Gardening at night: 'Moonstone' rose planted

Last night, actually. It arrived from Edmunds Roses carefully
wrapped; good-sized canes, slightly different instructions than I've
seen before:

-- No soaking in a bucket
-- After planting, heap soil/mulch entirely over the canes. (I didn't
do this as it would have created a two-foot-wide, one-foot high cone of
soil around the rose... I didn't have that much soil to waste, for
starters)
-- Prune both the canes and roots lightly before planting, with
attention to the nodes. (Haven't heard this before, but it was easy
and made me feel I was doing something right at least)
-- Much emphasis on watering in before completely filling the hole --
drain out the air pockets, then continue filling with soil. Easy
enough.

As always, I could not make the frickin' "cone" of soil work -- how
in the bejeebers are you supposed to do that? If it's not heavy clay
soil, then you can't make a tall skinny cone out of it; and even if it
is heavy clay, the stiff rose roots knock down the cone before I can
get them "settled around it," as it shows in the slightly annoying
little illustration. Argh!

And yes, like a nitwit I was working in total darkness, with a
flashlight strapped to my shoulder. I tell you, nothing makes you feel
like such a miscreant as sneaking out with a shovel to dig something up
in the middle of the night. Well, heck, it was delivered while I was
at work, so my choices were plant in the dark or let the little guy
croak.

Besides, if the neighbors have been paying any attention they know
we're nuts already.

For the record, there was no moon at all last night (tonight it is a
waxing crescent only 1% full). A full moon would have been more
appropriate and more help!

Narcissus blooming; planted rose arch

70 degrees today and I got the rose arch in the ground finally! We found a spot we both agreed on so I was glad to finally dig holes for these roses that have been following me from home to home in huge containers for four years (more than that, really). The Don Juan is on the left and High Hopes on the right; they're against a fence where they should be encouraged to reach upward for the last rays of evening sun, but not boil to death in the midafternoon. Both have some very strong canes and lots of new little leaflets; I planted them with a little Osmocote sprinked in the soil and will wait to bind and prune them till I'm sure they're not suffering from the transplant.

Both "Grand Primo" and Texas Star" have begun to bloom, but not really spectacularly -- the Primo in particular looks a little shorter and weaker than last year. I'll try fertilizing it so it can store up more energy -- Old House Gardens recommends a balanced fertilizer anytime I can think of it, but says in the South I might not want to water them in the summer. So I'll fertilize now till they go dormant.

Violas in the front porch pots have gone bonkers and those on the back porch are starting to bloom again also.

Light freeze. Daffodils returning, pansies exploding

Both the Grand Primo and the Texas Star narcissus have come up for a second year; again, the Star looks spindly and the Primo looks lush and vigorous, but both are about to bloom.

Looks like at least two of the spuria iris and six of the daylilies have made it; I need to begin fertilizing the spuria again as they emerge from dormancy, and probably the same for the daylilies.

Looking around after the recent freezes (moderate one last week, two light ones this weekend), I am glad to see the lemon verbena has squeaked by, the rosemary and roses look great, the schoolhouse lily foliage is undamaged. The ruellia look like hell but they always come back; and the pansies (which I left outside) and violets (which came in) are thriving and blooming their heads off. Probably because they get watered more when I'm worried about them.

I have ordered a Moonstone rose to replace the croaked Tiffany -- nothing against Tiffany and I'd like to find a place for that variety if another opportunity arises. But Moonstone is the kind of rose that is my particular weakness -- a show-quality bloom that is mostly white with a pink edge and looks like a delicate china cup. It's a relatively new variety I had not heard of before and I have high hopes.

Speaking of, Jason and I have found a location to park my rose arch, so the Don Juan and High Hopes from my old condo patio can finally go in the ground. They've held up well, High Hopes particularly, and I look forward to seeing how they do freed from their containers. The bonus of the location is that it will also obscure the view into our yard from the neighbors down the culdesac -- a view that was opened up when we got the trees heavily pruned. Two birds with one stone!

Roses along the fence have put on much new growth in past two weeks. In between the freezes, it's been 70 and sunny, and I've watered them both weekends in advance of the freeze, and they are really responding.