Monday, Apr. 08, 2013 – 2:30 p.m.
2013-04-08 2:30
Well, spring has finally arrived and the forsythia are blooming. This is my usual indicator that it is time to prune back the roses… however, they seem to be pretty leafed out at this point. We had a pretty abrupt transition from winter into spring. Two weeks ago we have near freezing temps and today it is supposed to be in the mid-70s… the forecast calls for low 80’s later this week.
Redo of Jungle Bed
No real progress on this project. The month of march was pretty busy and/or the weather sucked for working in the garden. I still need to talk to landscapers about redoing the bed walls. I did get out and water the various pots of Rosa Mundi. I also stuck two of the larger uprooted sets of canes in the north end of the bed along the fence (more about that below).
Valentines roses
So I did get the two rose bushes I bought for Valentines Day into big pots by the kitchen door, along with the Wedding roses. At this point, the Disneyland looks like it is doing well but the Voodoo only has a few small buds on it and there was some dieback on the canes. I cannot tell yet if there is a problem or if it just getting a late(r) start. I finally put the hose timer on last week but it seemed to run two days in a row so I turned it off. I set it up again this weekend and we will see if it works now. I also put pinebark in the new roses this weekend so the soil should be better protected.
The next tasks for these bushes … Valentine and wedding roses… will be to start the spray program and apply the Bayer All-in-One. Maybe I can get these done this week…. the sooner the better.
I also made a few additional decisions regarding the roses that have resided next to the driveway/kitchen door.
- The sickly Peace rose that I have had in a pot has been shovel pruned (which is really to say that I pulled it out of the pot and put it in the yard trash). It really was sickly… always seemed to have black spot and only put out one or two blooms all last year. [sigh] Sorry to see it go but it really was a black spot magnet and I needed to get rid of the “typhoid mary” of my rose garden.
- I finally put the Blanc Double de Courbert in the ground. it has been in a pot in the herb bed by the kitchen door. It is now in the bed by the fence at approximatedly the same location as the Fragrant Cloud used to me. Mote about that bellow….
- I have decided that the Cherokee Rose that I grew from a cutting collected from the Bradburn house in Ocean Springs, MS after Hurricane Katrina=, will go in the ground in around the north corner of yard. It appears that someone has been climbing over the fence in that section of the yard (the top of the metal fence there is bent over). Well, the Cherokee Rose will fix that! Though it is in the easement for the power company but not in the one for the petrolium pipeline so it should be fine. This way there will be something to compete with the virginia creaper and trumpet vine. It can go up into the neighbor’s trees. I will probably implement this next weekend but first I will need to make sure I have sufficient “armor” to keep from getting nailed by the long prickly canes that the bush currently has. Hmmm… maybe I should borrow someone’s metal SCA armor… I might need it.
- The hybrid Spinosissima that I have grown from the cutting collected at the Raleigh Rose Show two or three years ago seems to be doing ok… thought it is still just one cane. Early on, I think I over watered it so now I just don’t water it (at least not regularly) and it seems to be green and happy, if small. Anyway, I am going to leave it the way it is.
- There are two additional potted roses by the back steps… a Knockout I got during pennsic last year and a Rosa Mundi cutting. We will see how they do…
Work done in the rose garden
So I mentioned planting the Blanc Double de Courbet rugosa in the bed by the fence. I also put three bags of composed chicken manure on this end of the bed and tried to fork it in. Boy did it stink! but it was that manure smell that I figure will dissipate after a couple of days. I dug up the two Rosa Mundi I had put in this bed, then applied the manure, forked it in, replanted the Rosa Mundi, putin the Blanc Double de Courbet, then put the water hoses back. I think I may need to get some more 1/4″ soaker hose (but I should check that box I ordered and haven’t opened isn’t soaker hose).
Speaking of watering hoses, I need to redo the irrigation for the bed with The Fairy bushes in it. Somewhere along the way, the big soaker hose that had been in that been for years got cut by a shovel and I didn’t notice. [sigh] Anyway, thanks to L’s hard work weeding, that bed is pretty clean so I just need to put a new watering hose assembly in then remulch the bed. That bed currently has two The Fairy bushes, Iceberg, White Pet, Perfect Moment, a Rosa Mundi that I transplanted last year, and maybe a Double Delight on own root. I don’t remember the status of that last one.
The bed with the irises has one yellow miniature in the ground plus the Francis Dubreuil and that Flower Carpet that are in pots. Pretty much all the lavender that Muir and I planted 12 years ago has given up the ghost, it looked great for years but it gradually got spindly and died back.
The Souvenir de la Malmaison in the diamond bed in the middle needs to be tied up again. Again other time I will need armor to protect myself while working. There is also at least one The Fairy in this bed (from a cutting). The Jude the Obscure still is there but really does not look that good… I fear it may not last out this year.
The last bed, the one with the noisette bushes, got 6 bags of pinebark mulch (note to self… that’s how much a single bed takes…). Not sure what to do about this bed since it is pretty much completely within the pipeline easement. The Crepescule is looking good but it does really hang out into the path that separates it from the Souvenir de la Malmaison. The other noisette, Alister Stella Gray, is looking pretty hearty and the Francecsa looks to be making a comeback but the rest of the stuff in the bed seems to be struggling. I see no shoots yet from the Tuscany or Tuscany Superb. The Prince and Chaucer are still alive but are sickly. The Cardinal de Richelieu looks to be doing ok but does look like there are some dead canes (though it is hard to tell yet if they are just not budding yet).
Need to put out more mulch but only after I redo some water hoses. the other thing is that the landscape timbers for ALL the beds are really starting to go so I do need to make some progress on replacing them.
Enough for now!