A gardening brother on the other side of the gulf

I found a blog this evening and immediately thought of all of my Florida garden blog friends. The blog is called TROPICAL TEXANA: Texas Gulf Coast. I dare you to click the link and not think you’re in Florida! So for that reason I'm adding it to my Florida Blog Roll. A quick run-through of this interesting blog revealed that David is the blogger and he doesn’t grow roses. So sad. I had high hopes of finding another humid zone 9 rosarian, but I guess we’re as rare as hen’s teeth. Oh, that reminds me! He has chickens!! I even saw one in David’s house inspecting the Norfolk Island Pine Christmas tree. I hope you’ll check out David’s blog. It’s full of bromeliads and other tropicals that I can’t grow but you southerners can.



By the way I think the Norfolk Island Pine is a brilliant idea. I’ve been really bah-humbug this year and haven’t put up a tree or decorated. It wears me out just thinking about it, but David’s Norfolk Island Pine inspired me…if Lowe’s or Home Depot has one to buy…now. I need a quickie Christmas redo since I’m having everyone over on Christmas Day and having nothing Christmas-y just doesn’t seem right. Trying to stay mellow and anxiety-free this Christmas season has merely meant opting out for me, and now with days to go I’m feeling like opting back in. I have become really ambivalent about this wonderful season meant for celebrating my Savior’s birth. Sadly and invariably, I experience less savior and more stress. It’s just occurring to me that doing nothing is not the answer to doing too much which I used to do with incredibly disastrous results. Happy mediums have never been my strong suit, being naturally inclined to be either way over there or way over there. Avoiding Christmas Eve conniptions has become my holiday goal, so I have adopted a laissez-faire attitude. Well, I’m only 61, so I’ve still got time to get this right.

I do have some lovelies to share from yesterday’s gorgeous sunny-blue-sky walk through the garden. Here goes.

'Shooting Star' Hydrangea from Publix. Took me two seconds to decide to pay the $19.99.

On the right is 'Polonaise'.

A big fat 'Mrs. B. R. Cant' bud and my new Camelia sasanqua 'Stephanie Golden'

A honey bee enjoying the echinacea and the lovely 'Bow Bells'

'Le Vesuve' still outdoing herself and 'Etoile de Mai' finally being yellow rather than white. Gee, these photos are way out of proportion. 'Le Vesuve' is big, and EdM is small!

'Anda' is always really red, and 'Clotilde Soupert' is pinker than ever.

'Mme Abel Chatenay' still blooming but starting to lose leaves for her dormancy, and the incomparable 'White Maman Cochet'

Surprisingly the echinacea is still blooming, and I just bought seeds for more varieties.

On the right 'Climbing Maman Cochet' is getting huger and huger.

'Reve d'Or' - Flowers are so big this time of year, but I think I missed most of her recent flush.

Silly 'Louis Philippe'. This one is in too much shade. Wouldn't you know, he's blooming on his shady side. I guess he likes socializing with the Impatiens. Have a peaceful week before Christmas, all. I know I'm trying to.

Darkness is almost suffocating

My work days have been extra long for a couple of weeks, and on top of that there’s been Christmas shopping straight from work on two evenings this week. I was thinking this evening while cleaning up the kitchen – I’m officially tired. There are still plenty of flowers in my garden. I know they’re there because all week I have seen them while running out to the car in the morning. Unfortunately, that’s been the only time I’ve seen them. I feel like when I get home someone has slipped a bag over my head. My eyes widen at the thought of not being able to go outside and see what’s there, straining to fend off the dark somehow. Last evening while taking Ellie out, I took the flashlight with me to catch a glimpse of newly planted ‘Mary Rose’, but the weak shaft of light offered only a mere confirmation that she was still there. I couldn’t see if there were new leaf buds, more leaves and not even more height. But these are some of the roses I see in the morning.

'Madame Abel Chatenay' still pumping out big blooms

'Clotilde Soupert'

'White Maman Cochet'

'White Maman Cochet'

'Bermuda's Anna Olivier'

Hydrangea 'Sister Theresa'

'Marchesa Boccella'

When the light gets so dim that the camera can’t focus, the desperate rosarian uses the flash... but it's not the same. I miss my roses!!!

Climbing trees

On Sunday I did stuff that I had been putting off. Stuff that involved a ladder, a grabber, loppers and a shovel. Loppers and a shovel in a rose garden can't be good. I have been ambivalent about two roses (probably more than two but we're not going there), and two days ago, having moved a good sized Hydrangea paniculata 'Pinky Winky' and removed Rosa 'Fellemberg' from the garden, my momentum built to a point where I could say, "Let's do it."

The first dreaded chore was dealing with 'Francois Juranville'. Almost two years in the ground, this rose is a rambler (translation: a big honking climber) and a once-bloomer (but possibly a repeater in Florida). He's growing on an 8' tall and 8' wide homemade rebar arbor. Here he is on May 2nd.

When I chose him, I didn't care that he may only bloom once in the spring. I just wanted something that would cover this arbor which is in partial shade. FJ fit the bill. He had grown up 8', then across 8', and was very close to growing all the way down again 8' which really wasn't too attractive. A rose will be what it is genetically supposed to be without regard for a gardener's poor planning - or non-planning. However, my goal with this rose was always to let him grow up into the oak trees, eventually causing them to be in bloom when their branches are covered with Francois Juranville's flowers. How cool!

Well, gravity had something to say about letting him grow up into the trees. Francois needed assistance in becoming upwardly mobile. So on Sunday I got out the ladder and DH's grabber and worked at inserting his lengthy canes up into the trees, trying to persuade them to hook onto something besides me.

So now he's up in the trees. The interesting and mind-blowing thing about this rambler is that each of these dozen or more 20-plus-foot-long canes will bring forth multiple side-shoots of equal length, and that each of them will do the same, and on and on. This is commonly known as a house-eater. Before planting such a rose do ascertain that there is ample real estate that it can call its own. You can be sure of one thing - the fact that you don't have ample real estate will not prevent the rose from taking whatever you do have. I figure he can have all of that tree canopy that he can cover.

Which brings me to the tale of the loppers and 'E. Veyrat Hermanos', a climbing Tea from 1895 that I was growing on a long, high trellis on my property line, eight feet from the house. I grow 'Maman Cochet, Climbing' this way, and she handles it well, having stiff canes that support her tree-like canopy. EVH is different - not as stiff but just as heavy as 'Maman Cochet, Cl' and not as flexible and pliable as 'Reve d'Or'. He flopped instead of holding his canes up in the air. Since I was unable to construct a proper pergola for him to climb up and cover, he simply poured down on both sides of the trellis. The only means left to me for controlling him was to cut his canes, lightening them enough so that they sprang up above head-high. Sad to say, this is not the proper treatment for this rose since it destroyed its natural shape and growth habit. I blew it. This photo shows the 5-ft wide path inundated with rose canes, a path that no one but me was silly enough to tread.

I knew of someone in South Florida growing EVH on a 12'x20' pergola which the rose covered handily. One might think that would be sufficient warning, but a newbie is ignorant  and even sometimes unteachable. So the day of reckoning came on Sunday despite my sincere and numerous plans to build a structure more suitable for this humongous rose - a rose which had not been much more than a spring bloomer much bothered by thrips and balling.

Once again the camera arrived after half of one side was already cut away.

Going, going

Gone

The sheer volume of this rose was more than I could physically handle, demanded more real estate than I had to give, and almost did me in when cutting it down. Those loppers get heavy towards the end of the second hour of use. Have you figured out the moral of this story? Put succinctly, I must not bite off more than I can chew. 

A garden and the gardener can be overwhelmed if attention is not paid to the growth habit and eventual size of a rose bush and/or climber, especially in a warm climate with an extended growing season. If the words 'house eater' or 'monster' ever enter the conversation, gardeners be warned. Unless you have acreage and plan to let the rose grow naturally into a mounding thicket, much time and labor will be expected of you in order to train a plant like this into the civilized thing of beauty of your dreams.

With roses as with battles discretion is the better part of valor, especially for beginners. Of course, it's easy enough to cut down and dig up a rose that turns out badly, but think of all the time and effort wasted on the wrong rose when the right one could still be growing, blooming and looking beautiful.

Some rain-soaked lovelies

I went for a quick walk in the back garden with camera in hand and found some surprises.

'Indy Snowfall' just starting to bloom with hopefully many more to follow.

Mr. Spider (don't know his real name) lounging and/or lying in wait on 'Souv de la Malmaison'

Rain lilies a little beaten down but still beautiful

'Borderer' getting ready again

'Polonaise' full of new growth and flower buds

'Marchesa Bocella' and benefactor - The rose is a Damask Perpetual from 1842.

Stop the world!  'Jaune Desprez' has her first flower!!  A Noisette climber from 1830 planted here in September, 2009 and said to be slow to get going.  I'll say!

Let me catch my breath! A blooming Foxglove! Quite late but I'm not complaining. Can you see the brown stump of the central stalk courtesy of the stupid  squirrel(s)?

Curly flower stems? The chewed-off stalk is left of center above the flower.

One of my lupines still green and living but small and not a flower in sight.

This is several plants of  'Periwinkle' aka Vinca, a little bowled over by the downpour. Please note that it is not growing in the amended and watered bed but in the 1" deep gravel over weedcloth and only rooted above the cloth. When standing upright, it's almost 2' tall. It reseeds and gets big in this spot every year, blocking the path but that's OK. It used to reseed all over the back garden but not since all the beds are under irrigation. I think it's beautiful, and seedlings are still popping up elsewhere - in the gravel. It has died quickly when I planted it in a bed.

Remember my former eyesore? No longer an eyesore but not blooming either. Maybe 'Penny Mac' doesn't bloom until the second year?

'Duchesse de Brabant' - a Tea rose from 1857

'Blush Noisette' bearing beautiful buds. She's a Noisette from 1814.

 Between the rain and all these surprises I'm just plain flabbergasted but not exactly speechless.