Sunday Snapshot -- DC Big Flea Reflection

As I was reviewing the photos I took at the DC Big Flea yesterday, this one made me laugh out loud.

That's a cardboard cut-out in the reflection in the glass of this corner cupboard that I was photographing, and it makes it look like I was hanging out with Elvira.  Now that I think of it, I WAS wearing a fairly low-cut black sun dress yesterday.

I have lots more photos to come in my next post ... probably tomorrow.

Happy Sunday, Everyone!

Connie

P.S.  Cardboard on the right, me on the left ... in case you couldn't tell.  :)

Comfy Kitties

Adopting two littermate kittens last year is one of the best things we have done in a long, long time.  I swear I can feel my blood pressure go down whenever I sit and watch them.

Today I offer cat photos, as a contribution toward lowering the stress you may have in YOUR lives ... let's see if it works.

Alice

Her favorite spot is this corner of the family room sofa.

Sometimes Alice gets really comfortable, and she forgets that cats are supposed to be dignified.

Dorothy is a little bit more ladylike and proper than her sister.

Okay, maybe not.

Sleepy kitties are a sign that all is right with the world.

There ... don't you feel better?

Alice and Dorothy would like to wish Baby Kitty at

Confessions of a Plate Addict

a very happy 8th Birthday!

DC Big Flea This Weekend!

On Saturday, I'm planning to go to the DC Big Flea at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, Virginia. 

(photos are from January's show)

I think it would be fun to meet up with some blog buddies for the day to get to know each other and hunt some junk.  Is anyone interested in coming along with me?  If you are, leave me a comment here (with contact info, of course) or send me a message (my email is in my profile).

I don't need to add a single thing to this house, because we have too much already, but there is always a treasure for me to find at the DC Big Flea.  Hundreds of dealers with tons of great stuff ... hunting junk in an air conditioned exhibition hall seems like a great way to beat the heat.

If you're the adventurous sort, and you don't mind meeting up with a total stranger, I'd love to have you come along.  Even if you're NOT adventurous, I can provide references that will assure you that I don't bite.

Anyone want to hunt junk with me?

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.)

Sunday Snapshot -- Weekend Randomness

This weekend was all over the place and this post will be, too.

I spent most of the day on Friday with my friend Robert.  We were going to work in my garden, but both of us decided that we would rather have a day away hunting junk and enjoying each other's company.  I don't see Robert as often as I used to, so each day I get to spend with him is something special.

We went to a lovely shop in Gordonsville that carries beautiful concrete statuary.  I fell in love with this four-foot greyhound statue ... and I think it would be perfect to use as the centerpiece of a garden I am planning, but he was already sold.

At another shop, I saw a jelly cupboard that was exactly the same size and style that I'm trying to find for a particular spot in the dining room.  This one, however, had been seriously violated.  Someone had sanded the paint off of it, leaving it rough and splintery.  The dealer must have thought it was primitive and trendy, and the price reflected this ... it was WAY too high.   Too bad, because it was probably really nice at one time.

I loved this antique Wedgwood bowl, and I practically skipped to the cashier to pay for it (and asked for a discount, of course.)  I researched the mark on the bottom of it, and it appears that it dates between 1891 and 1929.  There's a teeny crack in one of the feet, which you can't see unless you turn it over, and I am thrilled to have it.

Saturday afternoon, I caught our daughter trying to see if she could get Dorothy to stand up like a prairie dog.  All it took was a few little crumbs of left-over steak.  Good Kitty.

Since there were no deer photos on my new game camera the other evening, I decided to 'nanny cam' the dogs while I was working in the garden on Saturday morning.  All the camera captured was dogs and cats walking into and out of the family room ... yawn.  After I viewed the photos, I took the memory card out of my laptop, sat it on the couch, and promptly walked away and forgot to put it back into the camera.  Later in the afternoon, I found it laying on the floor, chewed up, along with a couple of pieces of paper from a notepad.  I sure wish I had had the camera set up to see which dog did it.  (If the camera HAD been set up, I guess the memory card wouldn't have been available to get chewed up.)

Our daughter tried out a new recipe for chicken salad.  Daniel helped by licking the wooden spoon after she was finished.  We had it for lunch today, along with cantelope from the roadside farm stand, and it was delicious.

Saturday night, we went to dinner in downtown Fredericksburg.  The sun was setting as we walked back to the car.  This is the view over the wall into the Masonic cemetery.  Isn't it beautiful?

Cats instinctively know where the comfy napping spots are.  Ths morning, Dorothy discovered the down throw, folded up in my favorite wing chair.

I hope your weekend was as relaxing and productive as mine was.

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!

They Say That Bad Luck Comes In Threes

(Dec. 13, 2012.  This post is getting a ton of hits right now.  I'm glad to see it, because it means that there are folks out there who want to know more about Rose Rosette Disease.  Please do me a favor and leave a comment to let me know how and where you found this post.  Thanks!)

Over the past couple of weeks, I have found Rose Rosette Disease on three of my roses.  Never heard of this, you say?  Most people haven't, so don't feel bad.

Rose Rosette Disease (abbreviated RRD) is a virus, or virus-like, disease of roses that is transmitted by an almost microscopic wingless mite and it is almost always fatal.  It is important that rose growers be aware of the symptoms, and be prepared to take action should the disease affect one of their roses.

I first found RRD symptoms on "Miriam's Pink Powderpuff", a hybrid perpetual rose that I am very fond of.

Abnormal new growth, hugely hyper-thorny, with stunted flower bud.

Deformed flower and an unbelievably, abnormally thorny stem.

Normal new growth on "Miriam's Pink Powderpuff" should look like this.

RRD causes new growth to be unusually large, abnormally thorny, grotesquely concentrated and contorted.  The red color can also be an indicator, but don't use this as an absolute sign because many roses normally have red new growth.  Symptoms are highly variable, so it is important to recognize what normal growth looks like on various types of roses.

RRD on a cane of 'Baron Girod de l'Ain'

RRD can cause all the growth buds at an infected node to break and grow at once.  The arrows point to places where there are three sprouts from each node.  This contributes to the concentrated nature of the Witch's Broom growth.

This tiny new sprout on an infected cane clearly shows that there are three new stems coming from one growth point ... not a normal situation for 'Baron Girod de l'Ain'.

This is what healthy new growth on the Baron should look like.  The new leaves are bronze red, and they quickly turn green.  The stems are thorny, but not hyper-thorny and menacing like the canes with RRD.

This morning while I was working in the Rose Field, I saw this in my row of modern shrub roses.

Witch's Broom growth on 'Gentle Persuasion'

As I pulled aside the weeds, the full extent of the contorted nature of this cane was obvious.

RRD on this rose has caused abnormally concentrated, thorny growth and deformed flower buds.

Normal new growth on 'Gentle Persuasion' is much more mannerly ...

... and the buds are a lovely butter yellow.

There is no cure for RRD.  If the disease is noticed early, while there are symptoms on only one cane of the rose, you may be able to save the plant if you remove the entire affected cane ... I have saved one rose this way.  The only reason I even tried to save it is because it was a very rare rambler, and I'm one of the only people on the East Coast who grows it.  It has been a year since I removed the abnormal cane, and I have seen no sign of RRD on that rose yet.

Most of the time, the disease has already spread to other areas before you notice it, and it will show up again as soon as new growth starts.  This is what happened to "Miriam's Pink Powerpuff".  I noticed abnormal growth on her early this spring, and I removed that cane.  Now that the disease has returned, I know that it is probably throughout the plant, and I have removed the whole thing.  "Baron Girod de l'Ain' and 'Gentle Persuasion' will leave as soon as this heat wave breaks. 

The absolute best reference I know to educate yourself about Rose Rosette Disease is an e-book written by Ann Peck.  Ann is one of the country's leading authorities on RRD, and she has been studying and tracking the disease since the 1990s.  In the introduction of her book, Ann says, "I hope this book will educate rose growers so they can recognize RRD early, take the proper actions to deal with it and continue to grow roses." 

While RRD is a concern to rose growers, I will never let this prevent me from growing roses.  To put this in perspective ... I have more than 800 roses in my garden and in pots waiting to be planted, and I have had RRD in my garden a total of only six times so far.  From talking to other rose growers, conditions this year seem to be favorable for RRD transmission.  I doubt I have seen the last of it this year ... though I sure hope I have. 

RRD may mean the death of the infected rose, but it should not prevent you from growing and enjoying roses.  Get educated ... read Ann's book.

To read Ann's book, click HERE.