What's Happening Back in the English Garden?

Last time I showed you the English Garden back by our barn, it was April and I had just finished ridding it of weeds, pruning winter damaged canes from the roses, and putting down landscape fabric and a thick layer of mulch.  As time has passed since then, I have kept up with the few weeds that sprouted (mostly evil Nutsedge, which can use its little needle-like tip to sprout right through landscape fabric) and I am keeping to my twice-monthly schedule of spraying fungicide.  With few weeds and little blackspot, the roses, and the garden in general, look really, really good.

This post is full of links.  Highlighted text will take you to either a Help Me Find page with info and photos of a rose or to one of my former posts.

A few of my smaller roses in this garden were killed by the winter wind and cold temperatures.  These are roses that were already struggling as we went into winter, without the root mass like the larger, stronger roses had to store energy and from which to sprout back in the spring ... I'm not surprised that these didn't survive.  Earlier this week, I sifted through my Pot Ghetto, to find likely candidates to fill the spaces.

This garden was designed to contain my collection of David Austin roses, most of which are fairly rare and not easily available.  I have no Austins left in pots (which is a good thing), so I decided to mix in some Noisettes.  There were seven Noisettes in the Pot Ghetto, and only four dead roses in this garden ... with a little bit of rearranging, I made them all fit.

The roses in the photo above are:
1.  "Frazer's Pink Musk"
2.  "Joyce's Unknown Noisette"
3.  unknown Noisette, faded tag
4.  Yellow Seedling, cut back and transplanted from the Rose Field last week 
5.  'Lilian Austin', existing.
6.  Damson tree, replacing the pomegranate that died over the winter.

I moved 'Abraham Darby' from his former location in front of #2 and #3, above, to a spot across the aisle that was vacated last year when 'Sweet Juliet' failed to survive her transplant from a friend's garden.

Here is a view from the other direction:
1.  "Mine Road Noisette"
2.  'The Squire', existing, which is very prone to blackspot and has never before had leaves like this in July.
3.  another mystery Noisette who lost its tag.
4.  "Hollywood Pink Cluster"
5.  'Wildeve', existing.
6.  unknown Noisette, also shown in the first photo.
7.  "Joyce's Unknown Noisette"
8.  "Frazer's Pink Musk"
9.  "Moulton Noisette"
10.  'Morning Mist' which was the subject of THIS post about the severe damage that occurred in this garden last winter.

I moved 'Pretty Jessica', which was a small rose in a large spot, and planted "Moulton Noisette" there instead.

It was a LONG morning's worth of work, but what a great accomplishment!  Moved two roses, planted seven new ones, and this garden is coming along beautifully.  It looks a bit threadbare right now, since the new roses are so small and most of the existing ones are awkward and weird as they recover from last winter.

Speaking of planting:  Most folks are under the impression that we should only plant roses in the spring ... not so, my friends.  I plant potted roses any time during the year that the soil is workable (meaning not frozen or waterlogged).  As long as you have the time to keep an eye on the new ones and make sure that they are kept watered, go ahead and buy those roses and plant them!  (summer and fall are great for sales, too)

In case you didn't see them, or need a reminder, these posts from April will show you what I did to whip this garden back into shape:
Part One
Part Two
The Finale

This is What I Mean When I Say "Winter Damage"

Throughout the past few weeks, as I post here about the work that I am doing to reclaim my rose gardens from neglect and weeds, I have been referring to the damage that was done to the roses by the unusually cold winter weather that we had here in Virginia (and in a large part of the rest of the country, too, for that matter).  Here is a good example to illustrate "Winter Damage".

Our subject rose is 'Morning Mist', a lovely single shrub rose introduced by David Austin in 1996.  'Morning Mist' is planted in my English Garden and had grown into a lovely rounded shrub, approximately four feet high and three feet wide.

photo of 'Morning Mist' taken in my garden in 2011.

This is what the bush looked like last week, before I did anything to it.  Looks dead, doesn't it?

Almost everything you see in that photo IS dead.  Careful examination, though, revealed that there were new sprouts emerging from the base of the plant.  (This rose is own-root, not grafted, so whatever sprouts from it is the named variety, not an invading rootstock.)

Pruning was a simple matter of removing whatever was dead and leaving the live parts, and being especially careful not to break off the delicate new sprouts.  When I finished, there wasn't a whole lot of the last year's plant left.  (The 'tall' cane is about one foot high.  The others are a few inches long at most.)

The new shoots are strong and are growing well, so I have no doubt that 'Morning Mist' will soon regain its former size.  It should not have to struggle to do this, because it won't have to duke it out with weeds anymore.

Finishing What I Start

My English Garden is finished!  It took days longer than I anticipated, which makes the feeling of satisfaction at its completion so much sweeter.  I started this garden in the fall of 2010, laying it out and planting 36 David Austin roses.  Until now, the garden has never been totally finished ... now it has edging, and no weeds and a good layer of mulch ... finished!

I got out early yesterday morning, to take advantage of what was promising to be a beautiful, sunny, warm day.  The weatherguy's prediction was right on target ... it was gorgeous weather for working outside!

Look at that sky!  (part of my personal preparation for the work day was a thorough application of sunblock ... I sunburn really easily.)

In this photo, you can see that my truck is full of mulch, two cubic yards.  If you're counting, this is load #3 for the property so far this year.)

My process went the same as it did on previous days ... pull weeds, prune roses, lay landscape fabric, spread mulch.  Here are a couple of photos to remind you of where I left off last week:

Weeds, weeds, weeds!

Getting there.

After an long day's work yesterday, here is the After!

The new mulch will blend in with the rest after it's been rained on a time or two.

Most of the roses are so small, because this is all that was left alive on them after our unusually cold winter.

See that bench?  I moved it to this spot from another place on the property.  (Got it years ago, cheap, on Craig's List.)  I designed this garden to have a bench there, so I have a place to sit and enjoy the roses, and this one fits there perfectly.

Two yards of mulch fills the back of my truck.  After finishing the mulching in this garden yesterday afternoon, I had used about two-thirds of this latest load.

I absolutely adore my truck!

Shoveling mulch, pushing the wheelbarrow, bending and lifting and scooping and spreading mulch on the garden beds ... done correctly, this is great exercise.  This morning, my shoulders and upper arms are sore, and my thighs and butt are killing me.  (It's an extra added benefit to be sore in all the spots that need some improvement.)

After I spread the last wheelbarrow full of mulch, and I put my tools away, I took a few minutes to sit and appreciate my accomplishment, then I went off to take care of other things.  This morning, I will be back outside again ... working in the miniature garden that I built last year along the fence behind the greenhouse.  Maybe I can get the rest of the mulch out of my truck before it rains in the afternoon.  Wish me luck.

See you outside!

Foggy Flowers on Friday, and an Invitation

It's raining today.  It also rained yesterday ... and the day before.  It's supposed to rain tomorrow, too.  I'm okay with it, because the roses love the rain (and saturated soil will make for easier weed pulling next week.)

Before the rain started on Wednesday, Ruby and I went for a walk through the garden to see what was blooming.  It was overcast and a bit foggy, and I am really pleased with what this did for my photos.  I hope you like them, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I forgot to mention here that I am having a pot luck Garden Social next Saturday, October 19th, from 2:00 to 5:00.  I am excited to show everyone the improvements in the garden (fewer weeds, more roses, and my new garden along the fence behind the greenhouse.)  If you would like to come, please send me an email so I know ahead of time who's going to be here.  Plan to bring a dish to share, and a rose (or other plant) to trade.  (It's okay if you don't have anything to trade ... there will certainly be enough extra plants so no one goes home empty handed.)

I love a good garden party!!  I hope you can come.

Playing With My New Game Camera -- Day 1

A few months ago, Kathleen at 'House Things I Like' featured a video on her blog of critters in her backyard that she took with a game camera.  I had never heard of such a thing.  (There's no link to Kathleen's blog because she's on a blog break right now ... she's promised me that she will be back, tho.)  With our deer issues, I knew I had to get one of these!  The idea of being able to 'spy' on the activity at the back of our property was irresistable.

I bought the camera on Wednesday afternoon, certain that I would set it up and have it doing its thing right away ... not.  The camera is easy to set up and use, but the SD card I had on hand was incompatible, which meant another trip to the store on Thursday.  Yesterday afternoon, with a new SD card installed, I took the camera out to the Austin Garden and mounted it on the little building there.  The camera has a motion sensor, and it takes photos whenever it senses movement.

Let's see what we got.

It's a good view of the garden ... and the crabgrass.  Don't worry about the crabgrass, I sprayed it with Ornamec the other day and it's already starting to die.  Ornamec is a selective herbicide that only kills grass, not broadleaf weeds, or roses, so I figured I should pull out the Nutsedge and Poke Weed while I was there ... since the ground is damp from the previous day's storm and the weeds are easy to pull.

That's a really nice flower on 'Belle Story'.  I wonder if I can get a decent photo of it with my point-and-shoot?

This flower from 'Sister Elizabeth' sure smells good.

After I walked away and went back to the house, not a single thing moved or was photographed last night.  In a little while, I will trudge back to the barn to put the SD card back into the camera ... and hope for some action out there tonight.  As soon as I capture something interesting, I will let you know.  (Kathleen has also used her camera to 'nanny cam' her dogs in the house while she's away.  I fully intend to do this to see which one of our dogs plays with throw pillows at night.)

In the meantime, here is the photo I took of 'Belle Story'

Happy Friday, Everyone!

Completing My Garden of English Roses

In October, I introduced you to my idea to create a garden of David Austin roses in THIS blog post.  The garden is designed and planted now, and I thought I'd take this chance to bring you up to date on how I did it.

The whole garden measures 40 feet long by 32 feet wide. This fits perfectly in front of the little cinderblock building beside our barn.  The beds on the outside of the garden are 6 feet wide, and the island in the center is 12 x 20. By the end of next year, I hope to have a picket fence installed to enclose this garden.

Now that I had a blank garden on paper, it was time to see how to arrange the roses. I used a compass and drew circles on a piece of card stock. Each circle is in scale with the potential diameter of each of the roses. This way, I could play with the 'roses' like puzzle pieces, and move them around until I had an arrangement that I was pleased with.I started with the center roses in the island bed. Abraham Darby is in the middle, because he is beautiful and has the potential to be 6 or 7 feet tall and dominate that space. Red Coat and Dapple Dawn are also fairly large, and similar in habit, so they went beside Abraham Darby.  The rest of the island bed is filled at the edges with some of the smaller roses in my collection.

Each of the outside corners of this garden hold roses that have the potential to get big and leggy.  Sir Clough and Cressida will grow the usual Austin 'Octopus Canes', and I have given them room to spread out.  Charles Austin is a climber, and The Generous Gardener is a beast, and each of them can flop and stretch along the future fence.

For the most part, the larger roses are toward the back of the beds along the fence, and the shorter roses are beside the path.  I placed small roses on the fence beside Charles Austin and The Generous Gardener to give me a buffer in case these two roses outgrow their allotted space.  There will be an arbor and a bench in the space between Heritage and Pat Austin, to provide a place to sit and admire the garden.

Many of the roses I have collected for this garden are ones that have been discontinued by David Austin Roses.  Some have been superseded by newer varieties, and others have been deemed to be inferior.  I am a rescuer at heart, and I had to give these roses a try for myself to see if they deserve a place here in my garden. 

The beds themselves are edged with 4 x 4 timbers.  We got these timbers for free this summer from a neighbor who was replacing his pasture fencing.  We were thrilled to get them, and he was glad he didn't have to load them up and haul them away.  There are probably enough timbers here to edge every garden I have!

The roses are all planted now.  My friend Robert came over one day in November, bringing with him his trusty Fiskars shovel, and he and I made quick work of the job.  It's great to have a friend who is such a great hole digger!  The Husband went to work mulching the beds shortly afterward.

Things in this garden are all finished now!  When spring comes, and the roses start to grow and bloom, I'll be really excited to see how everything settles in and matures.

Before you start congratulating me on such a job well done, I must confess that I still technically have some David Austin roses that I must find places for.  I have an order for eight coming from California in March, and there are at least three in the greenhouse that have recently rooted and will be ready to plant next spring.  Fortunately, there is space at the top of this plan for a bit of expansion.

The mulch isn't quite finished in this photo, but you get the idea.

For those of you who are interested, here is the list of all the roses that are planted in this garden:

Abraham Darby

Belle Story

Bow Bells

Charles Austin

Comte de Champagne

Cressida

Dapple Dawn

Dove

Emanuel

Glamis Castle

Happy Child

Heritage

Jaquenetta

Lilian Austin

Lovely Child

Mary Rose

Molineux

Morning Mist

Pat Austin

Peach Blossom

Pretty Jessica

Prospero

Queen Nefertiti

Red Coat

Sharifa Asma

Sir Clough

Sister Elizabeth

Symphony

Tamora

The Generous Gardener

The Herbalist

The Knight

The Miller

The Reeve

The Squire

Wildeve

Progress on the Barn Gardens

Our streak of lovely weather is supposed to continue through today, and probably until Sunday!  (If I keep the pace I have planned, I may not live to see Sunday.)  With the Husband's help yesterday afternoon, we laid out and marked the bed and path lines for two of the three gardens by the barn!

This is the David Austin Garden.  Originally, I planned to have an oval path through the middle of the space, but I changed it at the last minute to a rectangle ... much easier to lay out, and I like it better.

Honestly, I was afraid that the original design, with an oval bed in the middle surrounded by an oval path, bisected by the short path you see in this photo, would look like an aerial shot of a toilet.  Close your eyes and imagine sitting under the pergola (where you see that little spot of grass on the lower left)  looking out over a cottage-style garden of English Roses ... aahhhh.

The Miniature Garden, that fills the area adjacent to the side of the barn, is 28' x 66' and is influenced by a French parterre.

The garden has 4' wide beds, 3' wide paths, and is very geometric.

In this photo, the design reminds me a bit of a Crop Circle in the English countryside ... except it's not a circle.

Here is some evidence of my garden's main winter pest.  Deer.  Considering it's been almost a week since we had rain, which would have wiped out any tracks in the tilled area, there really aren't THAT many tracks.

Today's job is to lay the ground cloth to cover the paths of the Miniature Garden.  More reports to come, as progress warrants.

(written by Hartwood Roses.  Hartwood Roses blog.)

Designing a Garden of English Roses

I have 37 David Austin roses I have collected over the past couple of years, currently in pots of varying sizes, that I MUST get planted in the ground before winter.  I have a guy coming later this week (weather permitting) to prep the ground for the garden that will contain these roses.  Unlike other gardens I have designed, I don't have an area of a particular size for this garden ... it can be whatever size it needs to be to hold these roses.  It's like working backwards.

Over the weekend, I pulled some books from my garden library, borrowed a couple from my friend Robert, and began studying and making notes like mad to learn the habits of all of these roses ... some of which I have never seen mature and growing in the ground.  It's been a couple of days of making lists and sketching layouts, and hoping I get it as close to 'right' as I can.

Look at this 'teaser' design in one of the books.  It shows a lovely rendering and supposed design, with plant list, but no clue as to which roses were used where, or any idea about the dimensions of the space.  It's pretty, but it's no help at all.

Stuff like this is much more helpful.  The dimensions of this rose are what can be expected if it is grown in England ... Austin roses usually grow larger in the warmer, sunnier US.  The little line drawing tells me that the canes on The Reeve are longer and arching.

'Heritage' is tall and upright, according to this little drawing.  My own 'Heritage' is trapped in a pot that is much too small for it, and I'm sure it longs for the freedom of unrestricted soil in a garden.

The little line drawings in this growth guide from Vintage Gardens web site adds even more info to help me place the roses properly.  Unlike the drawings in the book, which only show a general idea of growth habit, these drawings also show size ... in relation to a drawing of a very stylishly dressed man and his dog.

'Molineux'

I'm doing all of this to try to site each rose to its best advantage, to have a garden full of the beautiful English roses that I love.

'Mary Rose'

It's important to put the roses that want to climb in the back where I plan to install a fence, large shrubs behind smaller shrubs ... there's so much to remember.

'Happy Child'

The garden is going to be in a prominent location, toward the back of the property, by the barn, in a spot that overlooks the neighbor's pond.   I'm so excited to watch the roses develop through their first year in the ground, and beyond.

'Wife of Bath'

Stay tuned.  As soon as they're finished, I'll share my drawings ... and we'll watch as the garden goes from scribbles on paper to reality in the landscape.