Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Rose Field Reclaimation

If you have visited here this year, you have seen that the Rose Field is in a dreadful state.  A perfect combination of unfortunate circumstances came together to turn my beautiful garden into a weed field that is not to be believed.  Rather than dwell on what happened to get it into this sorry state, I am looking forward and working toward reclaiming it as a garden.



The rain we had this past weekend softened the ground and made conditons perfect for some serious weed pulling.  A crew of three landscapers arrived bright and early Monday morning and they got to work. 



Their objective was to see how far they could get in one day, pulling the majority of the large weeds, and clearing the paths.



By the end of the day, they had cleared seven rows!  I only had the crew for the one day, because they had another job for the rest of this week ... they will be back soon, when conditions are right, to keep going.



It is now up to me to kill the remaining small weeds in the cleared area.  Surgical use of herbicide is the most effective way to accomplish this.



So far this morning, I have carefully sprayed three gallons onto the paths and underneath the roses in five and a half of the seven rows that are cleared.  As soon as I finish here, I will go back out and spray some more.  Now that I have the upper hand, I want it to stay that way.

Tomorrow, we will return to our August Break, publishing one photo per day.  I took a 'vacation' today, because I'm so pleased with what has been accomplished in the Rose Field this week.

8 comments:

  1. Amazing, isn't it, how fast the weeds come when they sense the absence of the gardener?

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  2. I know getting this rose field cleared is making you very happy!! It looks so good after one day!

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  3. I've always been terrified to use weed killers near my roses. Apparently I can breathe a bit easier??

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  4. Anonymous, dear, how I wish you had left contact information. If you had, you would be receiving a detailed reply that tells you exactly how I use herbicides near my roses.

    In short, you can use Round Up, or its generics, NEAR your roses ... but you cannot get even a drop of the chemical ON your roses. When I use herbicide near my roses, I do so on a windless morning, I keep a very low pressure on my pump sprayer and I spray very low to the ground ... so I only get the chemical on the weeds. It's a fairly slow process, but it works and it's safe for the roses as long as I'm very, VERY careful.

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  5. Help is a wonderful thing! Has your weather cooled down? It's still much too hot to be outside, here. Barely able to keep the grass alive and still needing rain, desperately.

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  6. I don't get many weeds in my beds (and they can always be hand pulled) but in one area I had a bunch along with a baby coneflower plant. I use the RU very carefully also, but I have to keep a tight rein on my "presence of mind" which can wander inexplicably. Well, you guessed it. I gave a full dose to half of the coneflower leaves, but I didn't panic. I knew I had at least a half hour, so I finished up quickly and ran for some water which I poured all over the plant. It's fine with no adverse effects. If I get just a bit on a good plant, I pull off the leaf. I really try to be careful, even using a shield, but klutzy me. Something bad usually happens.

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  7. I notice you're using a Gilmore sprayer - I also use one, and when it quit working I emailed them the problem and asked them for a part number I would need to order. Got an email back, the part was in the mail! Their customer service is awsome, so hard to come by these days!

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  8. Gardens get out of hand so easily it seems-I can see your's is beautiful-all that hard work will pay off!

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