Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Tending to the Pot Ghetto

The dangerous heat that we are experiencing this week will make it necessary to do any outdoor work early in the morning.  Fortunately, I am a morning person ... I don't mind getting out and getting busy early.

For the past two mornings, I have been tending to my potted roses.  There are about 200 roses in pots, all waiting patiently to have a permanent place in the garden.  Each rose in its turn is getting a spruce up ... I'm pulling weeds, refreshing potting mix, trimming any dead branches, touching up the labels, etc.  What a difference!

Before:



After:



Much better!

(In response to a comment, I am editing this post to add:  Most potting mixes are made of almost all organic materials, like peat or sphagnum or bark.  Organics break down over time, sometimes losing half a pot's volume, and plants sink down and settle.  This is what happened in many of my potted roses.  To raise the roses back up to the original level, I tipped each rose out of the pot, added a few handfuls of potting mix to the bottom of the pot, replaced the rose and top-dressed with more potting mix.)

8 comments:

  1. Don't forget water for the birds!

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  2. Oh my gosh ... that was a lot of pruning!!!

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  3. That looks like a lot of work! How do you refresh potting mix?

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  4. So much work! This heat has me staying inside!

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  5. You are SUCH a good Mom-potting those roses the right way..AND in this heat! xo Diana

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  6. It looks much better - ghetto or not!!

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  7. Isn't this heat wave something else, Connie? Yowza! And we're not even halfway through it! Luckily we got a nice rain last night which helped our thirsty plants. Early morning chores are the only way to go! :) Keep cool, my friend!

    xoxo laurie

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