Now that I think about it, I may not have ever shown this garden to you. It's relatively new, laid out and planted last summer. I designed it to hold a little over a hundred roses that had been living in pots for longer than they should have. There are Ramblers on the fence, Climbing Miniatures on tripods, classic Floribundas, and Hybrid Teas down the center, and Miniatures in the front.
June 2013. Landscape fabric laid, potted roses arranged and ready to be planted.
One week later ... timber edging installed, roses planted, irrigation in place, mulch along the fence.
I got off to a great start with this garden, with the landscape fabric and timber edging in place and the roses all planted. I lost steam, though, after I had it about half mulched. A garden this large requires a LOT of mulch! To be honest, I don't remember exactly why I stopped working on it.
Fast forward to the present ... Just like I did in the English Garden, the first thing to do was deal with the weeds. Fortunately, the weeds are not as widespread in this garden because most of it is already covered with landscape fabric. I have a few miniature roses, though, that looked like this:
Let me show you my new favorite tool. It was an impulse purchase a few weeks ago, catching my eye as I stood in the check-out line in Lowes garden department. It cost about $10, if I remember correctly. Worth its weight in gold, I assure you!
To use it, I pull the weeds back with my hand, chopping the soil line with the notched end of the tool, and the weeds come right out.
It only took a few minutes to turn that weedy mess into this:
Next step was to sprinkle some Preen on the bare soil and cover it with newspaper.
Then comes the mulch. This is Truckload #4 ... brought to me this morning by my dear husband, while I was weeding.
I scooped and toted and spread mulch until mid-afternoon ... laying a thick layer on the bare places on the landscape fabric, and a thin layer to refresh the areas that already had mulch from last year. Stepping back as I finished for the day, I was very pleased with my progress.
That's about 60 feet of garden finished, 90 feet or so left to go.
I'm gonna need more mulch.
