New project: fish pond

I’ve always wanted a fish pond, but I was younger then.

It's right off the back patio. This part was easy. Since I was conserving energy by not pushing the gravel any farther than I had to at this stage, the bricks are just to keep the gravel from falling in. It's a "new" secondhand 200-gallon kit I found on the local forsaledotcom for 40 bucks. Trying to go cheap.

Another view, mess included.

I really like this view.

And then I started digging. Sometime about now (after 3 or 4 barrowfuls) was when I said to myself, "I don't want to do this anymore." Typical.

Roots!!!

Done for the day. The experience was very much like going to the dentist.

I should have been making room for roses or planting some or something else on the existing garden to-do list. Instead, I went off on this tangent. All I can say is, "Sherry, I hope you pull it off, and it's really spectacular...and pretty."

And just for beauty’s sake…

Clematis 'Henryii'

David Austin's 'Bow Bells' (1991)

Griffith Buck's 'Quietness' (2003)

Scipion Cochet's 'Maman Cochet' (1892)

Benjamin R. Cant's 'Mrs. B. R. Cant' (1901)

Jean Desprez's 'Marchesa Boccella' (1842)

Peter Lambert's 'Leonie Lamesch' (1899)

Peter Henderson's 'White Pet' (1879)

Roses & pots

You can thank Cyd for this post. She was so taken with them that two days after her visit she called and said my next post should be on the potted roses. Being easily led and very open to good suggestions, I have done as I was told. There’s just one catch. I have no great how-to lesson to pass on. And I will tell you that I have read absolute statements that roses can not be grown organically in pots! What can I say? I guess the following photos are figments of our imaginations.

I have three thoughts that may explain my success…well, maybe four. First, the roses themselves. There have been rejects, but the ones you see here are great in my garden. Second, Milorganite. Someone needs to write a love song about sewage sludge so I can sing it. Third, composted horse manure. And fourth, using organics eliminates the salts of chemical fertilizers which over time accumulate and do damage to plant life.

Roses look best – in the ground and in pots – with leaves on them. Good foliage comes from good health. Good health is mostly genetic and depends on your location. When I selected the roses for my front circle, it was based solely on the recommendations of the owner (Linda at the time) of Rose Petals Nursery. She was mostly right. My failures were mini roses. The successes are polyanthas. Well, heck, one is a mini, but it must be an exceptional one, and one of the not-so-successful ones is a polyantha. So much for hard rules. Size does matter unless your pot is a hot tub. A rose that wants to be six feet tall and wide does not belong in a pot.

'Lauren' (on the left) and 'Sweet Chariot'

The reason “they” say you can’t grow roses organically in pots is that maintaining microbial life in artificial conditions is difficult and eventually probably impossible. In the ground nature is constantly moving and shaking, consuming and replenishing. In a pot the normal consuming works fine, but the replenishing doesn’t always. Periodically – three, four years? – they say the rose must be unpotted and repotted with new soil (I haven’t done that yet) unless (keeping my fingers crossed) you get really lucky with your organic amendments (still hoping) and are diligent about your replenishing duties. You see, you have taken on Mother Nature’s job in the little world of your potted rose. I use a complete organic rose food. I didn’t say completely – though it is – but rather complete in that it includes the whole spectrum of nutrients – major, minor, all of them that roses need and in the right proportions. (I use this because that’s what I was told to do.)  I also use Milorganite in goodly quantities which will not burn the plant and is basically timed-release. It feeds the organisms and gives a clarion call to all earthworms in the vicinity which, of course, aerate the soil and leave their poop (more organics) everywhere they go. I also use alfalfa which is really hormonally good stuff for roses and organic. And last but not least, composted horse manure which is naturally full of live organisms and periodically adding it to the pot provides the army of microbes that will consume the organic matter (that you will replace), converting it into a form of nutrition that roses can utilize. I don’t want this part to discourage you. CHM is what I use (mostly because it’s free for me), but it isn’t the only compost that can be used. The important thing is that the compost must have life and air in it - no air, no life. By the way, good compost does not stink. It smells like soil, good old fashioned, healthy (for plants) dirt. Or maybe it won’t smell at all. Or maybe like urine, but don’t tell that to the scaredy cats. I can hear them now, "Eeewww!"

'Sweet Chariot' is a magnificent rose. Not quite purple in color, it is fragrant (I know this for a fact after weeding next to her last weekend) and a prolific bloomer. Today she was a bit past her peak but still beautiful.

She is so healthy and green. Pretty much no black spot. Of course, she will cycle through a period of dropping old leaves that have yellowed but that's life, and we all have to get over it.

The poor thing is lopsided since mama hasn't been good about rotating her. Like a houseplant, garden plants grow toward the light. I'm not positive about the size of the pot. Maybe about 16" diameter, 10-gallons, but that's a guess. That's probably the minimum you'd want to use unless it's going to be a small rose when it grows up. This one is about 3-1/2 feet tall including the pot and about as wide.

'Lauren' grows a little taller. She's about 4-1/2 feet tall including the pot, and she is here way past peak and needs deadheading and feeding. For these polyanthas I remove the whole cluster back to the next budeye/leafset since I want to keep them fairly compact. I'm not looking to see how huge I can grow them in these little pots. I want them to be "in balance", copasetic, in tune with their true nature as potted roses. No, they don't do yoga. I'm just tryin' to be cool and not kill them.

'Anda' is the not-so-successful polyantha to which I referred earlier. Well, I see on HMF that she's half floribunda, so that may explain her weakness for black spot. It's not an awful weakness, but I have become so used to looking past her that I probably overlook her neediness, too. She may just be demanding more food, and I keep saying I'm going to give it to her, and then I forget. Mother Nature wouldn't do such a thing.

Her big clusters of single red blooms are my weakness, so I keep her. None of us is perfect, right?

'Softee' is the successful miniature to which I referred earlier. She's green, green, green, covers herself with pale yellow flowers, pretty much deadheads herself, and is thornless. She finished blooming not too long ago and has leafed out, raring to go again.

Apologies for the bright western sun. She is so bushy - take my word for it.

'White Pet' aka 'Little White Pet' is very healthy and becomes one big pompom - or almost - at peak bloom.

This year she has thrown two long canes, much longer than previous growth. She has a slight fragrance.

And she has prickles, sharp ones. Here you can see the two longer canes.

She, too, is lopsided, growing more toward the southwest.  She doesn't bat an eye at the heat. I have another 'White Pet' in the back garden planted in the ground.

Look at that...a red, white and blue bed.

'Marchesa Boccella' is a Damask Perpetual which I had always assumed was disease prone, so I've been amazed at how healthy it is in my garden. However, upon reading the HMF description (hadn't I read it before? or did I just not believe it?), I find that she's "very disease resistant". We can all vouch for that now, can't we? And it also says "shade tolerant". Voila! She's in a lot of shade!

She had a lovely flush recently, still has three open flowers & more buds. An excellent, fragrant rose!

Another 'Sweet Chariot' (center pot) and a 'Red Drift' are on the back patio. The Drift roses (I have four, two red and two peach) are completely healthy so far, growing well and blooming a lot.

Here's the other 'Red Drift' and behind it, my potted 'Pink Gruss an Aachen' which is not doing as well as the one in the ground to the right of 'Red Drift' in the photo above this one. I theorize that it needs more of something than I am giving it - whatever that is. She stays without question, however, because of her totally gorgeous and lusciously fragrant blooms...plus she usually looks better than this.

'Pat Austin' is new to the garden this spring. I was advised to put her in a pot because she's "iffy" and "weak". Maybe so, but her blooms are neither iffy nor weak. They are drop-dead gorgeous - and shades of orange. And I don't even like orange.

Do not be alarmed by the fact that the following photos are unrelated to the current topic. They’re here because they are beautiful – to me, anyway.

No, I didn't forget to rotate my tulips photo. For one thing they're not tulips. They're 'Princess Diana' clematis growing outward from the obelisk in the front garden. Pretty amazing.

The buds of 'Madame Abel Chatenay' and the blue of Salvia farinacea. 'Clotilde Soupert' is in the background.

Mr. Bumble Bee adores Salvia farinacea, too. Boy, he was big!

'Absolute Treasure' may be on her way to being my new favorite daylily. I had to step into the bed to take her photo because she was bending low and facing/almost touching the potted rose on the patio. But I got her!!

My new 'Gruss an Teplitz' is blooming! Thank you, Cyd! But oh, how I wish reds wouldn't explode in my camera.

Spring continues to unfold

‘Serratipetala’ is a Found China Rose, discovered in France in 1912. Its flowers are so petite – an inch and a half across. The petals are serrated, and the blooms have a flat form that darken with age. What that means is that when I went back the next day, this flower was crimson with touches of pink. To me, it’s an incredibly interesting rose. Also incredible is the fact that it grows larger than both HMF and Vintage Gardens report. Mine is growing in a pot and not a large one, because I thought it would be a diminutive, three-feet tall rose bush. I’ve been thinking of putting ‘Serratipetala’ in the ground, but every place I consider may not be big enough. After all, if it grows to a 5x5 bush in a pot, what will it do with the blank check offered by good old terra firma? Another gardening unknown to wrestle with.



Seemingly bunches of daylilies are sporting flower buds. Oh, be still my heart. Some of them are newcomers, and I don’t even know what I’m getting excited about because I have forgotten who they are without my cheat-sheet. It’s simply hard for me to believe that spring is on the move.





‘Mrs. B R Cant’ is beautiful again. She’s not a typical delicate Tea Rose but a sturdy, robust one. Even her fragrance is strong. She has tough, pretty much disease-proof foliage, too. Beauty and brawn.




‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ has many buds and some flowers, too. This cluster was rather breathtaking to me.



A couple of days ago ‘Polonaise’ was looking like this. This evening there were two gorgeous open blooms. I went running in the house but not for the camera. I wanted DH to see these red roses. With long face and mumbled protests he came out…and enjoyed himself and the garden and the swing and the lovely cool evening in the shade of the oak tree. Some things are worth the effort. And that’s my long excuse for not having a photo of Polonaise’s first blooms.



The two big fat buds one over the other in the lower half of this photo were gloriously open today. I would suggest that you use your imagination, but you can’t even come close.



‘Richard’s Rose’ is a tiny, little bug-eaten thing, but he has a couple of new shoots and is putting up a good fight. I think I see evidence of a squirrel attack. I also think I should put up a defense perimeter around the little guy.



Right next to ‘Richard’s Rose’ is the bare-root “Pink Hollyhock” from Walmart. The other one I planted didn’t come up. I hope this is ‘Summer Carnival’ since other cultivars don’t stand much chance in Florida. This one looks like the Summer Carnivals that I’ve grown – so far.



A bud of ‘Marchesa Boccella'. I guess my hard pruning didn’t hurt her, and since she’s looking fairly bushy, I guess maybe it worked out okay. You can see her whole self in her purple pot below.




Here’s a volunteer from last year’s seed project whose name I can not remember. I think I have more in the front garden. How fitting! SDLM and Polonaise now occupy a red, white and blue bed. Well, in the heat of summer SDLM will be off-white anyway.



Now she’s gorgeous pale ‘baby pink’.



This ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ is now six feet wide, fitting from edge to edge in this bed, but she’s only about three feet tall and hardly thorny at all.



I’m really pleased with this ‘remodeled’ bed. You are free to use as much imagination as you need to picture Richard’s Rose, the hollyhocks and coreopsis, and the daylilies and purple coneflowers – in a few years – filling in between ‘Louis Philippe’ on the left and ‘Arcadia Louisiana Tea’ on the right. Packed in like sardines, aren’t they?


Referring to my cheat-sheet, this one is ‘Seductor’. Won’t be long. I’m going to try to count buds this year on the daylilies. I’m not really as compulsive as that may sound, merely curious.



‘Maman Cochet’ has a rather imperfect bud, perhaps from thrips. They’re baaaacck !! Crap-ola!



‘Maman Cochet’ (on the left) is looking much fuller already now that her new canes in the middle are taller. These bushes (‘General Schablikine’ is on the right) are about five and half feet tall, and this portion of the bed is about ten feet wide.



Here’s a close-up of the young canes in the upper left quadrant of ‘Maman Cochet’, showing flower buds already. When these flowers are spent, these canes will sprout new shoots from about two inches below these buds at the abscission point, and the rose will get taller in this way and make more flowers again at the ends of all that new growth. By the way, Maman is French for mother/mama. Monsieur Cochet was the breeder of this rose.



‘Maman Cochet’ is a huskier Tea Rose than ‘General Schablikine’ who has already had one basal break chewed off by an %^$## squirrel. These roses are three and a half years old, planted in September, 2008 and still quite juvenile in their maturity. The General definitely needs more basal breaks…and some barbed wire.



‘Maman Cochet’ is apparently an earlier bloomer than ‘General Schablikine’. Some Tea Roses definitely wait for hotter temps to start their blooming. Of course, YMMV.  he-he. Now that I know what that abbreviation means, it makes me chuckle. Your mileage may vary. Hmmm, garden mileage. It is rather variable, isn’t it? And I feel like some of us (moi?) have garden mileage envy. In reality, fast or slow our gardens should be accepted unconditionally and not judged against others. Gardens should be green…not gardeners.