Daylilies blooming; pansies pretty much toast

This makes the daylilies' start time official too: end of May/start of June (first bloom observed yesterday this year). 'Chicago Petticoats' is the only one blooming right now, but others have scapes. All are pretty short even after a full year in the ground, which is nice to my mind because they make a tidy low plant. If I could just remember how long the foliage stays pretty, I might consider popping some daylilies between the crape myrtles in front.

Foliage on the jonquils is starting to die, about the same time as last year.

The pansies in flowerpots out front are miraculously still blooming, which means I have verifiable bloom time from at least December through May (and I planted them pretty late in winter, probably could have started them in September). But, they are looking extremely rough -- very dry, much dead foliage.

A neglect-fueled drought has hit my roses particularly hard. Even the relatively robust climbers now exhibit powdery mildew. Having found a reliable source for copper soap fungicide I'm going to step up to once-a-week spraying and get the watering system in the ground pronto. Last year's notes indicate that they looked awful in late May though 'Brigadoon' down there in the shade looked better (which is exactly the case right now); and then a week or so later they were resurging and Brigadoon looked worse. Will be interesting to see.

Larry has a big crop of lemons that are larger than last year, still green, and not dropping off the boughs. We are pleased.

Our two crape myrtles on the north side of the front (Droopy and Mickey) are consistently wilted -- we have stepped up to watering them every other day or so. Watering system might help there but not necessarily as the two near the driveway (Gunter and Greta) do not need such frequent water.

We have been observing other crape myrtles already in bloom around the area so we think that if we don't kill 'em, we might have an artificially long blooming season there as well.

Crapes planted April 25

On Tuesday we finally planted our crapes! Four 5-foot "Lipan" crape myrtles, purchased for $20 each in 3-gal containers, a pretty good bargain given their height. We were prepared for them to look pretty small next to the house -- their eventual height should be a maximum of 15 feet and they are supposed to bloom from mid-July through mid-September, though we've seen a couple crapes in our area already tricked into blooming right now by the warm weather. We're supposed to water them once a week for the next few months to help them get established and plan to run a hose behind them for minisprinklers.

First roses: April 1

Two years makes it official: The end of March brings the first roses. Double Delight actually began blooming Saturday (April 1) and here is the little florist bouquet I was just able to go out and cut! (They are Double Delight, McCartney Rose, Pristine. Scents are, respectively, fruity, perfumey and faint tea; colors are pretty accurate except the Pristine does not appear at all yellow -- pure clear white with a pink blush. The substance of its petals is also noteworthy.)

Apricot Nectar and Don Juan are also open, and the rest all have buds except for the new Moonstone. Conditions have been rainy and warm (for March, not for summer). There is an onset of bugs for which I will spray tomorrow, but the first roses are all perfectly formed.

Last weekend I planted two new evacuees from the Home Depot: Sonia and Kordes Perfecta. Neither is too happy right now from the transplanting -- new growth has wilted.

EVERYONE needs substantial water and more care as the weather heats up and the bugs get really settled in.

The volunteer rose is a single spike -- but it's 2 1/2 feet tall and stretching every day!

Soap sprays

The following recipes and recommendations are from the Natural Gardener:

Baking Soda Fungicide

(Use for Black Spot or White Powdery Mildew)

4 Level teaspoons or 1 1/3 tablespoons of Baking Soda
1 teaspoon of Mild Soap (Dawn, Ivory, should be biodegradable
with no phosphates)
1 gallon of Water

Soap Spray

(This and homemade pepper mix recommended for psyllids, aphids, spider
mites - exposed, thrips, mealybugs, whiteflies, chinch bugs.)

2-4 tsp (Ivory or PalmGreen)
1 gallon water
Pressure sprayer

Lemon tree blooming

This is Larry Snicket, our lemon tree. I got him for my birthday in 2004. He started blooming at almost exactly this time last year too.

He's grown quite a bit: this is him today ...

Larry; narcissus done, roses budding

...and this is how he looked exactly a year ago (March 12, 2005).

In other news today the narcissus seem to be spent (though I spent ten minutes watching a monarch butterfly flap all over them, sticking his mouth tube in every single flower), but there are buds on the Apricot Nectar and Pristine roses. All roses, bulbs, irises and daylilies got fertilizer today and the roses along the fence got Rose Defense spray also.

I had to scare a baby lizard off the Fragrant Cloud rose first, though! He was quite tiny but had a fat belly. I felt bad that he might still be somewhere in the vicinity so I stamped my foot a couple times and only sprayed lightly. Hope I didn't get the little guy sick.

Narcissus in full bloom; volunteer rose

Got back in town yesterday to find 3 blooms on "Texas Star" and about 40 on "Grand Primo." The GP is shorter this year but flowering well. Need to fertilize it regularly before it goes dormant.

Where the High Hopes had sat in its grower's pot for a year (until last week when I finally planted it), suddenly yesterday there is a six-inch rose sprig! Odds are it is something like Dr. Huey, since it's coming up from the root stock.

If it is Dr. Huey, I may be in trouble, since that is a climber that gets 12 feet tall. I could do worse than a vigorous old red rambler, though, I guess!

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.

Hard freeze; 19 degrees tonight

Last night there was some precipitation, so we had a little coating of ice; tonight the wet has burned off and it's just cold, cold. Brought in the lemon tree and my little bowl of violets (already covered with ice, but the ice vanished over the course of an evening -- sublimated? absorbed right into the leaves? there was no water on the counter!). Haven't checked on the roses. Hoping the brave little violets make it; actually, they look fine.

Ruellia rampant

Not sure what happened while we were gone, but our ruellia has lost its mind: All six plants are just covered with purple flowers. I gave them a soaking-in before we left, but supposedly it was hot and dry in our absence. Either it's just the right time of year for them, or they dig neglect. Which is one thing I can shower upon them in abundance.

Spuria iris, lemon verbena planted

Yesterday planted six spuria iris along the back of the big bed; supposed to reach 5 ft high -- and not supposed to bloom the first year, so since they are said to bloom Sept-Oct. I think (hope) I have only a year to wait. The instructions say fertilize 'em heavily, stop watering if they go dormant, and they love alkaline clay soil. So bless 'em, they should be happy here.

The varieties are: Protege, Hasarya, Art and Soul, Olinda, Megagold and In Depth.

Also today -- in the hundred-degree heat -- we planted two tiny sprigs of 'Tuscan Blue' rosemary and two good-sized starter lemon verbenas, as a souvenir of the Italy trip. Jason loved the herbal tea we were served at the guest house in Tuscany; our hostess showed him the plant and told us it was called 'lippia,' but struggled to come up with its English equivalent. A little Internet searching after we got home revealed it:

Also purchased yesterday 3 bags of corn gluten. Since we can see weeds going to seed in the yard it's clearly time (also the sign outside theGreat Outdoors said it's 'Corn Gluten Time'!) This will be our first year giving it a try and I don't know if we'll need all three bags.

Schoolhouse lilies bloomed; 106 degrees

It is 106 degrees outside right now and even the sparrows coming to the birdfeeder are panting. Literally; they land on the patio table with their beaks open and stand there, breasts heaving, for a few minutes. I filled up my fountain with fresh water hoping they could cool off there.

The oxblood lilies or schoolhouse lilies were just starting to show a green sprout or two Sept. 12 when we left for Italy; yesterday I walked outside to find they had already come up, bloomed and wilted in a fortnight! Here's hoping they throw up a couple more bloom stalks before going dormant. I'd like to see what the flowers look like!

Rain equals roses

It's been pouring rain for what seems like weeks, and the rosebushes are responding. I had given up on this mid-season, actually, on the logic that our long hot growing season is actually broken up by a dormant season in the middle. But all the July rain brought out blooms on Brigadoon, Mr Lincoln, Double Delight, Belinda's Dream, High Hopes, Don Juan and, here, Tropicana. For future reference I will say the flower really is this rich color, maybe a shade warmer, and even lovelier form.

Elsewhere the daylilies are quiet but still green, the oregano is blooming, the lemon tree has put up new suckers and the ruellia many new blossoms also in response to the rain, and there is no sign of life as yet in the area of the oxblood lilies. The greenery from the jonquils has long vanished, though there is something that looks like ophiopogon poking its heads up in that area.

I guess I expect the oxblood lilies to start putting up leaves soon, since it's called schoolhouse lily as well for its autumn start.

Not to be too confident about it, the entire row of rosebushes has made it through the first part of the really hot season and right now looks fairly healthy, except for ailing Tiffany. No bugs, strong new growth, etc. If they put down good root growth they may yet all make it.

Powdery mildew

After a little reading today, I learn that spraying seaweed on my roses' mildew may have just spread it -- or at least, a better tack is fungicide, which I applied today.

I also learned that powdery mildew was first recorded in 300 B.C. by Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle who founded the science of botany and was occasionally so literal he was thuddingly dull, a trait I have some sympathy for.

Given the intervening 2300 years of study and treatment, you'd think I should've been able to diagnose and treat the disease a little better, but nooooo, I have to go reinventing the wheel. But the cool thing, as Jay and I were saying, is that 2300 years ago, somebody walked out to his garden and had the same problem I'm having.

Roses recovering

White fungus has set in on a few branches, but the astonishing news is that the row of rosebushes that looked like a poster on "How to Identify Black Spot" has suddenly, in the past couple weeks, put out a few fresh green leaves and -- I was shocked -- real live roses. Jay had to call me out to the side yard to look at them: They're actually blooming!

"Double Delight" is the flashiest, three or four blossoms, and more of a blended bright pink than the juicy red-and-white in the catalogs so far, but its scent (though strong) is not a pure rose scent to my nose.

"Fragrant Cloud" is the best surprise -- a really rich dark coral and a really strong true rose scent. I don't know about these notes of "tangerines and oranges" that J&P rabbits on about, it smells like pure tea rose to me, which is a joy. Beautifully shaped blooms as well.

Rock-solid "Belinda's Dream" is hanging in there, "McCartney Rose" put up a feebly-colored straggler, and even the doomed "Tiffany" that I bought a replacement for is making a bid for recovery... though I should probably go ahead and move it to the hospital anyway.

Sad to say "Brigadoon," which had been doing well in the relative shade, now looks worse than the others! I will keep up the regular watering (like a coward, I've been lurking inside the fence and watering with the remote timer, not daring to go observe the suffering in person) and perhaps they could all do with some seaweed for encouragement as well.

For now, though: They're not dead yet!!

Jonquils are toast

I sincerely hope they're dormant. The thriving stand of "Grand Primo" narcissus that bloomed from January 4 through March 5 has gone from yellowed stalks to completely, flat, dead. Deader'n a stump. Please, you little plants that bloom like fireworks and are supposed to like my scalding alkaline clay, please come back next spring and make me glad again!

Daylilies blooming

'Scarlet Orbit,' 'Chicago Petticoats' and 'Pandora's Box' have begun to bloom (observed first on Mom's birthday).

'Pandora' is a little earlier than billed, and should be followed by 'Little Maggie' and 'Marcia Fay,' then 'Pardon Me' and 'Rosella Sheridan.'

I did them a disservice by planting them under the baby oak tree and not next to the minisprinklers, but then it's so hard to get a hole dug in this nasty soil that the expedient thing to do was just plop them in the spots where the previous homeowners' plants had been! Getting them planted quickly was a good thing, at least.

First rose!

Apricot Nectar 3.27.05

'Apricot Nectar' comes up with the first blossom of the year. Aphid problems beginning, but let's enjoy the moment.