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!
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