Tools for the day: shovel & camera

She’s hard to see, but ‘Madame Antoine Rébé’ is in her new home in the driveway bed vacated today by the ‘Giant Apostle’s Iris’ that you can see in the background in the 20-gallon pot. Unbelievably, I had to remove a lot of white clay and nasty soil. The good stuff I added wasn’t very thick. I wondered if the limey clay is rising to the surface. Yikes!

She's at least six feet across which surprised me. Being right on the path in her former home, I never noticed how big she was. Hopefully, more sun will make her leafier.

I think the white hydrangea 'Sister Therese' will go to the right of the 'Merritt's Supreme' hydrangea, the 'Red Ruffle' azaleas will come forward with a few additional RRs from elsewhere, and daylilies will go along the edge.

'Madame Abel Chatenay'

'Clotilde Soupert' in front; back left to right: 'Lauren', 'Duquesa', and 'Hermosa'

'Clotilde Soupert'

Still lots of blooming.

'Sweet Chariot' in the pot, 'Duquesa' behind it, 'Lauren' in the other pot, to the right 'Souv de Francois Gaulain', 'Hermosa' and 'Clotilde Soupert'

'Enchantress'

'Souvenir de la Malmaison'

'Le Vesuve'

'Bermuda's Anna Olivier'

'Duquesa'

'Lauren' full of buds

'Duquesa'

'Bow Bells', the prize of the day!

'Madame Lombard'

'Madame Lombard'

'Madame Lombard'

'Madame Lombard'

Left to right: 'Bermuda's Anna Olivier', 'Duquesa' and 'Le Vesuve'

'Enchantress' blooming big but balling

Thought you needed another dose of 'Bow Bells'. (Sigh.)

'Etoile de Mai'

'La Sylphide'

'Maman Cochet'

Asiatic lily and 'Sister Therese' hydrangea.            Don't tell the armadillo, but the trap is now set up perfectly to catch him.   It helps to undo the latch.

Like rabbits

Frankly, the how-to was a bit iffy about getting the Giants out of the ground, and just so you know, that’s not a toy wheelbarrow. Whoever named this walking iris ‘Giant Apostle’s Iris’ must have been just as surprised as I upon seeing the magnitude of its growth. I wonder what this plant would look like in another nine months. On second thought no, I don’t even want to know. Thankfully, the root ball was pretty small compared to the above-ground portion of the plant. So I pushed the shovel in deep, stepped on the handle, and started to wrestle it toward the wheelbarrow. Just as I was figuring it wasn’t going to work, my foot inexplicably pushed down hard. Normally, uncontrolled body movements get me in trouble, but it was exactly what was called for here, because the giant lifted up, slid down the handle and out of the hole.



A 180 with the wheelbarrow easily put it where I could dissect it. But how? I always try to be gentle with plants and their roots, so I went in the house for a sharp knife.



Then shook out the dirt from the roots. I tried making a few cuts and pulling the thing apart but no success.



Then I grabbed the shovel. With great trepidation I set the blade in what seemed like a good place and slammed it with my foot. Then I slammed it again. Gosh, the giant was tough. I believe another slam was required and then some prying which truly sounded like tree limbs breaking. Finally, I had two pieces.



Those two became two more.



The one-gallon pots were ready.



This one had a sizable bunch of roots.



Added more soil and firmly packed it in.



Repeated this operation eight more times.



Very good! You get an A in arithmetic. This giant multiplied itself into nine good-sized plants. You might say it multiplied like rabbits. Kind of jungle-like, aren't they?



But there’s another one, remember? It dwarfed ‘Rita Sammons’, blocked the sun from her and surely must have been sucking up the water that she needed.



Out came the giant easy as pie - hmmm, if it was so easy, why is my back so stiff? -, leaving Rita somewhat visible with her few leaves. Hopefully, now she’ll get nice and leafy. She even has a pretty pink bud that the giant was hiding.



This one came apart in bigger pieces. I don’t know why except that there just didn’t seem to be convenient places to break him into smaller bites. So he became three big 2-1/2 gallon plants and three one-gallon plants, bringing the grand total of baby giants to twelve small and three large plants. The plan is to bring them to the Rose Society meeting next Sunday for the raffles. Well, maybe not all of them. That might be too much of a good thing.

Oh, there was one fan with one root laying on the ground when I was done. I stuck it in the shade bed in the sizable empty space left my Hydrangea ‘Pinky Winky’. I hope the giant isn’t quite so giant in the shade.

Now on to the pretty flowers. And many of the rose bushes are loaded with buds. Oh, goodie.



‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’                                         ‘Bermuda’s Anna Olivier’


‘Bow Bells’                                                               ‘Le Vesuve’


‘Le Vesuve’ again two times


‘Madame Abel Chatenay’                                  ‘White Maman Cochet’


‘White Pet’

‘Francois Juranville’ cascading

I’m fairly certain other gardeners don’t let him cascade off the arbor like this, but then they probably pay more attention to their gardens than I have lately. This scene struck me as rather idyllic when I walked through it with the camera. I’m not sure what I will do with FJ besides getting out the ladder again. I could trim him in the middle for pedestrian traffic (not much of that here) and leave the sides longish as well as sticking him up in the trees again. You can see that the first attempt was partially successful. Some canes did fall out of the tree, but most of what’s hanging is new growth.


In case you forgot ‘Francois Juranville’ is a once-blooming Rambler, having a huge flush in the spring – they say. Haven’t seen one yet, but this was only his first spring after planting. He had a few unimpressive flowers. Hopefully, next spring he’ll begin to strut his stuff a little better. I mainly just wanted something – anything - to cover that rebar arbor with green, so flowers in the spring are a bonus. FJ is very disease-resistant – even disease-free. And he has a long reach.


Here’s the land of the giants. The ‘Giant Apostle’s Irises’ are even more gigantic now. I really dread digging them up to divide them. They can’t stay there. They’re casting shade on two rose bushes like The Hulk. Gee, there is a color resemblance. Don’t know where I’ll put them given my small garden. They’re absolute devourers of real estate, and they better have a really impressive bloom next year or you know what will happen, don’t you? They’re decent structural plants but too reminiscent of yucca plants which I think are yucky. I do love their shade of green though. They make the ‘Periwinkle’ look sort of medium-sized even though it’s a good five feet across in this view. Gosh, what am I gonna to do with those things???

Ah-ha! Directly across the path from them is a vacant bed at the base of one leg of the rebar arbor, formerly the residence of 'Mme Scipion Cochet', the Hybrid Perpetual, who moved to Archer. It's five feet in diameter. I have a few other spots in mind, but probably not enough for all the little 'Giants' I'm going to have. Party favors, anyone?