It's a Rainy, Random Morning

Today is a rainy day.  The garden can use the rain, and I am thankful for it.  The rain also keeps me from working outside, which is probably a good thing.  It has been a short eight days since we returned home from our vacation, and I am already tired again.  This is my busiest time of year at the nursery, and this year we have the additional work of wedding preparations added into the mix ... one month to go until the wedding day!

Our pavilion, the site of the wedding ceremony, is getting a new set of steps ... now we have to regrade the ground.

The first thing I noticed as we pulled into the driveway as we got home from our trip was that I had blooming roses!  There were a few flowers on Applejack and Ellen Poulsen in the front garden.  In back, Climbing Rouletii and Old Blush were just beginning to open flowers ... they are practically in full bloom now.  During the past week, many other varieties of roses now have flowers on them and there are thousands of buds which promise flowers to come.  It is very, VERY exciting.

This clematis, named 'Vino, is in full bloom.  This flower is larger than my hand!

I wish I could show you my usual close-up photos of these flowers that I am gushing about, but I cannot do that right now.  I dropped my camera while we were in Tennessee, and I jammed my good lens.  The camera is fine, but the lens is toast.  I could probably still use it by focusing manually, if this camera had a focus-assist thing inside the viewfinder like my old Canon film camera does.  With my poor near vision, there's no way I could focus manually without it.  Later today, since I can't work outside, I will go shopping and treat myself to a new lens.

Climbing Rouletii has hundreds of flowers right now!  Each of these little flowers is about the size of a half-dollar coin, and the plant is completely covered with them.  (This photo is from last year.)

It is a big job every spring to make the rose gardens presentable.  This year, the job seems almost insurmountable.  The weeds got a good foothold last summer, and conditions this spring have been perfect for explosive growth.  I'm afraid the Rose Field won't be presentable (or passable) until later this summer.  I should offer garden guests a machete if they are heading back there.  The best I can do is to try to make the areas that provide a setting for the wedding look as good as they can, and I will get to the rest when I get to it.

The weeds have grown at least 1000%  since I took this photo last month.

The plant sale at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond was a huge success, and an exhausting amount of work.  Over the course of the three days of the sale, I sold 99 roses, which was a record, and I talked practically nonstop giving rose advice and answering questions. 

This week marks the beginning of rose shipping season.  All day for the past two days, I have been processing and organizing all of the rose orders that were placed earlier in the year.  I had no idea it would take as long as it did.  Gathering and grouping the roses into each individual order took all morning and into the afternoon on Monday, so I only got seven of the orders boxed up and taken to the Post Office.  Yesterday, I began packaging roses at 9:30am, using three rolls of packing tape in the process, and I took a whole pick-up truckload of boxes to the Post Office at 3:00pm.  It feels really good to send these little babies off to their new homes, some as far away as Nevada, New Mexico, and Connecticut.

There are four potted roses in this box, and they will arrive safely at their destination in a couple of days.

Today seems to be a good day to be inside, catching up on things that I haven't done while I have been working outside.  I should do a bit of laundry, because my hamper is overflowing.  I plan sit quietly and visit some of my favorite blogs and catch up on what everyone is doing, since I haven't had the time or energy to do that recently.  Today is a day to recharge and regroup, and I intend to take full advantage of it.