Mini roses, violas, rosemary and fertilizer

Today I redid all our flowerpots on the front and back porches. Amazingly, the garish pinwheel-looking impatiens on the front porch survived for two years, through drought and freezes, until a month or so ago when we had what must have been one freeze too many.

Delicate "Sorbet" violas went into every pot -- the Natural Gardener had an incredibly lovely color for sale this year and I just bought half a flat of it, never mind trying to mix and match colors. There isn't any color of "Sorbet" violas I don't love, but this one is a cream shade with a very delicate feathery thin edge of lavender-blue. I think it must be the one called "Coconut Swirl." Anyway, I just slathered it into every pot; the nursery also was selling some particularly nice "Parade" miniature roses -- perfect hybrid tea form in a pale blush ("Breeze Parade"?) and also a creamy white with a tiny pink tinge to the edges ("Bianca Parade"?), so I mixed those in with a few rosemary sprigs. I'm pretty sure the rosemary won't enjoy the same conditions as the violas and roses, but it's a very tough little plant so we'll see. I'm tired of not having any rosemary to nibble on and cook with, so I will take what I can get.

Then I fertilized all the narcissus and iris. Both the spuria iris I planted and the mystery iris I inherited have come up strong this year, but not a bud scape among them -- I'm hoping the "Buds and Blooms" (aka magical rabbit poo) will fix that. The new Narcissus "Grand Primo" are huge, but only managed a couple of flowers as of yet; the new ones are even larger than the established "Grand Primos." The "Thalia" narcissus came up a little smaller, and the early Louisiana jonquils are just spindly little things ... but with buds! They've never bloomed for me before, so I'm very excited.

New climbing rose planted; plus, disaster recovery!

Today I plunked down a replacement for Olly, the mystery red rose that had established itself so strongly on the side of our house (we called him Olly because his huge branches looked like tentacles)... he was doing beautifully till I got ahold of him. Injudicious overpruning on my part, at the wrong time of year, to boot, did Olly in. So with sadness, today I cut down his old tentacles and put in a New Dawn climbing rose -- this one sold by the A&M EarthKind people, so it's been raised in Texas weather, transplanted when dormant in a biodegradable pot. EarthKind also means it's chosen to do well without excessive spraying and feeding. I have high hopes for him (not to be confused with my High Hopes climber in the backyard, still alive despite drought and freezes).

About those droughts and freezes... so as I was recovering from surgery early last year, my sweet husband dug me a rose bed in the front yard. We happily ordered roses... and then just before they arrived he had a cycling accident, and broke his collarbone. Since I still couldn't bend down very well, we just kept the bareroot roses in buckets and pushed it as long as we could... naturally when we did get them planted, they were weak, and didn't last long.

Ah well, we said, and ordered a new batch. Then we had one of the worst droughts Texas has had... we ran a watering system to their roots but not in time... and those died.

Ah well, we said, and ordered a new batch. These were planted right away, with the drip watering system working beautifully, and started producing prize-winner blossoms even as they were still getting rooted in their new home.

And then AT&T dug up the bed. Rose bodies flew everywhere as the workers made a big chasm to whichever wires they needed to reach. The workers did their best to move the plants aside, and actually did try to stay in touch with us about the work... but my husband was hit by another driver on his way home from work at the end of December, and I spent a week with him in the hospital and then got him moved to a physical rehab where I visited him after work every day.

I didn't even look at the rosebed for weeks. Meanwhile, "Snowpocalypse '09" moved in -- infamous in our region for bringing more frenzied preparation than actual precipitation, but still bashing our new little plants with freezing temperatures as they lay in their temporary spots on either side of the rocky ditch that had been our neat, mulched rosebed.

A dear friend wrapped her towels around our roses... AT&T did their best to put everything back... we only wound up losing three plants, all told. (Out of about 10.) So now things are holding steady; I'm watering and watching as needed; and when we both recover a bit we'll replace the fallen and fill in the hole (despite AT&T's efforts -- which were pretty good -- there is a concavity where the dirt settled in).

Whew!

New rose garden planted!

Well, it's official: All the rosebushes that have been struggling
along the increasingly shaded fence (our bur oaks are getting big),
plus six brand-new ones, have been newly installed in a flowerbed my
genius husband invented at the northeast corner of our yard. The
genius part: It's a corner so sunny that the grass never got a good
grip, meaning it was sparse and weedy -- but the roses will love it.

He put in several weekends' worth of labor digging it out, edging,
weeding and preparing it, then transplanted all our rosebushes. A
batch did not survive, so we ordered more, and now there are a total
of nine or ten teas and floribundas, plus two miniature roses -- all
labeled, with a new watering system tucked at their roots, under a
blanket of fresh, sweet-scented cypress mulch.

It's so beautiful it actually draws us out to spend time in the front
yard. Thinking of how it will be when there are pink, coral, cream,
red and yellow blooms to cut makes me absolutely giddy! (Mister
Lincoln, Aromatherapy, Spellbound, Gemini, Full Sail, New Zealand,
Rainbow Sorbet, Gypsy Carnival, Elegant Lady and two anonymous
grocery store minis.)

Two roses that were doing well on the fence remain in their spots:
Belinda's Dream and the McCartney Rose were doing so well we did not
want to dig them up. Luckily they are at either end of the fence and
sort of bookend it in pink blossoms.

Narcissus poking up their little green noses

With Jason's help again, took another sunny garden stroll today. The plants in pots on the deck have taken a beating with all the dry cold (although the Mexican oregano continues to appear unkillable and Larry the Lemon is, as Jason phrased it, thanking us for bringing him in on the really cold nights by covering himself with buds and blooms -- even without the benefit of Rabbit Hill Farm's Buds & Blooms, aka magical rabbit poo.

The new Thalia and Grand Primo have almost all sprouted, as have the new Louisiana jonquils -- though the latter have unhealthy brown tips on their sprouts that worry me. The established Grand Primo appear at least a couple of weeks ahead of the new ones, two to four inches tall! (Or else I planted them two to four inches shallower :)

Bella'roma and, particularly, Sonia have lots of clean new growth, and the climbing roses look spindly but half leafed out. Didn't visit the outside roses today, so don't know about them. And Jason reports the potted impatiens on the front porch are droopy, but alive.

Neglect, the best fertilizer

With Jason's help I just took an actual walk in my sunny garden (I'm recovering from back surgery, it's 75 degrees and sunny outside and it's Christmas Eve). All seems in better shape than when I was tending it! This despite freezes, neglect, etc. The new Sternbergia lutea seem to have taken hold -- lots of foliage -- and the two roses in the backyard bed (Sonia and Bella'roma) look healthier than they have in months. 'Course it is winter so they're not boiling hot, plus they get more sun since the bur oaks have dropped their leaves. But mostly, I'm sure, they're just glad I haven't been out there messing with them!

Plus, Larry the Lemon Tree has two lovely yellow fruit and a crop of new flowers. Feliz Navidad!

Planted Sternbergia lutea

I need to get out there and mark the spot, but I popped six "fall crocus" into the ground on Sunday. More bulbs coming -- and it's been so long that I forgot what I ordered! So it's a little like Christmas. I think I got more Grand Primo. I remember putting a lot of thought into this back in the spring, but I've slept since then.

Simple composter

Just saw an HGTV show that described an extremely simple composter that could fit in the back corner of our yard. He described a 3x3 wire cube that you just set on the ground and fill with layers "like a lasagna."

Twigs on the bottom provide for some air circulation
Brown and green leaves, clippings, etc. provides leaf mold, carbon and nitrogen
A shake of blood meal accelerates decomposition
Water it till all is about like a damp sponge.

Also he showed these biodegradable bags, which I found online in Gardener's Supply Co.'s beguilingly named "Compost Accessories" section, into which you can put all your green/planty kitchen bits (but no fatty foods or meats) and just toss the whole bag into the composter. A little online digging reveals there's no need for the expensive ceramic crock unless you want its carbon filter to control the smell. Just toss the bags more often, is what I say.

Schoolhouse lilies run riot

Yesterday Jason and I noticed the schoolhouse lilies have gone insane.

Their bloom time is short, but this is the biggest flush of color we have seen from them yet. The abuse heaped on their heads is manifold: It's been a punishingly dry summer, and I never replanted them from last year's very WET summer, when the soggy ground dried so fast it actually heaved the bulbs partway out of the ground.

So the bulbs are partly exposed, never watered and in crummy alkaline clay soil. What are they doing? Multiplying like weeds!

We not only have more blooms than ever this year, the stand is spreading, and another round of bloom stalks are on the rise, which should double the show.

I love these bulbs! They were worth every penny!

New arrivals: Lantana, sweet olive, rain lily

My mom came to visit recently, and we wandered happily through a lot of local nurseries. I got some interesting additions:

• A lovely lantana, "Olivia" -- pink and gold like the clouds at sunrise.
• A rain lily -- the flower on this one seems immense to me. White with a faint pink sheen. Planted in the bed where its foliage looks exactly like our weeds. Predicting trouble there.
• There was a variety of ruellia with small, oval leaves and a horizontal habit that I'd never seen before, so I got two and stuck them under our cedar elms. If they're as vigorous as our regular ruellia, I think I've solved the baldness problem back there. Possibly they are "creeping ruellia."
• An incredibly healthy torenia is now brightening our big planter on the back patio.
• Mom brought us a big sweet olive shrub -- she got three big $29 plants that were in bad shape and the nursery owner sold them to her for $5, but she hadn't found a place to plant the third one. So we happily glommed on to it, plus I bought a little one because lately I've had trouble finding the big ones. So those two need to find spots someplace.

BUNTING! Buntingbuntingbunting!

I know this is a garden blog, not a bird blog, but it's been in the nineties here for weeks with hardly any rain; our plants are all dead or dormant. By far the most exciting thing to happen in my garden in months is this PAINTED BUNTING! (Photo quality not great - taken through window.)

Below him is Stumpy, our cardinal.





And here is one of our green anoles displaying his throat fan for the ladies.

Magical rabbit poo!

Yesterday I secured another bag of Rabbit Hill Farms' Buds and
Blooms. We've used it on our lemon tree for years, but recently I had
some leftovers I needed to use and sprinkled it on the spuria iris --
now blooming for the first time in three years, though that could be
just because they've finally settled in, too.

Anyway, I doused nearly everybody with it -- crapes, roses, spuria
iris, daylilies, narcissus and oxblood lily foliage. Then watered.
We'll see!

Spuria! Blooms on both Hasarya and Protege

That's Hasarya at the top and Protege below. I realize they look nearly the same! I planted other colors but they have not bloomed yet.

The roses are starting to come out, too. That is, Olly is covered in flowers, High Hopes has probably six or seven, Don Juan and McCartney have one each, and there are buds galore. My plan is to hit everybody with some Buds n' Blooms and see where we get!

It's starting to get a bit warm for the pansies. Or perhaps I mean dry. The hose timer's goofed up and nobody's been getting their regular watering. Probably time to replace the timer and maybe buy some impatiens while I'm at it.

Buds on the spuria iris! Yahooooo!

I'm so excited. It's the first time they've budded. When I planted them in 2005, I noted that they were supposed to get heavy fertilization, but then I never fed them. Each year there's been big strappy healthy growth, but no blooms. And to be honest, I thought they were supposed to bloom in fall -- turns out it's mid-April to mid-May. But about three weeks ago when I planted the new daylilies, I gave everybody a heaping helping of Rabbit Hill Farm's "Buds and Blooms" mix, which we think is absolutely magical fairy dust for our lemon tree.

And lo and behold, there are buds. Some of the markers have gotten knocked down over the years, but one that I am sure of with buds is Protege, a purple-gold mix. The others will be a surprise, but no doubt lovely surprises, as all the ones I planted were mixes or solids of blue, gold and purple.

I had nearly given up on them, and all I needed to do was feed them. Dang! Or maybe it was just time; the growing tips do say, "Do not expect peak performance until the third year." It also says I should fertilize them again after the blooms. Also perhaps in the fall. And they may be too close together, as these notes say they "resent" being transplanted!

Pretty much everybody says they need lots of fertilizer, preferably balanced (or high in phosphorus to encourage bloom), and these folks say to fertilize 'em every 2-3 weeks after danger of frost is past.

Planted crinum 'Bradley'; everything's green

Just now stuck 'Bradley' in the ground, mere moments ago. He's possibly a little too close to the cedar elms, but we'll see what he does. Right now, of course, he only looks like a giant onion with an old, chopped-off six-inch stem coming out the top.

Larry the lemon tree is covered with flowers, the impatiens in the front beds are a blanket of lavender, and all my spuria iris as well as the spurious iris (I inherited at least one mystery iris from the previous homeowners) are huge, green and strappy but show no signs of even considering a flower.

The crape myrtles have all leafed out in the past couple of weeks, as have the cedar elms, Arizona ash (trash) and bur oaks. As for the new daylilies... well, they're not dead yet! And at least one shows new growth. The survivors from last year all look big and fine.

Of note: Absolutely nothing in the main flowerbed is blooming now. The pansies in the pots and the impatiens in the front are blooming their heads off, but I don't have anything colorful going in the perennial bed. A chronological gap to be filled!

New daylilies planted; temperature hits 95

Received from Oakes yesterday (when the temperature hit 95 here...) and planted today: Little Heavenly Angel; Mini Pearl; Little Strawberry Shortcake; Strawberry Candy (a freebie); Elizabeth Salter; Stella in Yellow. These are in addition to the previous year's survivors: Marcia Fay; Pandora's Box; Chicago Petticoats; Scarlet Orbit; Pardon Me.

Should bloom in roughly this order:

(yellow) Stella in Yellow (extra early, rebl)
(red/yellow) Scarlet Orbit (early, rebl)
(white/purple) Pandora's Box (early-mid, rebl)
(pink/red) Strawberry Candy (early-mid, rebl)
(pink/white) Little Heavenly Angel (early-mid, rebl)
(gold/rose) Mini Pearl (early-mid, rebl)
(copper) Little Strawberry Shortcake (mid, rebl)
(red/white) Marcia Fay (early-mid, rebl)
(peach) Chicago Petticoats (early-mid)
(peach) Elizabeth Salter (midseason, rebl)
(maroon/gold) Pardon Me (mid-late, rebl)

Redoing the flower bed

We've hauled out all the weeds and most of the old weed cloth, and pulling up the drip irrigation system revealed a couple of leaks in it; now, with some new sprinkler spikes and the leaks fixed, we're just about ready to plunk down some new plants. Waiting until this week's risk of freeze is past, though.

My plans are to install more roses and daylilies this spring, as well as the tasty herbs and two sweet olives. I think I will also experiment with a crinum and some sternbergia lutea, for blooms in October and green leaves all winter. For fall planting, I see I am already too late to get French Roman hyacinths, but I will certainly try to lay in some drifts of Dutch iris and at least a couple dozen more Grand Primo narcissus, the best little jonquil on the planet (for my garden, at least).

In fact, I might be able to get my GPs by dividing the thick double clump I have now. The Master Gardeners say you're supposed to, to help 'em along. If you do it when the leaves start to yellow (but leave the foliage intact), then that should be right around April or May for my guys.

December roses, impatiens and lemons

There are two bright yellow Meyer lemons on our tree (three, before
we gave one away); there are buds on several of our rosebushes; and
the impatiens are fully blooming, despite a wee bit of frostbite.
The crape myrtles have gone completely dormant in the past two weeks,
but the St. Augustine grass is full and lush. Happy New Year!

Jason has observed that the roses along the fence are probably
competing for water with the St. Augustine (which has formed great
big clumps at their bases, where the mini-sprinklers are).

I've decided that since he is almost certainly right, it's time to
declare that rosebed permanent! I've been resisting putting in a
border and mulch on the theory that if the roses simply don't survive
there, we can pull them out without having damaged the lawn. But they
are surviving, and probably would do even better with the extra
water, so it's time to make their bed!

That is probably the major change we will make in this coming year.
The new grass in the front is beautifully established, so we've
eliminated one major hassle (pruning the shrubs that were there).
The beds, trees and pots are all on a 5-day timer now, so they don't
require even the minimal effort of my remembering to water them. If
I can remember to maintain the birdfeeder, and if we neaten up the
backyard bed.... and maybe build a dog gate and some low-voltage
lanterns to cap the deck railing posts ... then we'll have exceeded
our plans!

Schoolhouse lilies bloomed Sept. 8

At least that's the first time I observed them. And that is despite an astonishingly rainy summer that actually caused the clay soil to heave the bulbs out of the ground, a la frozen soil! I thought they were toast but no, they are blooming.

Holding steady amid the rains; pruned roses

Pruned the sickly roses pretty heavily about a month ago (NOT the approved pruning time!) and was rewarded with a flush of healthy new growth. It's been raining heavily for about a month and everybody's lush... now the heat will set in!

Other crapes in the neighborhood are blooming but not ours yet; Mom speculates those in full sun may be warmer, thus starting earlier.

Daylilies have been blooming for at least a week -- the soft peachy one is blooming its head off and just lovely.

Ruellias are green, not blooming; narcissus greens have just started to go brown.

Two potfuls of impatiens on the front porch, planted about a month ago, have been blooming steadily the whole time; ditto two pots of petunias in a sunny corner of the back deck. Really pretty.

Roses sprayed, fertilized

That's Don on the left, with a couple blooms, and High Hopes on the right, blooming more than ever before. This is their first full year in the ground and I think that's the difference. After five years of waiting to find out what High Hopes' flowers looked like (I moved a lot, and these guys stayed in big growers' pots) I am delighted to report that they are perfectly charming -- long, narrow, photogenic peachy-pink buds, opening up to warm peach flowers with a sweet fragrance -- just lovely.


This is the mystery volunteer rose that came up from the rootstock High Hopes left behind (the big pot sat on this spot for nearly a year and roots went down; when I moved the pot, I severed the top of the roots, but this guy came springing up). He's also thrown up some very tall canes, so that matches the Dr Huey diagnosis -- Dr Huey is a climber. Contrary to my belief, though, it's not used as rootstock because it resists disease. It must just be extra vigorous. The photo would bear this out!

Those are my strapping but nonblooming spuria iris to either side of the Doc.

Sprayed with copper soap yesterday and put fertilizer spikes on the arch roses, Kordes Perfecta and all the weaklings along the fence (i.e. everybody except Belinda and McCartney). Shouldn't need to fertilize again until June 16, at which point it'll be interesting to see if the weak links are catching up.