Climbing roses

Planted 3 climbing roses, Eden pink), Red Eden and White Eden. These are Cottage Farms ordered from QVC,Item #M23673. They looked good out of the box so I planted them against the wooden portion of the fence, pink, white and red from east to west. The other roses on the east side were fertilized and I'll finish the rest tomorrow or next week.

Seeds

I haven't done much with seeds in the garden. The only attempt a few years ago resulted in the seeds being scattered across the garden due to wind and rain. The tall purple flowers still pop up when the warm weather comes but they are not in the back of the garden where I intended.

Today I planted trailing lobelia in hopes of hanging this planter later. I am also trying to grow purple coneflower which I will transplant around the garden if they come up in pots. I also tried a few of the coneflower seeds in the garden near the Veteran's Honor rose. The garden is one big experiment.

I was considering digging up the two Meyer dwarf lemon trees after speaking with the guy at the garden store. When I went out last week to cut off all the branches prior to digging it up I could see that one of the trees had blossoms. So we got the spray to get rid of the miner that's been plaguing these and we'll see how they do after today's treatment. Need to fertilize them too.

English Primrose

Yesterday I cleaned up the border along the patio and planted red, white and blue English Primroses. This is my first try with primroses but they were inexpensive at $1.29 at HD so I bought 8. The day before I had purchased tiny Tete-a-Tete daffodils in bloom from Armstrong. I placed these among the primroses and elsewhere in the garden. Other bulbs are beginning to peek from the ground which sure helps when the roses are pruned back and leafless.

I was frustrated with Armstrong. After attending their rose pruning class a year ago I went back to replenish the recommended mix to use on my pruned roses. I have the SolPoMag but needed to replace the Alfalfa Meal and Iron--they were out of iron and couldn't tell me when they will get more in. I tried two other stores with no luck. Is there a shortage?

Winter care

This morning I began pruning the roses. I did perhaps half in the backyard roses will finish all of them in the next two weekends. Also time to do some other garden work for winter. The weather is beautiful this weekend and should be through next weekend as well.

Spotted a big grasshopper but couldn't get at it to eliminate it. I read that poisons won't kill them so I have to use a shovel. Icky but they'll eat everything.

Potting Bench

The weather was beautiful over Thanksgiving weekend so I sanded and painted the potting bench. I want to protect it from the heat and sun and a little rain this winter. It's good to get that project out of the way.

There are still a few roses in bloom but the garden is becoming a bit ragged this late in the year. I always like pruning the roses to give the garden a new start.

Wind storm

We had a bad wind storm yesterday. In the early morning Mr. W and I went out to rescue our 3 iceberg rose trees before one of the trunks snapped. We cut off most of the branches to eliminate the sail effect and used velcro tape to rewrapp the trunks to the stakes. We saw that the Double Delight rose tree was not being blown around even though it is in the center of the garden and not protected by a wall. It has a metal stake instead of wood so Mr. W went out and bought metal stakes for the other rose trees.

After the storm the garden looks OK, no real damage is evident.

Last rose

Today I planted a Disneyland rose. Mr. W and I were at a home improvement store to purchase mulch and I saw a pretty deep pink rose with touches of yellow deep in the petals. When I saw the name I couldn't resist. It really ought to be the last rose added to the garden unless something else dies.