Sunday Snapshot: Lights in the Greenhouse

You know that I'm all about doing projects with as much of what I already have as possible.  Adding lights to the greenhouse last week is another example of this.

Two strings of icicle Christmas lights hung on cup hooks along the top of the south wall.  It's so cute!

I already had the cup hooks and lights.  All I had to buy was a remote wall switch to control them.

This is the handiest thing ever for adding a light switch anywhere you need one.

You can find it HERE.

The greenhouse itself is a mess, with lots of stored building materials and project items taking up most of the 12' x 20' space.  I have cleared a bit of sanity space on the south bench to over-winter the baby roses that I rooted last summer, and I'm doing what I can to make order out of the rest of the space ... sorting, purging, and figuring out what to do with items I really love and will use.

This will be a great space to work in during the winter, as the temperature in the building on a sunny day is easily twenty or more degrees above the outside temperature.  It can be cold and wintry outside, shirt-sleeve weather inside ... just what my little sunshine-loving self needs!

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Sunday Snapshots are posts devoted to moments in time that represent glimpses into real, everyday life in Hartwood, or wherever else I happen to be at the time. 

Learning a Different Way to Knit

I taught myself how to crochet when I was ten or eleven years old.  Bought a book, followed the instructions and illustrations, and practiced a lot.  Learned to knit shortly thereafter, using the same book.

Since I taught myself and didn't have anyone to show me, I don't knit the way most other people do.  I hold the yarn in my left hand (exactly like I do when I'm crocheting) and I could never make the switch to the American-style knitting where yarn is in the right hand.  Whenever I'm knitting somewhere where other people can watch, it's not unusual for someone to tell me that I knit funny.  I do, but that's okay.  My knit items look exactly the same as anyone else's.

Winnie's Tiny Dog Sweater.  Pattern is HERE.

Last weekend, I was at a conference and I spotted a woman knitting during one of the presentations.  She was sitting nearby at lunch, I asked her what she was making.  Our conversation led to the different styles of knitting, and I told her that I knit different than any established style.  She then said, "Since your yarn is already in your left hand, why don't you try to knit Continental Style?"

OMG!!!!  This was such a simple observation on her part, and it was huge for me!  When I got home the next day, I headed straight for YouTube and found SO many helpful videos.  This one was my favorite.




It was a slow go at first.  Frustrating, with quite a few dropped stitches, as I tried to get better at inserting the needle in a different spot in the stitches to pick up the yarn with my right needle instead of throwing it with my whole hand.  Even in this awkward beginner stage, Continental style knitting was proving to be significantly faster than the way I used to do it.  As practice, I am making a mitered-square afghan using instructions in THIS pattern.  (But I'm using regular knitting needles instead of the double-pointed needles called for in the instructions.)

Working on the second square, attached to the first one.

Knitting garter stitch, row after row, is great practice and I'm pleased to say that I'm getting more proficient and I'm having to think less and less about each individual stitch.  I like this pattern because I'm only working on one square at a time, and squares are joined together as I go.

Winnie likes to sit under the pile of knitting in my lap.

I am keeping a pace to finish one square on the afghan every evening, which gives me clear evidence of progress, almost instant gratification, and keeps me motivated to continue to the finish ... which I imagine will be some time after the first of the year.

After more than forty years of knitting my old way, it feels awesome to learn a better way to do it!

Ramblers, by Anne Belovich

Ramblers are the first roses that I remember falling head-over-heels in love with.  It's not a class for the faint of heart, because many of them can easily put out canes that grow ten to twelve feet or more in a single season.  

Anyone who loves and collects Ramblers* will eventually cross paths with Anne Belovich.  She loves Ramblers, too, and has been collecting and growing them for decades ... she has what is thought to be the largest private collection of Ramblers in the world.  I have corresponded with Anne for a few years, exchanging cuttings and plants, and I met her in person at an event in Texas two years ago.  During our conversation, Anne told me that she was in the process of writing a book on Ramblers.  That book was released last month.  My copy arrived in the mail a few days ago.

Last year, Anne contacted me to ask if I would send her photos of "Pink Van Fleet", a rose I grow that she and I think may be the true 'Bess Lovett', which is lost in the US.  I was honored that she asked, and thrilled that one of my photos is in her book.

I am most surprised that, in addition to photo credit in the back of the book, I was mentioned among some very big names in the acknowledgements at the beginning of the book.

I have only had time to thumb quickly through Ramblers.  All roses in it are presented in alphabetical order, for easy use as a reference.  I can already see that this book will get a LOT of use as an important addition to my rose library ... and it stands as a reminder of a mentor who made a big impression on me and on my garden.
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* A Rambler, as I know it, is defined as a large, once-blooming climbing rose.  The American Rose Society no longer recognizes Ramblers as a distinct class of rose.  Ramblers were recently reclassified and split into separate classes based on their genetics. No matter what their new classifications, they will always be Ramblers to me.

Click HERE to order Ramblers for your own rose library.

More Deer, and Other Critters

I moved my trail camera to a slightly different location on Sunday.  This new place appears to have a much better view of the night time wildlife activity.  Looks like the tidier areas of the Rose Field are quite the hang out spot!

Here are the images from early Monday morning and Monday night ...

... and here are Tuesday's critters:

The most awesome photo from this set of images is this one, from mid-morning on Tuesday.

Having a sneaky trail camera on duty gives me a whole different idea of who's the boss around here.  Not me, at least at night.  This place belongs to the critters ... and I'm totally okay with that.

Deer

My trail camera captured this image a few nights ago.  

That a pretty big deer there in the Rose Field.  I see evidence of light deer damage on my roses from time to time, but it is rarely anything really terrible.  To be safe, though, I plan to protect my newly planted baby roses with little wire cages till spring.

"Hart" is an old English word for deer.  It's no surprise, therefore, to see deer in a place named Hartwood ... though I see WAY more deer in neighboring subdivisions than I do here in our country setting.

Wills Cigarette Cards

In 2009, I scored a 48-out-of-50 card set of antique Wills Cigarette Cards on eBay.  (ancient post about the buy is HERE)

When they arrived in the mail, I savored each of them, carefully put them back into their tiny little package, and promptly misplaced them.  Occasionally I wondered where in the world I could have put them.  Yesterday, that question was answered.  I was cleaning out a basket of CDs, and there were the rose cards.

These tiny, idealized prints make the roses look gorgeous and SO tempting.  Let's see how the card images compare to the real roses that I grow here:

'Alberic Barbier'

'American Pillar'

'British Queen'

'Excelsa'

'Irish Elegance'

'Lady Alice Stanley'

In the old post about these cards, I was wondering how to display them.  I'm still wondering.  For now, I have repackaged them and will keep them stored away safely ... at least I put them someplace logical this time!

2017 Heritage Rose Foundation Conference ... Save the Date!

It's time for everyone to mark your calendars and save your pennies for the 2017 Heritage Rose Foundation Conference in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  May 18-20, 2017.

Visiting the garden at Rose Petals Nursery, 2013.

Mottisfont Abbey, England, 2014

Activities will include day trips to Monticello and the Center for Historic Plants in Charlottesville, a tour of Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, a day of programs and speakers at Belmont in Fredericksburg, and at least one or two other things that I'm working on.

New Orleans, Louisiana, 2014

Brenham, Texas, 2015.

Information on accommodations will be coming soon.

Huntington Library, 2016

With the dates and basic schedule in place, now I have to fill in all of the activities and details.  Stay tuned for registration info in a few weeks.