The past week in the garden

The weather this past holiday weekend was glorious (Sunny with highs in the 70s to low 80s) and I did spend some time working in the garden.  Mostly doing additional pruning and weeding.  Here is what is currently blooming:

  • Souvenir de la Malmaison
  • Alister Stella Gray (Noisette)
  • Crepescule (Noisette)
  • The Fairy (polyantha)
  • White Pet (polyantha)
  • Blanc Double de Corbet (hybrid Rugosa)
  • Flower Carpet (shrub)
  • Knockout
  • orange mini from grocery store (Valentines Day 2014)
  • Rosa Mundi (an additional single blossom that I actually cut and put in silica gel before it was fully open.  Hopefully this one will not fall apart when dry)
  • “Not Nur Mahal”  (This is a rose that I bought as ‘Nur Mahal‘ but once it was planted and grew, it because obvious that it has been mislabeled at the nursery because it has white blossoms.
  • Madame Berkeley (Tea)

I managed to prune out some dead canes in the Old Blush and Madame Berkeley and I weeded the bed next to the fence and the iris bed.

I also bought a small wooden trellis at Lowes Home Improvement  to replace the small metal one that I have the 4-way hose splitter attached to.  In years past, I had the splitter attached directly off water meter which is attached to the timer, which is in turn, connected to the faucet.  All that ends up be quite long and pretty heavy, putting a lot of strain on the faucet and the connection to the faucet.  I ended up using a short length of hose between the meter and the manifold (splitter) and that would just be in the ivy next to the house… until someone stepped on it and broke it two years ago (I really don’t think it was me so that leaves the yard guys as the probably culprit.  So last year I use zip-ties to attach the splitter so it was no longer sitting buried deep in the ivy.  However it turns out that the combo of having 5 hoses (1 input, 4 output) connected add even more weight and the small metal trellis is now falling over from the weight.  Once I find the zip ties (should be some in archery stuff), I can move the manifold to the wood trellis

Repotting the new small bushes

One of the other things I did last week was repot the bushes that were shipped in 4″ bands into 1 gallon pots.  Regular potting soil was used (unlike last year when I went with real garden soil/manure mix, which turned out to be too heavy and didn’t drain.) and I also set up so they are in the watering system.  Here are the bushes:

  • Cabbage rose
  • Apothecary Rose
  • Royal Dane
  • Bright Fire

I did not repot the bushes that shipped in 1 gallon pots… but on reflection, I probably do need to move them into bigger pots, 2 gallon maybe 3 gallon  pots; I have to check in I have sufficient potting soil.  I guess I could use the real dirt mixture from last year but I will need to add stuff (inorganic materials like sand or perlite or the like.) to make it lighter and drain better; I would hate to end up with another set of pots where the plants die and the soil is a wet stinking mess.

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