In the Kitchen Window

I often stand at the kitchen sink, staring out at the view toward the back of our property.  From here, we see the Greenhouse, Shack, Garage, my trusty pick-up truck, and the Barn.  (I also see lots of soggy ground, because we got a whole bunch of rain yesterday.)  What I don't see, however, is much of the garden ... weird, I know.

Looking down onto the windowsill (which is 12" deep) is like my own private game of Seek & Find ... you know, those photos where the idea is to look for certain objects in a composition of lots and lots of items.

I see:  three orchids, a spiderplant, a vacuum-type wine stopper, two thermometers, a whole bunch of paintbrushes, a toothbrush, two paint stirrers, nail clippers, and a cactus.  This assortment appears to accurately represent the mess of stuff that also accumulates in my brain ... seemingly unrelated stuff that all has a common theme.  In this case, it's stuff that I use (paintbrushes, nail clippers, wine stopper) along with stuff that needs to be here (all of the plants).

(Notice that two of the orchids have flower spikes!!  They're Cymbidiums, impulse purchases from Trader Joes, and they reliably rebloom at this time each year ... despite my ignorance at how exactly to properly care for them.)

In winter, staring out the window is how I get most of my exposure to outdoors ... it's too cold most days to do as much outside as I would like to.  This window, and the one in the dining room further down this wall, have my favorite views.  

What's your favorite place to stand and stare out the window, and what do YOU see?

Some Rosy Things To Do in May

May is here, finally!  April was a strange month, with temperatures lower than normal and a wide swing of weather ... I was wearing a turtleneck and a sweater yesterday, for Pete's sake.  It's time to start thinking about warm weather, shorts, t-shirts, flip-flops, and garden events.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (May 2, 3, and 4) is the Spring Plant Sale at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond.  It feels weird that I'm not selling roses anymore and won't a vendor at this show.  (Click HERE to go to the LGBG web site, for each day's hours and a list of vendors.)  Some of my best non-rose garden plants have come from this sale.

 

 

 

 

On Sunday, May 5, from 1pm - 3:30pm, everyone is invited to the 2nd annual "Sunday Picnic at Hollywood Cemetery".  Pack a picnic basket, bring a blanket and relax to sounds of great entertainment (Oak Lane Band and Censations from St. Catherine's School).  Guided Trolley car tours will be provided.  Cupcakes from Pearl's Cupcake Shoppe, an ice cream truck from Cool Concessions, and hotdogs from The Dog Wagon will be on site.  Hollywood Cemetery's roses will certainly be part of the day's events!

 

Print from Harper's Weekly, August 17, 1867.  The caption reads, "Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia -- decorating the graves of the rebel soldiers, May 31, 1867 -- drawn by W. L. Shepherd (see page 568)"

 

 

'Duchesse de Brabant' in the Armistead Plot.

 

 

Another cemetery that is near and dear to me is the Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, Virginia.  Saturday, May 11, is their 18th annual Antique Rose Festival.  The cemetery's rose collection should be nearing peak bloom for the festival, and there will be a huge assortment of antique roses available for sale.  (Click HERE to go to the event calendar on the cemetery's web site.)

 

The rose sale begins on Friday, May 3 ... with 140 varieties on the preliminary list that they sent me.  This is the ONLY opportunity I know to buy antique roses in person in this region.  Online vendors for antique roses are disappearing, so we have to take advantage of every opportunity we have to get these roses for our gardens, and support the people and organizations who work so hard to bring them to us.  (Lynchburg is pretty close to Covesville, where my new rug is, and I hope to make a combo trip ... to pick up my rug and visit the Old City Cemetery's roses.  Anyone down that way want to meet up?)

 

 

 

'Aglaia'

 

 

 

 

Saturday, May 18, is Rose Day at Monticello's Tufton Farm in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Rosarian Rev. Douglas Seidel will discuss the various types of old roses ... Doug is one of the most fascinating speakers I know!  Bring clippings of your “mystery roses” for Doug’s legendary antique rose identification workshop.  Curator Peggy Cornett will lead tours of the Tufton's gardens, including the Leonie Bell Noisette Garden.  A wide selection of historic roses and other plants will be available for sale.  (I will be there, but I don't know yet whether I will be helping with anything.)

 

 

"Hollywood Pink Cluster", found in Hollywood Cemetery, and growing in the Leonie Bell Garden.

 

'Baltimore Belle'

 

 

Though the nursery portion of Hartwood Roses is closed now, I will still host an Open Garden or two (or more) in late May, once my roses are blooming.  As soon as I have an idea of when, I will let you know.

 

Morning Coffee

I get up early in the morning, long before the rest of the humans in the house are awake.  This misty morning time is my favorite time of day.  First, I feed the dogs and cats ... they wouldn't have it any other way.  On nice mornings, I grab my laptop and my coffee cup and head for the glider on the deck.

I picked this glider up at a thrift store years ago, and I love it.  It's huge!  The cushions are a futon mattress from Ikea, and three people can sit on it comfortably.  Yes, before you ask, I have been known to nap out here.  Once the grandson gets a little older, I'll reattach the gliding mechanism ... right now, it would be too much of a temptation for him, and I don't want to have to deal with the injuries that could result.  For now, it's stationary.

The view from our deck across the yard and fields in the morning is beautiful.  I'll try to share it with you this morning.  Let's start on the right, and work our way around.

This is what you see if you look toward the front yard.  These geometric rose beds are a great addition to the landscape.  Before we built them, this spot was taken up by weeds and a huge diseased bush.  Bye bye, bush ... hello roses.

The picket-fenced area is the dogs' backyard.  Across the field, is an ancient white mulberry tree that's loaded with fruit right now.  The birds love it.

We're in the process reassembling a hand-me-down wooden swingset for our grandson.  That's Hartwood Winery in the background, where you see the white van and red pick-up truck.

You saw this view toward the barn and Rose Field earlier in the year.  With the trees fully leafed out, the barn is practically invisible and I can't see the Rose Field at all.

Our pavillion (which we call the Tiki Hut) is in the shade garden, as seen off the left side of the deck.  This is the perfect place for evening dinners with friends!  (I'll show you the Tiki Hut and the huge pecan tree above it in more detail some other time.)

(written by Hartwood Roses.  Hartwood Roses blog.)

Monday Musings ... on Tuesday.

Monday was one of those days where I felt overwhelmed by all the things I have to do.  The weight of it can get a bit stiffling, sometimes.  When I break it down and make a list, however, it's really not that bad.  In fact, I have accomplished quite a bit in a relatively short time.

Pruning is coming along pretty well.  The Hybrid Tea collection (80 roses) in the front yard is all finished.  This is their third year in the ground, so they got their first major spring pruning.  Until now, I had been less concerned with esthetics and more concerned with getting them established.  We'll see how it works out.

I took down the rebar tripods that held climbers along the Front Fence border.  It just didn't look right having pieces of rusty steel sticking up in a prominent spot in the front yard.  In its place, I strung three strands of wire along the fence for the roses.  It took a bit of a battle to prune them to shape (after letting them go vertical on the tripods) and get them against the fence and attached to the wire, but I'm really pleased with how they look now ... and they'll look even better next month.

This is Dr. W. Van Fleet, before his 'training'.

Here he is after ... trained to a fan shape, as horizontal as possible to encourage more flowers.

The pot ghetto survived winter pretty well.  There were only about half a dozen casualties among the 150+ roses banked along the fence.  Two of these are real disappointments.  I lost Elegance (a Brownell climber) and Emily Gray (a yellow rambler).  I expect that I'll have a bit of difficulty replacing these.

Voles killed Gertrude Jekyll.  They burrowed in through the drain holes in the bottom of the pot, and they ate every one of her roots.  If you've ever wondered what vole damage looks like, here's a rather extreme example.

It's pretty hard to imagine how many roses I have in pots, waiting for a spot in the garden.  To be honest, I don't have an exact number ... I know it's more than 200.  I haven't ordered any more roses for this year, so I hope to make some real progress on this.  I have such great plans.

I worked out the edging for the newest bed, on the south side of the house.  This spot needs some height, to mask where the old part of the house and the addition come together and to de-emphasize the garage door.  To do this, I'm going to send three yellow noisettes up the wall:  Reve d'Or, for sure, and probably Alister Stella Gray and Phil Edinger's Noisette ... maybe Marechal Niel.  Along with the roses, I'm planting peonies that we took from my husband's grandfather's house (and have moved with us from house to house ... 3 houses now), some rescued double daffodils, and probably some rescued iris.  This bed is bordered with Richmond cobblestones, which coordinate really nicely with our stone walls in front of the house.

The roses on the posts of the Arcade are all pruned and tied into place.  This is one of the few two-people jobs around here.  It takes one person (me) to prune the rose and gently wind it around the post, and another person (husband) to tie it in place with jute twine.  After only a year in the ground, Parade and Heidelberg have already almost reached the top of their posts!

This is a photo from last year, when the roses were smaller.

I have started pruning the roses in the Rose Field.  The climbers on the East Fence are all trimmed and reattached to their wires, and some of the ramblers on the North Fence are also finished.  Most of the old European roses (the Gallicas, Damasks, Hybrid Chinas, etc.) are done, too.  I pruned them down by 1/3 to 1/2, and I removed many of the suckers to control the size of their 'colonies'.  It should only take a few more days to have the rest of the shrubs in the Rose Field finished ... then I'll turn my attention to the climbers on the arches of the Rose Tunnel.

Mutabilis, before pruning. 

I was a bit distressed when I saw all this winter damage and dead canes.

Mutabilis, after pruning.

I cut out all the dead wood, and it looks much better than I thought it would. 

See the new basal canes?

The weeds are getting ahead of me.  Every year, I swear that I will finally win the battle ... and every year I fall behind as the weeds march across the rose beds.  They laugh at mulch and herbicide, and I struggle to keep up. 

I have to get serious about finishing my presentation for the Lynchburg Garden Symposium next month.  The outline is almost complete, so the rest of the program won't take any time at all.  The Lynchburg City Cemetery is such a special place, and I'm thrilled that they invited me to speak.

This time of year, it's easy to get dragged down by all the things I have to do.  I try to take time to reflect and appreciate what I have already done, and to be thankful that I have the ability to do it.

(written by Hartwood Roses.  Hartwood Roses blog)

The Rose Field Arches

This week, we finally installed the rest of the arches down the center aisle of the Rose Field, and all of their respective roses are off the ground and firmly attached!  This is a huge load off my mind.  The climbers have grown a whole lot more than I expected them to, and visitors have had to carefully tip-toe over some of them sprawling in the aisles.

I didn't take as many photos as I normally would.  I guess I was concentrating on the job at hand, instead of concentrating on documenting the process. 

This is my Before photo.  We had about half of the arches in place for months now, but the roses attached to them have grown pretty out of control.  You can see in the distance, the rows without arches and their roses on the ground.

Here's one rose after I gathered it up and tied it in place.  Every day I have to tie climbers, I thank my husband for buying me my handy taping tool.  (If you haven't seen the post where I show this wonderous invention, click HERE.)  The leaves look a bit awkward and cock-eyed right now, but they'll settle into place and turn toward the light and look right after a few days.

This is a view of the back of the arches, looking down the rows.  It's great to see the roses heading up their arches, instead of sprawling all over their neighbors.

After working all afternoon, here is the result. Doesn't this look fabulous?

Here's something slightly off topic, and puzzling.  Some sort of animal has been using one part of the Rose Field as a potty ... and I don't enough about poop identification to tell whether it's rabbit, or deer, or whatever.  None of the roses in this spot have been nibbled, either high or low, so there are no obvious clues available other than the poop itself.  Anyone know what did this?

(Mystery solved ... a kind reader has told me that this is rabbit poop.  Thanks, Darlene.)

(written by Hartwood Roses.  Hartwood Roses blog)

Roses in Full Fall Bloom, Part 2

As I promised earlier, here is a look at some of the blooming roses in the Rose Field.  The Polyanthas and the Chinas are really putting on a show.

Camellia Rose (China, 1830)

Cels Multiflore (Tea, 1836)

Fabvier (China, 1832)

Golden Buddha (Shrub, 2005)

Hume's Blush (China, 1810)

La Marne (Polyantha, 1915)

Echo (Polyantha, 1914) and Marie Daly (Polyantha, 1999)

Old Gray Cemetery (Noisette, found rose)

Close-up of Old Gray Cemetery

Mrs. R. M. Finch (Polyantha, 1923) and Gartendirektor Otto Linne (Polyantha, 1934)

Close-up of Gartendirektor Otto Linne

Romaggi Plot Bourbon (Bourbon, found rose)

Santa Rosa/Burbank (Tea, 1900)

Parade (Climber, 1953)

(written by Hartwood Roses.  Hartwood Roses blog)

How I Make My Rose Beds.

Let’s go back in time this morning, to see how the bed of Hybrid Tea roses in the front yard came to be.

The area where the beds are was once occupied by a very large bush of some sort. It wasn’t a nice bush, and it blocked the dogwood tree, so I had a tree crew remove it. You can see a little bit of it in the lower right corner of this photo … taken when we first looked at the house with our realtor in July 2002. My, my things have sure changed around here. (The ugly above-ground pool is gone, thank goodness.)

It looked like this after we cut down the ugly bush. The beds are sections of a 40' circle, made using string and marking paint, with the trunk of the dogwood tree as the center.

After we finalized the layout and the paths, I sprayed the grass inside the bed lines with herbicide. When the grass was dead, the husband used the rototiller to stir things up.

We spread a whole truckload of rabbit manure into the beds, which was a depth of about 2 inches. Friends of ours breed show rabbits, so rabbit manure is my organic amendment of choice. The husband tilled the beds again to mix it in, and I raked everything smooth.

Here are the pots of roses, all laid out in their correct places. The roses in these beds are placed on 3' centers. They're hybrid teas, which tend to grow up rather than out, so this spacing will create a lush look. Some of them haven't behaved as expected, others were mis-labeled and turned out to be climbers instead of shrubs. These will be moved when the weather cools this fall.

After the roses were planted, it was time to lay the irrigation lines. All of the roses in the gardens here are watered using drip irrigation. Layers of newspaper underneath the mulch helps to keep weeds from sprouting through … and it’s a fabulous way to recycle your old newspaper. (Look how tiny the roses are.)

Here is what it looked like after the roses had been in the ground for a few months.

... and a few months later.

This is what it looks like now:

and here's a close-up:

This whole process, from the beginning when I laid out the lines of these beds until I had roses in the ground, took about a month. It takes two weeks for the herbicide to completely kill the turf. It only took one day to plant all the roses (there's 80 of them in these beds), and I wouldn't recommend that pace to anyone. Fortunately the soil was in prime condition and easy to dig, but I still almost killed myself doing it. Add a few days to put down the newspaper, install the irrigation, lay the brick border, and mulch ... and you'll have a rose bed in no time.