Roses on the Patio - Spring 2024 Tour
Hoang Ton - Zone 9a
15 days ago
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Hoang Ton - Zone 9a
15 days agoRelated Discussions
Spring explodes, and so do the roses
Comments (19)There is not much for me to take pictures of in my garden for what we do to save as much water as we can. I can tell you that before creating several of the beds I ran the black corrugated perf pipe to put rain water back in to the beds from the downspouts. I don't even have gutters a couple of places, but my pipe is ready when I get there! We use gray water on one of the Austin beds, but there is also fresh water from the drip system too. The other Austin bed is over a leech field and also has drip. The patio cheap 12 x12 pavers are all spaced so rain can flow between them and are leveled so that should rain run off it goes in to our planters and not off the property (Golden Celebration seems rather happy with this system so far) Today I finished with the last section of the main garden that was on old soaker hoses converting to drip. This should save a bit of water. Looking at the garden today, you would think water was no issue by all the green happy plants, but that will not last long. I am still amazed at just how well all that horse manure did in soaking up the rain we had a month ago. It is still wet and the soil under it is good and damp full of worms. It has a fairly thick coat of wood chips on top of it so that has helped too. Only thing that looks bad is the lawn, but we only watered it once or twice last month and have not repaired what the sunks tore up. The other thing I did a season ago was was to create levels (terraces) using the "cheap" smaller sized stacking block so water does not just run down the hillside but gets trapped and directed toward the next level. The bottom of the lot is where I harvested a lot of the soil used up top, in a massive downpour it should look more like a swamp but will reach a point it will drain off away from the neighbors houses and on to the other neighbors lawn/drain toward the street. In the last rain the bottom and the layers of compost etc soaked everything up and it nothing seemed to run off at all. I heard a couple of the neighbors on the other side of the hill had some issues with run off (our properties are on the same street but different sides of the hill), so we are pretty happy so far....See MoreLessons from the 2023 garden - dreaming of 2024
Comments (23)For the longest time, I pretty much operated a gardening free-for-all...which was insanely labour extensive, frequently on the verge of chaos, shunned by family and friends. I made absolutely no concession to age, agility, maintenance demands, space, climate....and as I especially enjoy raising my own plants from seed, you do tend to end up with quite a lot Unsurprisingly, it all got a bit out of hand. I would have had to think quite hard to come up with lessons I had learned (none). Anyway, after a season of falling over more than usual (tripping over tangling vines and dodgy edging boards), as well as being lashed by vicious thorny briars, I bought a sort of mini-chainsaw pruner and set about editing. I have (mostly) got the roses in hand (discovering parts of the plot I have not stepped for a decade) and grubbed out many of the ancient currants, And decided I was not going to be guilted into anymore manic vegetable growing (I am a reluctant cook), The biggest change though, has been to row back on my habit of growing far too many annual and biennial flowers, especially since I no longer have a raft of gratefully impressed customers and my offspring grow their own: I had to resort to planting the extras in the local cemetery and various public spaces. Pruning: As a terrible meddler, experimental pruning was the basis of much of my novice garden training. There is ALWAYS a load of this when you work as a jobbing gardener and growing large roses and a lot of fruit trees and bushes means the secateurs are always busy. However, the dilemma of pruning still confounds me since one of the very first dictums I learned at hort.school was 'growth follows the knife'...which it certainly does. Initially, chopping back the roses opened the plot up to a lot of light and space but the furious rose plants grew back with a vengeance...and all at exactly the height where they could inflict major damage to eyes. Prior to the great cutback, the most unpleasant surprise usually entailed a painful puncture on the top of my head, from some wayward branch but now it was turning into a bodyline massacre. Had no choice apart from the spade. I took cuttings of many of the removals but I am currently ignoring the numerous buckets of hardwood cuttings, all awaiting planting holes...somewhere. I grubbed out a lot of the fruits with a sigh of relief at no longer needing to spend many,many hours picking and preserving (there are jars of redcurrant and bramble jelly going back years in the larder). I have had the allotment for 20+ years and finally, I decided to attempt to build a garden rather than a random collection of plants...but have had a painful and confusing time deciding what sort of garden I want. Over the years, I have been a helpless dilettante, with shiny new enthusiasms every single season. I have grown (and killed) an unconscionable number of plants...and the plot still looked a mess. However, I have set a few ground rules and am replanting the old vegetable beds with plants which will need no irrigation (quite an ask, living in the dryest part of the UK). More important (to me) is an honest attempt to rediscover some sort of genius loci - a spririt of place, or a set of plants which are perfectly at home in the flat, open fenlands, growing in harmony with the resident fauna and weeds and wildflowers. It is still in it's early stage - I planted up 3 new beds this year - but I have a sort of guiding principle and am learning that restrictions and obstacles are more helpful than negative, making this undisciplined gardener make measured choices instead of random whims. This seems like a potentially more fruitful route to building a coherent, aesthetic and sustainable garden. Plus, the perennials I have been tenderly growing can finally be planted in spaces which have been prepared, considered and planned (and not the random plonking which characterised my garden (ahem) 'style'. Onwards and upwards. And on another topic altogether, I have been watching a series on BBC about American gardens. Sadly,it is helmed by the odious Monty Don and an unfortunate eurocentric (English, really) direction...while Don manages to be both obsequious to the great and good and hugely condescending to gardeners with less social and financial capital. But if you can get IPlayer, do check the series out. And grit your teeth (although Don seems bizarrely popular in the US). 'Monty Don's American Gardens'...just the title alone is enraging, but if I didn't let it put me off, I am sure you will manage to find something to enjoy....See MoreHow many new roses for Season 2024?
Comments (97)I ordered Geschwinds Orden from RVR because I thought it would stay small … I soon realized my error. HMF says 13’ minimum. I contacted RVR, and they are substituting La Marne. Polyanthas I can deal with. My only other order this year will be from Burlington. Lady Kidwell and Clotilde Soupert. She sent me a CS last year, but I let it drown in our El Niño. Trying again....See MoreJanuary 2024 - Happy New Year
Comments (47)Kim, you are ahead of me, but you may be q 100 miles south of me also, so spring may hit you a little sooner. 32 tubs are a lot of tubs to fill, and of course you know how heavy they can get. Some of my tubs have onions in them, and the last time I checked they were doing well, but they are not bulbing onions. I have been using my perennial a lot, try to get Madge use to using them. I even used some winter onions, jalapenos and sweet potatoes in kraut and weiners at lunch, it sounds sickening, but it was good. I did not put the sweet potato slices in till everything else was about done. The sweet potatoes were still crunchy. I used the Red Wine Velvet sweet potatoes, which are pretty sweet. Madge is very kind to me, I like to experiment with everything I do. I have been out raking leaves to put on the garden, I wish they were shredded so they would stay in place better....See MoreHoang Ton - Zone 9a
14 days agomissmary - 6b/Central Maryland
14 days agoArtist-FKA-Novice Zone 7B GA
13 days agoHoang Ton - Zone 9a
13 days agoHoang Ton - Zone 9a
13 days agorosecanadian
13 days agoelenazone6
13 days agorosecanadian
12 days ago
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