Garden 03-05

Garden notebook:

It all started in 03 when most of this large maple tree was felled by straightline winds or a small tornado.  Suddenly I had a bit of full sun in the yard.  Here Scott and our wonderful neighbor, Mike, are sawing up what’s left.

I had Patrick K come over and dig out the bushes in the photo below, thinking I would plant something pretty that would benefit from the full sun.  Bonica, from an end-of-season sale at Lowe’s, was the first rose I planted there in the fall of ’03.

This is another picture from before Patrick dug out the bushes.  I think the hydrangea came from Olene. 

9/15/03: Bought 3 Johnson’s blue geraniums from Rolling Hills for $1.50 each! I’m thinking they’ll look pretty planted at the feet of pink roses. I planted two at the north end of the garden–north of the two hydrangeas. Where there will be a climbing pink rose someday (possibly a zephirine drouhin, and one in the back patio rose bed. (Out front of SDLM.)  *Note from ’09 — They are actually a little too lax and sprawling in their growth habits.

9/15/03: Ordered 3 roses from Chamblee’s: Souvenir de la Malmaison, Heritage, and Ballerina. The first two are for the back patio rose area and Ballerina will probably go against the back fence somewhere. Souvenir de la Malmaison (sdlm) is supposed to be a wonderful old rose. I’m looking very forward to seeing for myself what all the “hype” is about.

9/17/03: There is one bud on Gertrude. But the foliage is healthy and she’s grown like crazy since I bought her in mid-June.

9/17/03: Bonica has bloomed steadily since I bought her in late June. She’s had some blackspot. I had stopped spraying for it about a month ago since they were both doing ok. I sprayed them both today.

10/23/03: Bonica is about 50% defoliated from blackspot. Blooms are tapering off.

10/9/03: Souvenir de la Malmaison is planted by the back porch steps. It’s about a foot tall now but is supposed to be a climber. I’m not entirely sure this spot is big enough for a climber but we’ll see. Gertrude’s bud bloomed and is wonderfully fragrant.  *’09 note:  The climber became massive but bloomed stingily.  I took out the climbing specimen and put in a non-climber.

10/13/03 We went to S&W Greenhouse in White House TN this past weekend and loaded up on clearance sale roses–$5 each. We got:

The Squire–David Austin rose–deep red. This plant has lots of black spot and powdery mildew. It is already 3 feet tall, and has quite a few buds and one great big fragrant deep red bloom. Hopefully winter will kill off the disease and next spring I can take care of it better than the greenhouse did. I wasn’t really planning on getting red roses, but the David Austin roses have a lot of cachet and I couldn’t pass it up at only $5.

Supposed to get about 4 feet tall, 4 feet wide.

10/23/03–now that it’s in the ground over by the north fence, the red is wonderfully eye-catching. What was I thinking to not want some red roses?    *’09 note:  This is a great rose.  Ugly bush, beautiful roses, blooms well.  Get’s 5′ tall and beyond.  Did I mention the bush form is ugly.  The worst.  Still, it pumps out blooms throughout the summer.

Winchester Cathedral–David Austin white. Also a pretty sick looking plant, about 2.5 feet tall. No buds or blooms. But I decided to take a chance on it since it is a rose I was planning to buy sometime. Scott suggested white roses.

Supposed to get to about 5 x 5. We ended up planting it next to The Squire against the north fence.  *09 note:  It gets about 4 to 4.5 feet.  It is not my favorite rose but it does what it does – small white, myrrh-fragranced blooms – heavy in the spring, pops out occasional blooms the rest of the summer.

Penelope–a hybrid musk rose that will be peachy-buff colored — or white — and is reputed to do well in partial shade. It already has huge arching canes–4 feet long and is extremely healthy and vigorous looking. It may do some climbing. We planted it up against the back fence.  *09 note:  canes that touch the ground have rooted and formed new plants.  I pruned it back rather heavily this year.

“1924–Massive clusters of large, pale pink, semi-double flowers fading to peaches and cream adorn this chunky shrub during the growing seasons. Fat, orange-pink hips weigh down the bush in fall and winter. This rose is an excellent choice for hedging as the bush is dense with beautiful foliage and fragrant flowers and will mature quickly.”

Lavaglut–deep dark red floribunda that literally glows as if back-lit. (Lavaglow is it’s other name). The plant is currently covered with blooms–small but such an incredible shade of red–and the bush looks incredibly healthy. I should have bought more. The more I look at it the more I love it. I just wasn’t planning on getting ANY red roses. I had been thinking everything was going to be sort of pinks and blues and whites and purples. I guess I’ll keep it in a big pot on the back porch until I decide what to do with it. This photo does not capture the velvety black-red color, or the glowing effect. Every day I go out and admire it.  *09  The plant has been in a pot all this time and has diminished in bloom year by year.  Should go in the ground this year.

China Doll–this one was a last minute impulse purchase. Cute little pink rose, also plenty healthy looking. I will buy a pot for it and put it on the back porch.  *09 This has been a fabulous little rose, cheery and trouble-free.

10-18-03–All roses are now in the ground. Today Scott dug wonderful holes for the last two, Penelope and Heritage.

10-23-03–Bought 5 May Night Salvias on sale for $1.00 each at Lowe’s along with 7 white Asiatic lilies for $2.00 each.

November 2–Another warm day. John’s 20th birthday today! Grandma Barbra always sends gifts to everybody, and sent me bulbs for my garden! I planted the crocus bulbs amid the grass to the left and right of the bed around the maple tree, 5 daffodil bulbs around The Squire, 5 tulip bulbs in the backyard circle bed, and 5 daffodils and 5 tulips in the front yard circle bed. And the white hyacinths I planted along the edge of the patio rose bed and also the edge of the gate bed. I’ll be thinking on where to put the anemones.

I am having an allergic reaction to something–came in with a big welt on my right forearm yesterday after doing some weeding and putting out some mulch, and two welts on my left forearm today. This was also the summer I had my first poison ivy episode…now I’m wondering if it was poison ivy–which I have not seen in the yard, or some other mysterious thing causing all these reactions.

The Squire has about 8 beautiful blooms on him. Lavaglow is winding down.

GARDEN 04

4/2/04: sprayed roundup on the nuisancy things growing around the edges of the yard and on some of the “horse grass” clumps. So far ( 24 hours later ) it hasn’t done anything. Grr.

4/3/04: 2 buds on Souvenir de la Malmaison! First of the season! Hip, hip, hooray!!! I also cut the dead wood out of the mock orange bush. Now it looks like someone loves and cares for it! The New Wave lilies are just poking out of the ground. All the roses are doing just fine, except for the China Doll. It just looks bad, I don’t know what’s the matter with it. The rose currently having the most trouble with aphids is Penelope. Every day I go and hand pick them off of her, but I’m sure I miss many.

First mowing of the year…I bet the yard is going to look terrific after Dan’s finished.

Tulips…I have about six ready to bloom out by the street! And 3 are in bloom in the back yard. A pink/white one in the tree bed, and two orange ones in the circle bed. (The orange ones look nice with the dark violet pansies.) The ones out by the street are a very dark pink. Not red. The lone tulip that bloomed in the tree-circle bed is pink/white. Very pretty.

Grass: you can tell the fertilizing I did made a difference because you can tell the areas that I missed!

Fringed bleeding hearts…all 4 are up. The largest has some flowers.

4/5/04: Buds on Penelope!!! Also there’s been a great big huge basal break on her, which I was briefly afraid was RRD, but was reassured by reading stuff on the Garden Web, that this is actually a much-to-be-desired situation of healthy new canes coming from the base of the plant.

Lavaglut has some funny-looking leaves…dark splotches on them that don’t look like blackspot. I gave a little more fertilizer to the roses in pots, mainly to see if China Doll just needs a boost.

4/6/04: sprayed all except Ballerina with Neem Oil. (Saw some blackspot developing on Penelope, the one I thought was bulletproof.)

4/8/04: received Eden Climber and The Herbalist from Park. I bought them on sale, combined total with shipping was around $20. I soaked them in the tub…(big mess)…and then when Scott got home from work he dug a beautiful hole for The Herbalist. Tomorrow I have to knuckle down and find a wonderful location for Eden.

I scratched in some bone meal around the New Wave lilies. Amber is going around and eating it up.

4/14/04: The Eden Climber went in the ground today after spending 6 days soaking. Yesterday we had SNOW. Today was sunny and springlike if just a tad on the cool side. I also planted the 3 more “Siberian larkspur” (butterfly delphinium) over in the north rose bed and also put the lavendar there.

China Doll is looking a little healthier and has some buds. Gertrude is currently having the most trouble with aphids, along with Penelope. They also have the most buds of all the roses.

4/15/04: Fertilized front yard with Bayer Advanced. Finally saw 2 buds on the Squire! There are over 25 buds on Gertrude.

4/17/04: bought a flat of impatiens (8 6 packs) for $10 at the MSU horticulture club sale. Very healthy little things. That amount was just perfect for the front porch flower bed.

Noticed a few buds on Heritage!

4/21/04: All the roses now have buds. Gertrude now has 40-50 buds, Winchester Cathedral has at least 25 (and it’s just a spindly little thing, still recovering from being the disease ridden little runt of the litter it was when I bought it). Penelope is loaded with buds and also has a bunch of basal shoots growing tall…waist high already. Ballerina has also sent up a bunch of basal shoots whose business in life is to aim for the sky. Well-they have a ways to go, but considering this was one of those tiny own-root babies from Chamblees, it’s doing great.

The salvias have gotten big and bloomy–what success! Hope they hang in there for the roses they are supposed to contrast with!

The new Eden bareroot has some tiny shoots of leaves coming out the bud eyes. The Herbalist, however…I can’t even see any bud eyes. And the Zephirine bareroot…boy, is it taking it’s time…

The ferns along the back fence have put out a couple of little shoots. I hope they come back bigger than last year but so far they don’t inspire a lot of confidence.

The southernmost azalea is blooming beautifully…the other two look like they may or may not bloom…they’re thinking it over. They did put on some new growth a few days after I fertilized them. I guess they liked that! The rhododendron I bought for $5 on clearance last year looks like it might bloom.

[And it bloomed beautifully. I learned you have to deadhead right away to get flowers the next year, so I did.]

Oh! The hydrangeas are showing lots of things that look like the beginnings of their mopheads. Currently look like tiny broccoli sprigs. The little sprig of hydrangea Olene gave me last year is now about 18″ x 18″ and looks like it will have some flowers this year! The tinier sprig of red hydrangea has grown also. [Never flowered though.]

I divided the New Wave lilies, which I hope was a smart move. Where I planted each one last fall, there were at least 5 or 6 plants this spring! So I thought dividing them might encourage them to do that again next spring! They could take over the world at that rate.

In front, the only disappointment is that the cherry bells in the circle bed (can’t think of the real name) haven’t given a single sign of coming back. They were sort of weird looking but kind of interesting. There are one or two iris flower stalks coming up…and the tulips by the road are still blooming, a beautiful dark pink. A couple of the tiny azaleas in front are bravely blooming. They have not gotten any bigger in the 3-5 years we’ve had them.

There are seven nice hostas in the impatiens bed…all plain green. The two-colored ones that Scott likes didn’t come back.

That’s it for now…

4/29/04–Hurray!! Souvenir de la Malmaison’s first beautiful bloom of the year! Two more are waiting in the wings.

Penelope’s first buds opened today as well.

Planted some grass seed along the ditch a couple days ago. I did not cover it up so I don’t know how well it will come up. I suspect the birds go after it at this time of the year.

End of July Pictures:

8/15/04–Bought 5 more roses from S & W Greenhouse: The Prince, Falstaff, Tamora, Gruss An Aachen, and Souvenir de la Malmaison–bush form. I just got in from planting it at the feet of the climbing Souvenir. I think The Prince is going to go in that same bed. Falstaff…I’m thinking of putting over beside the Squire.

Also this summer I bought Clementina Carbonieri from Ashdown
Roses in South Carolina. I am worried it may be virused. Yellow/green leaves have me concerned. The blooms are pretty but they do fry in the heat. I decided to keep her in a pot on the back porch so I can move her to the shade when she has blooms. *09  didn’t bloom well, didn’t survive more than a season or two.  Had pretty but very small blooms.

I bought a Zepherine Drouhin at Rolling Hills nursery. It stayed dormant forever, but has grown like crazy since then. It is waiting to be planted by the back gate. We’ll have to build or put in some kind of arch for it, possibly. How pretty that will look!  *09  This plant took a long time to get established, probably because I moved it.  Last summer was it’s first summer to really bloom–but it was wonderful when it did bloom, and with a great fragrance.

When the Herbalist blooms, it’s absolutely delightful–possibly my favorite. It has only had about 4 blooms all summer though. Hopefully it is just getting off to a slow start. It is in very high-value real estate so it is going to have to do better than that if it wants to stay where it is!

Heritage has had no disease and has grown to be over 5′ tall. It has at least one or two blooms all the time. And they smell terrific. I really love this rose. It just had a mini-flush of about 10 blooms.

The Squire is now about 4′ tall and quite stately. It, too, has never been without at least one beautiful bloom all summer. But it currently has 20 buds on it. Hopefully that’s not the fall flush, but just a happy rose. :-)

Winchester Cathedral’s spring flush made me a believer in white roses but since then it’s been less than enchanting. It gets a pretty bloom now and then. Currently nothing.

Garden notebook:

2-25-05 Planted 6 tulip bulbs since it was a nice day and since I found a bag of bulbs I forgot to plant last fall. 2 of them are in the area where the paperwhites come up (but never bloom) and 4 are planted among the ditch lilies along the back fence. I should plant more back there. The lilies are only about 4 inches tall now and as they come up, they’ll hide the spent tulip leaves.

2-26-05 Replanted Lavaglut, clementina and francis which had all become very tilted in their pots. (Thank you Scott!!)

3-5-05 Started a batch of alfalfa tea–filled brown trash can half full of water, put in 5 scoops (about 4 cups each scoop) of alfalfa cubes and 2 cups of epsom salts). Next weekend it should be ready to put on the roses.

I also used 25% bleach solution to clean the mildew off the siding around the back patio. Yay! It worked!

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3-19-05

Daffodils around the tree in back are looking wonderful this year. They are also in bloom at the street and one clump is blooming of the three clumps amongs the trees in front. It’s been a GREAT year for daffodils. They seem like the perfect antidote to cold gray early spring weather. God knew what he was doing in making these bright yellow early bloomers.

We bought a new Pat Austin rose from Rolling Hills. It looks lovely and I put it right where the poor little nubbin of a Pat Austin was. (Eaten down by rabbits after I planted it last fall, I suppose.) I took that Pat Austin and put it in a pot. We also bought herbs at Beans to Blossoms: 2 kinds of thyme, a rosemary and an oregano. I really want basil but their basal plants were too little to take home. I’ll let them incubate them and I’ll buy them when they look less like something I could easily kill.

Scott put in three more stepping stones for me. I put compost around the roses by the chain link fence and have more compost for the other roses. Oh, also on Thursday I scattered tall fescue grass seed all over the back yard. I’m going to get some more.

3-25-05

Finally a sunny day. I put compost around the rest of the roses and all over the daffodil bed around the maple tree. Put out about a third cup of milorganite on all the roses including those in pots. I poured alfalfa tea on the hosta beds in the front yard and on the area where irises grow. I poured some on various grassy spots just for good measure.

None of the grass seed has germinated so far. It has been a cold and rainy week.

4-5-05

planted 5 or 6 gladioli among the ditch lilies by the gate (orange “Peter Pears”) and 5 or 6 between Bonica and Belinda’s Dream (pink “video”). In a couple of weeks I’ll plant a new batch. Yesterday I divided some of the hostas and gave the roses another spraying of Mancozeb. Unfortunately Francis and China Doll have a few blackspotty leaves already, so I figure I had better get on top of it.

Francis has a bunch of buds. Winchester Cathedral has some buds. China Doll has a few. SDLM has one tiny one. I can see a couple of tiny buds also on The Squire. This is all very exciting!

The first wave of daffodils are all tired and shriveled looking but the second wave are at their peak. I really like them. I need to divide the batch that is by the Holbrook fence. We need to get a similar stand of them started on the other side of the yard for balance. Three pink & white striped tulips bloomed in the daffodil bed, some dark pink tulips are blooming up by the road. They are beautiful but they are a lot of hassle compared to the daffodils that just go and go and go.

The New Wave lilies are poking foliage out of the ground now, and also I think I see three fringed bleeding hearts. There are 5 tufts of May Night salvia–4 in the patio rose bed and 1 over by the Gruss an Aachen bush. I *think* the foxgloves might be coming back (they never bloomed last year) and I think the Johnson’s blue geraniums are coming up. Over in the fern bed there are 5 clumps of ferns, 1 old-fashioned bleeding heart, something I don’t recognize that has a pretty blue flower like forget-me-not. It’s exciting to see these things come up. Oh–the heirloom pansies I bought from Beans to Blossoms–that never rebloomed–did not die over the winter and I just fertilized them in an effort to see if they would bloom.

4.08.05

Received my new hybrid tea rose “Oklahoma”, a gift from Barbra in honor of Dad. I don’t know where it will go but it will do all right in a pot on the back porch for now.

4.09.05

Mulched the rose bed, divided a couple more babies off the hydrangea. Put one to the north of Penelope and one between the two ugly bushes against the house. Those New Wave lilies–still coming up. 23 and counting. This is from an initial group of 7 or so. The Zepherine Drouhin rose that I put in last year which never had a single bloom has buds this year.

The grass is in miserable shape however. I didn’t use the crabgrass preventer because I wanted to sow grass seed. Very little came up. There is very little grass that is not actually weed. *Sigh*

Today it’s humid and about 80.

Blackspot: on Lavaglut, Francis, and China Doll. Everything else is clean as a whistle. For now.

4-20-05

16 buds on SDLM bush form. Some buds on SDLM climbing. 25 buds on Francis, which still has blackspot even though I’ve been spraying the be-jeezus out of it. One bud has shucked it’s guard leaves and might bloom tomorrow or the next day–hurray!! One bud on China Doll–the same. Pat Austin buds are also showing a beautiful color.

Belinda’s Dream is about a foot high and has two little buds on it. Some day she’ll be a big girl! Bonica is nice and full, not too many buds at this point. The Herbalist is amazingly grown since last year, about three feet high and spreading 4 feet wide and loaded with buds. No disease so far. The Prince has one cane that has 3 or 4 big buds on it, and one cane that’s doing nothing but some leaves.

The May Night salvia over by the Gruss An Aachen bush has bloomed! Gruss An Aachen itself is well-budded out and has not even a hint of bs. It does however look as though some kind of insect has been at it.

The Heritage bush is well over 5 feet now, beautifully leafy, well-budded out, no sign of disease, and probably on her way to a beautiful summer of blooming. The Squire is simply stately in his form. Likewise over 5 feet, closer to 6, lots of buds, and just–stately. Winchester Cathedral is like the rambunctious puppy-teen of the bunch, spreading everywhichway, leaning one long branchy section out over Pat Austin. Over 150 buds. About 4.5 tall at least. Gertrude is budding out well considering she was pruned severely and moved. Penelope is budding out all over and has no hint of blackspot–which was her besetting problem last spring. Ballerina looks gracefully arched over the hostas at her feet, but I can’t tell if she has set any buds or not. Falstaff better watch himself: no buds at all, and this is his reputation.

I don’t see any floweret bunches on the hydrangeas yet. Some of the gladiolas I planted beside Bonica are up, it’s probably time for me to plant the next wave. The geraniums are up, the foxgloves are back, little 3 to 4″ whorls. The lily of the valleys I planted last year did come up! And now there are 5 instead of 3. The old-fashioned bleeding heart in the fern bed is a beautiful plant–more open and graceful than the fringed bleeding heart–and I need more!! Hopefully I can divide it at some point.

Lavaglut is full and gloriously well leafed out. I see no sign of the virus I had suspected last year. But then I don’t see it in Gertrude either at this point.

The daffodils are finished now and the tulips are fading. The ones out by the road bloomed nicely for 3 weeks maybe? One lonely tulip came up in amongst the ditch lilies at the back of the yard. I bought two Knockout roses from Chamblees to flank the driveway out by the road. I also have an Abraham Darby and a Molineux coming! Oh my, oh my!!! And that is that. No more room for roses!!!

Two Nicky phlox plants (or two clumps of phlox plants–they may have multiplied over the winter) are coming up next to the zephirine drouhin rose. They may not get enough sun there, but so far they are growing well, taller every day!

Sprayed everything with mancozeb, immunox and vinegar yesterday (4/19) Not having much luck against the blackspot on Francis, who isn’t that leafy to start with…

4-21-05

Ta-da!!! First blooms of the year–Francis wins the race! Looks like Pat Austin will come in second in the race. And they are wonderfully, wonderfully fragrant. Better than I remember.

4-22–5

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Pat!! I only wish I could post the fragrance. It went from opened bud to bloom in a few hours.

May 11:

Francis has two more buds but all the rest of her flowers have blown. If she is like last year it won’t be long before she has more.

Gertrude has begun to bloom. Squire has begun to bloom. Beautiful Eden has begun to bloom. Here’s Eden:

Just today Gruss An Aachen opened one of its many buds. Lavaglut began to bloom this week also. His blooms are magnificent. Really indescribably special, that lit-from-within look in an amazing shade of luminous vivid dark red.

Meanwhile Zeffy has been blooming her head off for about a week or so. Winchester Cathedral is in full bloom. The Herbalist is a showstopper at the moment. Incredible. Climbing SDLM began to bloom this week. The bush form is also opening her beautiful blooms. And the Prince finally opened his 4 little blooms. But what gorgeous blooms they are. Ballerina and Bonica and Heritage are loaded with buds but not blooming yet.

We planted Oklahoma and the two Knockouts on Saturday before Mothers Day. Now I just have to find spots for Abe Darby and Molineux.

Azaleas and Rhodies…The second of three azaleas in the backyard finally bloomed this week. The Rhododendron put out leaves instead of flowers. I don’t know why.

August 5, 2005

Here’s a beauty from today – Clementina Carbonieri:

Today I received 4 new roses as a gift from Scott for my birthday. We had a wonderful trip down to S&W with Youngest. We read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix all the way down and back. Had dinner at a nice Italian place in Hendersonville.

My new roses are Oklahoma, Mr. Lincoln, Liebeszauber and Granada. I think they are going to go in the ground near the current Oklahoma but I’m a little dubious as to whether the spot really gets enough sun.