Climbers & compost & pots

I can happily report that things in the garden are improving and that after two freezing nights things are even better than expected. Lots of items have been crossed off my list of things to do this spring. All in all, I’m getting very excited about the coming gardening year. Of course, who knows what plague or pestilence lies ahead, but it’s been a delightful and easy winter.

I am not a list person. I prefer chaos while marching to that idiot drummer in my head, but last January I was so scatter-brained and overwhelmed as to what exactly needed doing that I took DH's advice and made a list. My goodness, I felt so much better afterwards, and it was a simple thing to simply do what was on the list. No stressing whatsoever.

After doing 'Maman Cochet, Climbing' last week I felt braver about tackling my other climbers. This is 'Duchesse d'Auerstadt'. She's almost as old as MC, but as you can see, she's an entirely different animal. However, she was still (and always has been) a mess.

The clippings removed from her just filled a bushel basket, but getting rid of the deadwood enabled me to get her centered and tied on the rebar.

She has lots of red new growth which made me very happy. Maybe this year - her fifth - will be when she leaps.

She's always been a bit "airy" so I have clematis 'Venosa Violacea' growing on both sides of the arbor. They're invisible now after being pruned back. The rectangular pot (which used to house 'Serratipetala') is now home to Purple Coneflowers that sprouted in the gravel of the front circle. This is the only spot I had left, so I hope they like semi-shade.

For two years 'Pat Austin' has been a drooper, but this year she's holding her canes upright. Now that's definitely progress!

Composted horse manure. Isn't it lovely? Perhaps I should be totally honest and say semi-composted, because that's what it is - not really done, but whatever. I love the way it makes the garden look - like a beautifully made bed.

Most daylilies have been clipped back due to the recent freezes. The larkspur volunteers are looking like mini-evergreen forests, and the garden looks half empty - for now.

It only looks like there's a lot of empty space, and I've learned not to fill it, because roses like 'Rosette Delizy' get bigger and daylilies get bigger and salvias get bigger. The trick will be squeezing in the potted Purple Coneflowers.

The Christmas Amazon gift certificate from #1 son and DIL got me this perfect 7.5' obelisk that clematis 'Princess Diana' badly needed. She outgrew her old 4-footer.

So after Sunday's success with the Duchesse on Tuesday I decided to tackle 'Reve d'Or'.

I really hated bothering her, but she makes passage through the sideyard rather dicey which makes me chop on her. So I determined to deal with her properly.

You may not be able to see it, but she takes up just as much space in the neighbor's yard. Thankfully, he doesn't live there. DH fixed the fence that had sprung apart.

I know I've said this before, but I had no clue where to start cutting. I felt like a rookie dentist having to pull his first tooth - without novacaine... for the patient.

Her canes were everywhere and went everywhere. Side shoots had side shoots, and main canes had been previously shortened as per aforementioned chopping. I went back and forth many times trying to decide the best cuts to make.

I had never used a ladder on her before which was dumb. The ladder makes the job possible.

It also gets you right smack in the middle of those not-as-lethal-as-Maman-Cochet's thorns. However, ladder-work is much more painful than it looks. When it's done, probably because I lock my knees, stepping down must be done v-e-r-y slowly and carefully until I'm sure those knees are going to hold. And then it feels like someone beat me with a rubber hose.

And here is the result. I know... another scalping job. I can handle a naked bush after pruning, but I'm not used to the naked climbers yet. And I surely do hope this is what they're supposed to look like!

Finally I get to utilize the three strands of plastic-coated clothesline that I installed five years ago. When she was young, there was nothing to tie to the lines, and when she bulked up, she was too heavy to pull/push into place. The bird-netting is squirrel deterrent.

But now her naked canes, devoid of long side shoots, were easy to put in their proper places.

She, too, has lots of new growth popping out everywhere.

Her width is about 16 feet, and her height is pushing 8 feet. You can barely see my rebar contraption to which I tied the clothesline. I attached to the fence 1x2's that I had drilled and inserted 10-foot rebar into which holds the rose away from the fence. In Florida it's easy to push the rebar two feet into the ground, especially amended ground.

Nothing hangs over the fence now. I wonder how long it will take her to become a trespasser again.

I was hoping to be done while the sun was still on this side of the house to show you that her base will have sun on it now - for a while anyway - and hopefully, it will encourage basal breaks. This is an amazing sight to me. I just hope I can keep her in check.

This is 'Nur Mahal'. She got a new teepee recently because her old metal trellis rusted and fell over with her in it. She was a good ten feet tall, so I pruned her back by two-thirds to get her out of the trellis and make her bushier. DH was positive that I had killed his favorite rose. I assured him she would live, and today I was proud to tell him about all the new growth that she has sprouted. The knitted trellis is for the clematis that is growing with her (on the right side). Clematis leaves hide bare rose legs. I'm not sure if I'll wrap her new canes around the teepee or what. I tried that once before with 'Prosperity' and wound up basically with a huge bush. Don't have room for that, so we'll see.

Take THAT, you dastardly squirrels!! 'Duchesse d'Auerstadt' has precious new growth at the base which had to be protected from the chewers, so I made a cage to keep them out. I think when the canes outgrow the cage I'll wrap burlap around her that I bought last year for this purpose. I'm resigned to the fact that a garden can't look chic while squirrels are around.

How nice that the incessant wind lately has swept the gravel paths mostly clean of oak leaves. All of those pots are the Purple Coneflower echinacea plants that I dug up but didn't want to part with - my compromise to deal with their bullying roots. Now I have to make hypertufa saucers to sit them on so they won't root through the bottom of the pots. I transplanted others to places along the fences a safe distance from roses and daylilies.

My latest clematis order just arrived last week from Brushwood Vines, bringing my total to 18. 

Here's my pot ghetto consisting of hydrangeas, Angelonias, rooted rose cuttings, and a 'Gold Medal' grafted rose recently scarfed from Lowe's. Oh, and a petunia. The colorful pots on the left are waiting for the roses since there ain't no more room in the ground, except for 'Gold Medal' and 'Pope John Paul II'. All these pots have been coming into my kitchen on freezing nights. (It's easier through the side door.) Fortunately, there haven't been many this year. I do hope we're done with those and tonight is the last night for them inside.

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This was a curious cane from RdO. Looks fine, and was supporting a long cane to the left with new growth.

Flip it over, and you see it's totally chewed/rotted. It broke off before I could cut it.

Isn't she lovely in the morning sun?

Before I went out to prune RdO, I commented to DH how impossible it was for me to see the canes, looking up into the sun or even just the bright sky. Green, brown, who knew? So he suggested I wear my sunglasses. He's so brilliant! So I got my eye-doctor glasses for when he dilates my eyes. They're polarized and completely cover my regular glasses and worked like a charm. So I thought I'd show you what you need to do in this situation. That's when I saw how sunburned I was which I then told DH. He said you didn't have your hat on? I said you didn't tell me to. hehe

See ya in the funny papers!!

Companion planting run amok

One of the knocks against rose gardening is the unappealing look of ‘soldier’ rows of bushes naked from the knees (or waist) down. I deliberately did not design my garden in rows. For one thing I didn’t have the room, and for another I was afraid my front yard would look stupid. So I wound up with circles and curves. My biggest frustration as a new gardener was all the empty space around the tiny new roses and later the unleafy state of my young bushes. So I made the decision to add companion plants in an effort to reduce the pressure to perform on the roses and on me. I figured with other stuff to look at my ugly roses wouldn’t be so noticeable. So my garden became cottage-y.

My learning curve was pretty steep. Every plant was an experiment. I learned that very few plants when placed in a watered, amended Florida garden do not become gargantuan. Plant after plant was eliminated due to their bulk in my tiny garden and the fact that the roses were filling the empty space on their own. So my cache of companions were few: Salvia farinacea, daylilies, Purple Coneflower, Dianthus chinensis, and this year dahlias. Admittedly, there are some that I haven't tried, but I got gun-shy. There are a few that reseed, returning in winter or early, early spring like nigella ‘Love in a Mist’ and larkspur, but they’re done in by the heat eventually and are gone by June.

Last year I went nuts with Purple Coneflower seeds, and when the seedlings sprouted I was so covetous of them that I barely thinned them, not realizing these babies would grow into beasts 15” in diameter (and more) with a root system even broader and reaching for China. The lovely non-rhizome-spreading Salvia farinacea is a reseeder as well but in the current season. Though easily thinned, it can fill a bed if left alone. The thrill of spring became the wonderment of mid-summer and the terror of fall.

Now, the cottage gardener would love this bed, but upon hearing that there's a 4-1/2 by 6 foot rose bush in there the rose gardener would have heart failure.

When I was taking these 'before' shots back in mid-October after my summer hiatus, I was stunned by the density of the companion plants. The liriope had become huge; the salvia with glorious abandon had spread everywhere even overtaking the Purple Coneflower plants. By the way there are three rose bushes in there.

This is 'White Maman Cochet' no doubt struggling to breathe.

The pulling began shyly at first. The sweet purple flower stalks were so lovely.

Then reality hit home. If there's no light, there's no life, and I found lots of deadwood at the bottom of WMC. The short greenery is weeds. Apparently, they don't need light. The larger leaves on the right are young Purple Coneflower plants, raring to go.

Believe it or not 'Madame Antoine Rebe' is actually blooming under that pile of companions - even the 'Aaron' caladiums gave up the fight.

Here's the opposite angle.

'Souvenir de St. Anne's' was originally planted too close to 'White Maman Cochet' which was bad enough, but then the daylily grew and the coneflowers grew and she is fighting for her space.

My attitude finally became 'take no prisoners', and I think WMC is happier already.

She has a few blooms and buds and a very strong will.

There are a few salvias in the middle that I didn't have the heart to pull. Maybe I'll be able to tuck them in somewhere. Kept under control they are my preferred in-the-ground companion now.

I added more space to the back of the bed, meaning I pulled up the weed cloth, broke up the compacted sand, threw in some Sphagnum peat moss, bagged soil, Milorganite and alfalfa and trusted that liriope isn't as nutritionally demanding as roses) and moved three of the 'Super Blue' liriope along the new back line.

I stuck coneflowers and salvias in between the liriope. I hate to throw away plants.

Don't mean to cause eye strain, but I just had to include this near-dark last shot of the day. The Program setting on the camera made light where there was no light, but the camera just could not focus on what it couldn't see. These are the coneflower plants I salvaged. I think there are six. Several small ones were thrown away. Oh, the pain. My plan for next season is to keep them in pots and scatter them throughout the garden. Requiring a shovel and several deep cuts around the rootball, these are impossible to pull by hand. They have grand root systems. Mother Nature can be very proud. Of course, there will also be the seeds from this year that will be sprouting from now on. Must stay on top of those.

'White Maman Cochet' does have some new growth after last month's feeding but nowhere near what she would have had with more light and less root competition. Poor thing.

Here is 'Madame Antoine Rebe'. She has struggled since her move to this bed in early spring but looks amazingly well considering her environment for the last few months. Unfortunately, she's one-third the size she was back in February.

David Austin's 'Tradescant' will be planted in here soon, and 'Souvenir de St. Anne's' will be moved over.

Overplanting with companions had its negative effects elsewhere in the garden. I believe these are six - no, seven - Penta plants put in on June 28th for fill in the 'Le Vesuve' center bed. My poor 'Le Vesuve' has had a terrible year of dieback to the extent that recently I was giving strong consideration to replacing him with 'Belinda's Dream'.

Gone now are the Pentas. The Purple Coneflowers would have been, too, if I had had my shovel.

This photo says a thousand words to me. Look how far the bush extends past the right edge (rear) of the bed, and look how far away from the front edge he grew - or rather didn't grow. He did try to put on new growth, but most of it died. Those pentas were just sucking up the nutrients and pushing back the rose's toes

Here's a shot from the other side. You can see there's not much bush on the right side, and look at that huge clump of coneflowers. Not thinning seedlings to one individual is a dereliction of a Florida gardener's duty. Companions are lovely, but roses come first.

This photo from directly behind and back near the house shows that 'Le Vesuve' is a very one-sided bush. The left side even extends beyond the photo frame. How sad for him, but at least he survived. Roses really are tough.

And this June 28th photo says it all! 'Le Vesuve' was a balanced bush back then with many more canes than today. However, his decline had already started on the left side due to the coneflower plants, I'm sure. I only added to his problems with the addition of the pentas. Apparently, the salvia on the right is a less intrusive plant and less demanding of nutrients than the coneflowers and the pentas which grew to almost three feet tall. I'll be putting daylilies back along the edges.

I will be much more conservative about my companion planting in the future. Perhaps in other regions/climates where these perennials are not so robust and the soil is richer they would not pose the same threat to roses as they have in my garden. Naturally, even in Florida a larger garden would be effected less, assuming the gardener didn't get greedy (who me?) and plant too far under the roses' canopy. The daylilies do not seem to have this deleterius effect, thankfully. Perhaps I can use the pentas in pots, too, maybe even partially sinking them in the soil - or not. And maybe the restrictions of the pot will limit their size. At any rate this year has been another learning season filled with as much fretting as the previous ones - different year, different problems. I am grateful to the true Master Gardener for these opportunities to learn, and I should pray to become a better student.