So I decided that as long as plants keep arriving at my doorstep, I guess it's time to plant! That's easy. Sweet!

Ok, big change today. Yesterday I said that gardening was all about "personal vision". Yesterday I romanticized that it's important to keep that vision alive while you develop your dream garden. Well, today I completely scrapped the "personal vision" idea. Yes siree. Today I realized that gardening is all about NUMBERS. You know, pounds and $$$$$. It's about getting roses 60% off because of a big sale. It's about how many roses you need to plant to outnumber the Japanese Beetles' appetites. It's about how high the roses have to be grown to outreach the salivating mouths of deer. And check out these stats:

David Austin Rose order - $288.00
Spring Hill Nursery order - $76.97
Dirt and Stuff - $106
More dirt and lots more stuff - $266.19
More stuff - $48.25
Total spent so far - $785.41

Last spring we spent about $785.00 on food and clothing. To fund the Rose Adventure this year, we decided to wear the clothes we bought last spring. And we'll probably have to eat just every other day for a month, starting next week because there are more numbers to be added. Such as:

Two metal arbors for the roses to climb - $139.97 x 2 = $279.94 OR Two cedar arbors for $197.49 x 2 = $394.98.
Another half whiskey barrel - $19.95.
Retaining wall stone - $3.97 per rock-looking thing x whatever = $400 (According to the Chief Estimator on the Rose Support Team).
Boxwood for the Hedge Maze - $4.98 per 1-gallon plant x hundreds = Astronomical Amount.
Total - The same amount as the grocery bill for April, May and June.

Therefore, after getting used to eating every other day during March, we'll be in fine form to fast during April, May and June and we'll look downright handsome in our swimsuits come July.

Unfortunately, my husband says he will only cooperate for the month of March and he absolutely wants to eat during April, May and June, so the Hedge Maze is out. sigh. hmmph. sigh. That was going to be my finest gardening adventure ever. And now the deer will find the roses. sigh.

However, on a happy note, today the Rose Support Team carried 300 pounds of dirt and stuff around the house to the backyard and 500 pounds of terra cotta, whiskey barrels and stuff around the house and up the stairs to the back deck. That was so nice of them. Therefore, I've decided to give them a breather before I broach the subject of the moat.

David Austin's English Rose Newsletter

2006-03-03T12:39:00.000-08:00

I don't know how I missed the first newsletter but I got the second email issue of the David Austin English Rose Newsletter the other day. It's great! The very first column is Now is the time to... Whereupon follows timely directions and suggestions for rose gardeners. The second paragraph starts out "Don't forget to water." Yikes! I forgot! So today we're giving each of the 9 planted roses two buckets of water because "...drenching helps to encourage their roots to delve deeper into the soil..." Which is good news because all we're going to be able to do all summer is drench. By bucket. I doubt we'll ever have any fancy trickle systems here.

The paragraph ends with "Always be guided by the weather conditions in your area." Ok, I can look up at the sky and even listen to the weatherman. But I'm not sure what "guided" is supposed to mean. I guess if the roses are dry, water them. If it's raining, the chore is done. If rain is in the forecast, don't water the roses but rather go talk to them and comfort them and tell them that you have no idea if it will actually rain or not but that you'd rather have them die of thirst than die by drowning. I'm going to have to work on that "guided by the weather" part. Maybe it's in Roses for Dummies.

The next paragraph is about Pruning. Yes! I need this! I was relieved to read "Bare root roses are despatched ready pruned and won't need further pruning during their first season." I'm not sure if that applies to climbers or not. I had a rose once (all the plants I buy are usually disposable plants because they end up dead) in a pot on my back deck one summer. The lone stem got higher and higher and then, when it was almost four feet high, it got one pretty, little rose right at the top. I was tickled pink with that rose. I looked at it every day. And then the Japanese Beetles declared my rose disposable so they disposed of it. Grrr. That better not happen to my 15 rose bushes. Surely the beetles can't eat all the roses on 15 bushes. I'll plant 15 more next year if that helps.

I followed the pruning paragraph until I got to this next section, which to do right, must be read with a British accent: "Simply remove between a third and two thirds of the height, depending on the effect you wish to create. The aim should be to bring out the natural beauty of the individual plant."

Removing 66% of the plant is way more than removing 33%. The percentage removed is directly related to (said with a British accent) "the effect you wish to create." What effect do I wish to create? I haven't the foggiest! I'm muddled! I'm addled, turbid and flummoxed!

And WHAT is the "natural beauty of the individual plant"? Right now, the roses look like chopsticks with thorns. I suppose than qualifies as some stark beauty. To figure out this "natural beauty", all I have to go on is the David Austin catalog and website. The catalog showcases close-ups of roses so that's not useful as a guide to pruning. I carefully studied the photos of the David Austin Gardens on the web but individual plants were not labeled in his group shots. "OK, all you gorgeous, natural beauties, plump your petals and look this way, smile, say Fertilizer kiss kiss... Click!"

I'm getting the impression that this is all about personal vision. I must not lose sight of the vision that drove me to purchase all the roses in the first place. Festoons, I wanted. Glorious profusion, I desired. Heady fragrance, I craved.

I do lots of arts and crafts and I'm able to get the effect I wish to create with scissors and a glue gun. But working with living plants is a whole new ball game. I have a friend who sticks plastic tulips in her garden every spring to get the effect she wishes to create. She gets plenty of admiration from the folks walking by her property and they don't even notice the tulips are plastic. Sounds like a reasonable plan to me. But since I bought the roses primarily for the scent, hot gluing blooms to my rose bushes completely defeats their function.

Which brings me to my all-time favorite section in the newsletter, the column on Fragrance! Woot! Fragrance is why I bought the roses from David Austin. Hopefully this section will be where I learn the difference between musk, clove and tea rose fragrance. I'm hoping to learn what a "background note" is. And I'm intrigued by how the scent of a rose is determined to be "delicately" scented or "slam-you-across-the-room-heavy" scented. I prefer heavy-scented but I read a website critical of heavy-scented roses. Say what? What is a rose FOR? I'm inclined to believe the critic was accustomed to the light and delicate scent of plastic. And they probably got the effect they wished to create.

Obelisks and Hedge Mazes

2006-03-01T13:32:00.000-08:00

Last night my mom made a great suggestion. "Why don't you use obelisks for the roses to climb," she said.
"Obelisk?" I had never heard of such a gardening object. "You mean like the Washington Monument?" I asked.
"Yes, only not quite so big. They're free-standing structures made especially for climbing plants."

The boys and I measured the garden-able area of the backyard today so I could plan where to put obelisks. We've got 15,000 square feet of, well, emptiness. There's almost no dirt. I'd say the backyard would work well as a sky scraper slab because it's hard as concrete. 625 square feet is not optimal so that leaves 14,375 to work with. My mom says it takes about 100 years to make 1" of top soil naturally. Which means the backyard ought to be lookin' pretty good in about a thousand years. That was discouraging to hear.

After surfing a while for obelisk info, I found some great structures that look lovely. Master Garden Products has some nice wood obelisks. I really like their West Obelisk with lattice up the sides.

Garden Artisans has some positively gorgeous Rose Pillars of wrought iron, to which I am partial. I had no idea there was such a thing as garden obelisks and rose pillars. Go figure.

The reason I bought climbing roses for the back yard is the deer. I hate those creatures. They ate our entire vegetable garden the first year we moved in and we didn't get one bean. Not one bean! And they even ate every jalapeno pepper too. I haven't planted in the backyard since. I figure if I put the roses up high, the deer won't reach them. And I don't think a deer can climb wrought iron.

After some thought, I've decided obelisks are out. Our backyard would be looking like a Victorian version of Stone Henge with its strange configuration of rosified obelisks everywhere. So now we're considering a mixture of pillars, arches and a pergola. And because of the deer, the roses have to be high. Our discussion went like this:

Me: "We have to get the roses to climb really high so the deer won't reach them."
Head of the Rose Support Team: "HOW high?"

Oh I get soooo frustrated with all those requests for specific details.

Me: "High enough that the deer won't reach them. Say, as high as the deck."

The way I figure it, the deer won't be able to reach the roses and we'll have a lovely view of the roses from the deck if they're at eye level.

Head of the Rose Support Team: "And the deer won't pull the vines down to eat the roses?"

Hmmph. What ever happened to that song "...where seldom is hearrrrrd a discouraging worrrrrd..."

Me: "Well, we'll build a Hedge Maze over the whole backyard around the rose pillars. That way, the deer will get confused and completely exhausted trying to find the roses and then they'll collapse right in our own backyard. Just think, fresh venison for supper, roses you can see at eye level from the the deck and a hedge maze to entertain dinner guests! All in one!"

Yep, I'll sit on the deck with a frosty drink in hand, my feet up, gazing at the eye-level roses and croon:

Oh give me a hoooooome, where the buffalo rooooooam
Where the ...um... UNMENTIONABLE ANIMALS, and the antelope play
Where seldom is hearrrrrrd, a discouraging worrrrrrd
And the skys are not cloudy all day.

Home, home on the range
Where the UNMENTIONABLE ANIMALS never dare play
Or I'll spit in their eyes, to their beastly surprise
Right before they get grilled and filleted.

Septre 'd Isle and Fair Bianca in, Pat Austin out

2006-02-28T20:12:00.000-08:00

This afternoon we planted three more roses. It would have been four but we had an "Information Exchange" over the placement of the fourth rose. It was unanimously decided by the Chief Benefactor of the Rose Support Team that we did not want to slice through the cable TV line. Nor did the Chief Benefactor of the Rose Support Team want to dig another 10 foot trench to reroute the phone cable a second time. Also, I could not properly portray my vision of a half-arch leaning toward the mailbox with a miniature porch swing hanging under it and glorious copper blooms hanging over it and some small flowers surrounding it. Therefore, Pat Austin got demoted and put back in the bucket of mud water in the garage.

We did get one rose in by the mailbox though, the second Septre 'd Isle. I figure having another Septre 'd Isle near the front of the property will give some kind of continuity to my color scheme. Since I did not buy the roses specifically for their color, a color scheme has been quite tricky to pull off. Adding more excitement, I've been told by the Rose Support Team that the phone cable is still buried perilously close to the new rose roots behind the mailbox. I did not witness this. Fortunately, I could not find anywhere in Roses for Dummies that you can't plant a rose near a phone cable.

Sweet.

Today's other two roses were both Fair Bianca, which we successfully planted by the front walk. I read that these white roses look splendid against a dark house so they should work well with our barn-red house. I've always disliked barn-red on a non-barn so eventually we'll paint the house some dusky blue hue. By then, all the roses will be well-rooted and the color scheme will look even better.

My mom called tonight to check out my gardening progress. She wanted to know what my roses were going to climb. I still have no idea. My husband said he would build a pergola. Based on his past performance, he should have started the pergola about the same time I learned to walk. So we're still undecided and the last high climbers are going to have to wait.

Climbers, Raised Beds and Pots

2006-02-27T17:46:00.000-08:00

We don't argue. We have "Questions" and "Discussions". We have "Information Exchanges". We have "Opinion Shuffles". And it went like this:

The First Question: "Just how many climbers DID you buy? Why did you buy so many climbers?"
The First Information Exchange: "I'm not sure how many are climbers. Some have to go in pots."
The First Opinion Barely Disguised as a Second Question: "And WHAT are they supposed to climb?"
Note the emphasis on the WHAT.

I read that you should plan out your gardening on paper. So I did. I drew up a little sketch of our property and printed up mini pics of the roses I bought. I drew symbols on each photo so it would be easy to plan where to plant it. A zigzag up the side means it's a climber. A zigzag along the bottom means a hedge. A bigger zigzag means a taller hedge. A circle means the rose can be grown in a pot.

I completely guessed at which roses can be grown in pots though because David Austin's website doesn't list which roses are good for pots. I found out you can get roses for short hedges, medium hedges and tall hedges. You can buy roses specifically to grow completely over pergolas, unsightly sheds, old junked vehicles and relatives. There are climbers, bedding and shrubs. It's a rather ominous sign that David Austin's website does not specifically list any roses suitable for pots. Very ominous indeed. So I figured the smallest plants can handle a pot, right?

We're playing musical rose bushes here. Now that I have the roses, I'm having second thoughts about the pot-ability of some of them. We keep tearing the paper roses off the plan and gluing them down in other spots. At least we're not planting them and then changing our minds and having to dig them up again. Our property would soon look like the home of a whole herd of giant moles. They'd just keep shuffling around the yard, unable to make up their minds where to dig, leaving massive piles of dirt and pits. I'm running out of time, the remaining 9 roses are still languishing in water in the garage and the music is about to stop.

The Second Question: "Where are the raised beds supposed to go?"
The First Stalling Barely Disguised as an Information Exchange: "Well, first we have to figure out which roses go in pots and what the climbers are going to climb. Then we buy the pots n' climbing stuff. Then we put the raised beds under the location of the climbing stuff."

I should have bought Roses for Dummies BEFORE I bought the roses. Years ago. Before we bought the house. Somewhere around the time I learned to walk. As soon as I bought Roses for Dummies, I turned past all the chapters on the history of roses, rose identification, choosing roses etc and went straight to the chapters on climbers, raised beds and pots.

Alas, in buying the roses first, I have created serious Gardening Angst. My nice little Rose Adventure blog should be subtitled "The Angst of a Frantic Gardener." Yup.

Well, we finally got our phone back.

2006-02-26T10:46:00.000-08:00

How to Prune Phone Calls.
Getting too many phone calls? Here's a great solution.
1. Decide to plant rose bushes near your driveway. There are usually underground cables nearby.
2. Get a nice sharp shovel.
3. Drive that shovel in deep to make a pit for a rose bush.
Chances are good that you'll slice through a cable or two. What excitement! What a perfect solution! Our phone didn't ring for a day!

That space up by the mailbox, perfect for putting the climbing Pat Austin rose, was also perfect for an underground phone cable. So our shovel sliced that phone cable clean through, all neat and tidy. Fortunately, our 20 yo son was a gem at splicing the cable. He had to dig up more of the phone cable to reroute it to get enough slack for the splicing. Which means my chosen spot for the rose bush is no longer chosen.

So now the climbing Pat Austin is going to have to lean way over in order to reach the mailbox 4 feet away. My husband says the mail lady will not want to reach through a mass of thorns to deliver our mail each day anyway. Hmmph. I think she should be happy to reach through those luscious copper blooms. I guess I'll have to make some kind of mini arch in order for the roses to reach the mailbox. And under the arch will be some other flower that doesn't need a pit deep enough to hit the phone cable.

Ok, I'm picturing a half-arch to the mailbox looking extremely funky. Which means the mail lady might not even notice those luscious copper blooms because of the weird rose half-arch. Hmm, the space under the arch would be perfect for a miniature porch swing. If you're going funky, might as well go all out.

On another positive note, we got the roses covered with mulch before the freezing weather hit. The temp on Friday night was supposed to be 32, the temp Saturday night was supposed to be 22. We covered the plants so you can't see any of the canes. I'm not sure it ever got to freezing. But tonight it's supposed to be 25. I guess we'll have to wait on planting the remaining roses a couple days more.

We still haven't figured out where to put the raised bed in the back yard. There is one tree in the middle of the back yard and all the rest of the yard is just barren clay with clumpy grass & weeds here and there. This is going to take some in depth thought and careful planning. Much like the planning that went into slicing the phone cable. Yeah.

First Planting

2006-02-21T18:46:00.000-08:00

Ok, I found out that manure by black cows is no different than manure by any other color cows. Black cow manure is actually Black KOW brand. duh. That stuff sure looks rich. We dumped 3 bags of Black Kow composted manure, 3 bags of Top Soil, and a 3.5 cf bag of Peat Moss into a mound. Then the three boys and I stirred and stirred. We attempted our own version of a STOMP routine. 4 people, 3 rakes and a hoe. Slap, pull, slap, pull, stomp two steps to your right; slap, pull, slap, pull, stomp two steps to your right; repeat. Round and round the pile we went and mixed longer than was necessary. I don't think the neighbors have heard of Stomp so our extraordinary show was wasted. Too bad. If we were working on a hardwood floor, I'm sure we'd hear a real beat with a couple rake-collision clangs thrown in.

The first three roses went out front. I'm wondering if we put them too close to the road now. Oh well. I had no idea there was such a thing as "road easement". I mean really, who owns my mailbox which sits right next to the road? Who owns the little circle of flowers around my mailbox? Who is going to own the two rose bushes I plant right behind my mailbox? And when the roses climb up my mailbox, inching ever closer to the road, who will own the blooms? Very perturbing. Hmmph.

So we planted them anyway. I found out that the Queen of Denmark is "once flowering". The boys asked "Forever? You mean is just flowers once and then that's it for a hundred years?" Nope, it comes back once a year. Rats. Oh well, once is better than nothing. I also found out that I like the Queen of Sweden that I didn't get way better than the Queen of Denmark that I did get. Too late now, the queen is buried. And she's flanked by repeat bloomers James Galway and Septre'd Isle. I put the shorter Septre'd Isle in front of the other two. Hopefully, no one will notice that by July, 33% of the roses in that corner of the yard ran out of steam and only have leaves left. James Galway and Septre'd Isle will just have to put forth more effort to make up for the absent Queen.

We also planted three climbers. Zepherine Drouhin went on the northwest corner of the house, because the catalog says this one does well on a north wall. So now I'm wondering if the North Wall of a house in England gets the same, um, ambience as a north wall in North Carolina.

Blush Noisette was planted on the southwest corner of the deck. I hope it gets enough sun there. We'll have to put some kind of trellis up for the two roses to climb.

And lastly, New Dawn went in at the foot of the deck stairs. I'm really excited about New Dawn. I'll train it to climb the deck stair rail. I'm also optimistic that it's close enough to the deck that I can actually spit on those despicable deer from the deck if they dare get too close.

It was dark by the time we got to New Dawn. So my husband whipped out his handy dandy TWO MILLION MEGA WATT spotlight. I was jarred out of my peaceful, primal experience shoveling dirt when that blinding beam hit my shovel. I'm sure even the ants two feet under got disoriented. "What time of day is it?" squeaks one ant. "I'm not sure," says another. "Just go to the light, head toward the light," they intone.

Six in the ground, nine more to go.

Mountain O' Bags

2006-02-20T17:01:00.000-08:00

That's what's in the backyard. Husband arrived home from work this evening with his pickup full and asked "Where do you want them all?" I had to decide where I wanted 10 50-lb bags of Composted Black Cow Manure, 10 40-lb bags of Top Soil and 4 3.8 cubic feet bags of Peat Moss. I had not considered where to mix the mass so we piled all the bags in the middle of the back yard. I suppose we'll mix the stuff together and cart it around the property to dump in all the rose pits we dug. Any remaining stuff can just stay put in the middle of the back yard and I'll call that my "raised bed".

I was worried about my roses today, wondering if they had turned into a slimey, limp mass in their mud soup. But no, they looked just great. And a couple have these teeny green bud-looking things along their stems. I was SO relieved that they weren't dead! Tomorrow I'll take a couple pics of the rose pits outside. I need to remember what this place looks like now so I'll enjoy the roses all the more in the future.

I don't know how we're going to mix the giant mountain of soil, peat moss and manure. Too bad Kitchen Aid doesn't make giant mixers. Yeah, I can see it now. My five sons and husband would be beside themselves with glee over such a monstrous, motorized contraption. "Bring 'er on back a couple more feet" I would yell to the flatbed truck backing the Soil Mixer Master toward my little mountain. "Ok, lower her down!" a son would yell to the crane operator. And then finally, the magic words "Let 'er rip!" Where upon the giant mixer, looking like a mutant egg beater/oil rig would begin to churn its way through my little mountain. Ah yes, I can dream.

Better get more gloves so we won't get blisters using the pitch forks tomorrow.

Gravel and Cascadia Petunias

2006-02-18T18:44:00.000-08:00

Because of the inclement weather, all we got done today was shoveling about five inches of 5/7 stone in the bottom of each rose bush pit. I decided to make raised beds for 3 of the roses in the backyard because the drainage is so poor. But we already had one hole dug in the middle of the backyard so we threw gravel in it anyway. By the time I build a raised bed over that hole, the rose will be able to sink its roots 4 feet deep if it wants.

The other day I put a lot of Springhill Gardens plants in my shopping cart. There were about 150 flowers, shrubs and greens in all. Then I thought I better call my mom and ask if Springhill is a good company before I submitted my order.

"Dear, dear," she said without even telling me whether Springhill was a good company or not. "Where are you going to put all those plants?" she asked.
I told her my plan. "I'm putting them along the back of the property as a distraction to the deer so they'll leave my roses alone."

After my mom finished laughing hysterically, she said "Why not just buy lettuce? It's a LOT cheaper!"
"Oh! I never thought of that," I said, whereupon she laughed some more.
"J, I hate to tell you this and you're such a sweetheart but the deer will just munch all the lettuce one night and go for your roses the next night."

Hmmph.

I ended up ordering from Springhill afterall. My mom says Springhill is the only company she can find that sells Cascadia Petunias. I'm planning on making some boxes for my deck rail like my mom's. Those gorgeous petunias look like a white waterfall spilling over the railing. Truly remarkable. I also got some miniature roses to go in the boxes with the Cascadia. I'm not sure miniature roses are the best thing but it's too late now. I vaguely recall reading that roses don't like sharing root space with other plants. They better NOT argue.

Cold weather

2006-02-18T06:57:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is Saturday and I planned on buying all the mulch, peat moss and top soil today because we have the truck and manpower available. But the weather is not cooperating. And the weather is supposed to get worse before it gets better over the next couple days.

The roses are still in cold water in the garage. I have two choices. To keep the roses in cold water or to plant them. If I keep them in cold water, I won't be able to plant until the icy weather passes on Tuesday or Wednesday. If I plant them now, I'll worry if they survive the possible ice. sigh. Do all gardeners stress like this over their plantings?

They've arrived!

2006-02-15T21:59:00.000-08:00

It's too late tonight to give the whole background. I am NOT a gardener. The most I've ever done is a little weeding around perhaps 8 impatiens that I planted. So I'll just quote my expert gardener mom from a phone call a couple weeks ago... "15!!!!!!!! You ordered 15 rose bushes? Oh J, you should call and cancel some of them! You have a LOT of work ahead. You have NO idea what you just did."

Well, they're here. Resting in the dark, cool garage. 5 are covered with water in a cooler and the other 10 are in a big garbage can, their green, prickly canes barely peeking above the muddy water. I barely know what I'm doing. Um, actually, I'm fairly certain that I don't know what I'm doing. But I am hoping and dreaming of festoons of roses, bouquets of roses, glorious cascades of roses around my deck. The scent will fill the house. The scent will fill the yard and maybe even the neighbor's yard. Um, and probably attract deer, which I already hate with a passion and I haven't even seen one this spring yet.

Today we finished digging 7 big holes, each 2 feet across and 18 inches deep. Tomorrow we dig 4 more holes, buy manure, mulch and soil and gravel. This weekend we build the raised beds and install the trellis around the deck and build a pergola. Yep, I can tell I'm in for a wild ride this year. First I have to find out what a pergola is.