Yesterday Ellie was 15

Ellie is our Brittany. I didn't post to this blog yesterday because she was happier with me on the couch next to her. Ellie's formerly orange cheeks have faded to white, and she has many fears that plague her. She has always been strong willed, and when I think about it, I'm sure we have not shaped her will one little bit. She is the sweetest companion and will nuzzle our faces and lean her head hard into out chests - as close to hugging as a dog can get, I guess. We've often feared that her fears would be the death of her. Since she was two, she has been beset with stuff that makes her incredibly anxious - separation, fireworks, thunder, rain, beeps, smoke alarms (those terrorize me, too), noises on TV, and very recently riding in the car. She wants to flee, to escape the fear or the thing causing the fear, so we have to hold her until the issue passes.

 

She's been on Prozac for a few months. I'm not sure it has made much difference except that her tail doesn't wag as much, and mostly it stays in the tucked position, but an occasional half of a Valium for acute situations gives her back her happy wagging tail. Don't know why. These medications were a last resort because my DH needed surgery in Tampa, and she and I would have to stay with sister-in-law and brother-in-law for several days. We had to do something for the two hour car ride and possible episodes at their house. It turned out she was the perfect house guest while I was at the hospital all day. They enjoyed her the way we do.

The following photos were taken five years ago. When she is outside, she has no time for relationships. She is all about the hunt, always on the alert and ready to run. Even now she loves to run, just a little bit slower and in shorter spurts, huffing and heaving, scaring her mother to death that she's about to have a heart attack. A harness worked better to stop her from pulling. She seemed to resist pressure around her neck, and no amount of choking would dissuade her. Poor parenting? We did try. I guess we're just not alphas.

Her full registered name is Lady Elgin Escapement. DH used to repair clocks and watches, so when he gave in to my demand to get her, he said, "OK, but I get to name her. Lady Elgin, a watch dog." We added the second name because of the ability she has to escape crates. She hates them and will put her body through any pain and abuse to get out of those things. We resorted to cable ties for the nine months she had to stay in one during the day. An escapement is part of the mechanism of clocks and watches.

 She is the strongest 38 pound dog that ever lived - IMHO.

Here she is with her brother, Pepper, a Standard Poodle, who passed away last April. He was the dearest boy. We still miss him. This is his glamor shot.

 And here's Ellie's. I have a feeling this post has a sad feeling. Saying goodbye is not something I look forward to, naturally, and I know that day grows closer.

Garden work

As usual, I didn't get done what I thought I wanted to do, but I did get stuff done. I put out the epsom salts in the back and side gardens and some of the front before I ran out. I will have to run out tomorrow and get some more. I have found that Walgreens has the best price. I paid $2.99 on sale for a 6 lb bag of very fine crystals that are easier to apply than the kind from the garden stores. I also put out sulfur on my lime-y back garden. I went to Seminole Feed to get it today and there decided to buy the wettable sulfur (very fine powder) in a 25 lb bag for $20.99 (cheaper than 4 lb of large granules for $8.99) since I've read that the finer it is the faster it lowers the pH. Just be careful not to breathe it. I did the front garden a few weeks ago with the large granule soil sulfur, so we'll see if I can see any difference. Oh, I also got a 50 lb bag of alfalfa pellets. Good stuff!!

I also moved 'Madame Scipion Cochet' out of her pot and into the ground. I should have taken a photo of this Hybrid Perpetual rose bush. She is leafless (well, there was one yellow one which I removed), but she has lots of swollen budeyes. I'm very curious about how this rose is going to grow. Her canes go out and around, or that's the way it seems so far. I also moved 'Martha Gonzales' from a 3-gallon nursery pot into a nice heavy ceramic pot that's taller and wider. This means I have only one rose in a pot that needs to be in the ground...er, at least until next weekend. That's when three new roses are coming home with me. 'Lilian Austin', 'Cl Clotilde Soupert' and 'Souv de St Anne's'. Hopefully, I'll get them in the ground the same day but maybe not.

While I was out today, I went to a nursery to get some Evergreen Giant Liriope, but instead I did a risky thing. I bought an azalea for the spot - a $9.99 azalea to be exact. Thankfully, azaleas have shallow root systems, and hopefully, the roots of this bush won't go much farther than the 16" or so that I dug down, removing the powdery fine, light gray sand that I know is bad for azaleas. The spot is right at the base of an oak tree, so I had to dig around the roots with my glove-covered fingers to get out as much bad stuff as I could. Then I sprinkled some sulfur around, added peat moss (unfortunately already pH adjusted up) and composted manure to the bottom, then filled the rest with newly amended, old amended soil that I had removed from the hole and, of course, put the azalea in the middle. This azalea is a 'Duc de Rohan'. A few weeks back I had scribbled its name on a stickie note by my computer after reading good things about it. It's a salmon pink flower, and the tag says it blooms from November to February in Florida. Maybe that's why I wanted it. I can't remember now. It's a long bloom time for an azalea. The plant I bought had spent blooms on it as well as open flowers and buds, so maybe I can believe the tag.

This area of the garden needed an evergreen bush, because there are four hydrangeas in this bed which are bare for an awfully long time. I will say though that I am starting to admire their silvery grayish branches that practically glisten when the light is right, especially the 'Limelight' hydrangea paniculata.

Oh, and I replaced the leaky hose that ran from the hose bib to the timer with 1/2" poly and two hose-end adapters. So now that section of the garden can be watered automatically again instead of using the hose and 10x more water! Of course, how much easier it would have been to have done it this way to begin with, but, alas, I didn't know what hose-end adapters were for. What can I say?

Got a few hours?

And do you love rose photos? Well, do I have a website for you! I'll just give you the bait and let you run with it. Cass's Garden with Roses is in Mill Valley, California, and she's a lovely (in all ways) rosarian. You can thank me later.

About this time of year...

I look out at my mess of a garden that has been made so ugly by nature while also thinking of all the work that goes along with spring in a garden, and my heart sags as if already bearing the fatigue that is coming, weighed down by the seemingly endless back-breaking tasks that are required to make the garden healthy and beautiful - again. I don't know the psychology behind the human tendency to despair. It's just the opposite of the optimism of The Little Engine That Could. When I look out at the dismal sight that is my garden, I'm not thinking "I think I can I think I can." I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, what was I thinking? This garden was a colossal mistake."

This is how I react to pressure and overload. I think defeated thoughts even before the battle is joined. I'm immobilized for a time not knowing exactly which huge first step to take. Invariably, however, I take that step and the next and the next. I don't think I know what it is that makes me take those steps. Is it the human spirit, my spirit or God's spirit? Oh, gee, there's my answer.

Let me back up a bit. My original thought for this blog was to say it will all work out in the end. That is to say that God has always made it work out for me in the end. So I should have more faith and a positive, joyful attitude at the beginning, celebrating, if you will, in advance what He will do. However, the previous paragraph took an unexpected turn for me. As many times as I have accomplished big things and thanked God for His provision and enablement at the end, I always still start out with a defeated spirit. Oh, sure, this wasn't a problem in the first couple of years of the garden maybe because all was accomplished with raw energy and sheer adrenalin. That was human (not to diminish the divine inspiration on many levels), but the maintenance of this garden has seemed to be a different matter. Is it a different matter? What is the difference?

Perhaps it is simply the curse of work, day in and day out, the sweat of the brow thing. That attitude, my attitude is wrong. I'm feeling cursed when I should feel blessed. I should take heed of Colossians 3:23, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord..." OK, there it is. It's His garden anyway. It's all His. How cool! I'm the gardener in God's garden. My work will produce a garden that will please its Owner, and He will be pleased when His blooms cover His rose bushes.

So, as is often the case, motivation is the critical factor. Am I working hard simply to make roses grow and bloom? Then no wonder I'm despondent when their nature cycles to barrenness. Why do I garden? To say I do it for God sounds overly pious and is untrue. OK, the truth is that I haven't been doing it for God. I've been doing it for me mostly. Maybe it would be good if each time I went out into the garden, I knew my purpose for being there. Kind of a get-my-priorities-straight moment as I go out the door, a moment of direct contact with Him before I begin. Yes, and a moment even now to acknowledge that my perspective needs to change if I expect to find joy and optimism instead of despair and dread. Thank you, Lord. I didn't know this would be what I would write here, but You knew it was what I needed to hear.

Daylily Hunting

I could easily be daylily-obsessed were it not for their prices, but there are enough evergreen or semi-evergreen reblooming daylilies out there priced under $10 a piece for me to be nearly obsessed. I just spent about two hours going through the list on a website I had not seen before where the prices were pretty good with many under $8. Like roses, I move back and forth between tabs, trying to find more information on the ones I think are pretty not realizing I am sitting here with my neck and shoulders becoming more and more knotted up. It just shows that any kind of shopping is a painful endeavor. Here are two of my beauties.

Well, I didn't pull the trigger on the order. Too tired to make a decision. Plus this seller doesn't ship until April 25th. That's too long to wait. I'm not very patient, am I?

Besides shopping I was sowing tonight. Most of my warm season seeds are now done except for some I will do directly in pots. Seeds sown tonight are Mealy Blue Sage (I hope this is the one that I love that's already in my garden), Dahlberg Daisy, Coreopsis lanceolata, Red Pirouette Petunia, Rosemary, Dwarf Red Plains Coreopsis, Calendula 'Apricot Daisy', Purple Coneflower, 'Purity' Zinnia, Petunias Double Cascade Orchid Mist and Burgundy, 'Royal Bride' Antirrhinum, Hulk Aster, 'The Bride' Gaura, 'Summer Carnival' Hollyhock, Daddy Mix Petunia, Fairy Wand, and Aladdin Yellow Petunia. I planted them in two huge rectangular aluminum baking pans and a leftover aluminum turkey roasting pan. I've got my mini "greenhouse" from Harbor Freight set up in the dining room with lights, so we're off to the races. This is my third real attempt at seeds, so I'm hoping experience will bring success. I feel more confident this time anyway.

Spring Training

My very sports-minded DH said to me last night, "Your long layoff makes 'spring training' rough, huh?" Oh, yeah! Saturday's efforts in the garden rewarded me with very sore muscles in the backs of my thighs...the kind that you have to sit down on so gently or they yell at you. I'm still stiff now - two days later, and getting out of bed this morning caused a few groans. I'm not one for exercising, but I've been thinking about it. This aging business keeps coming up, doesn't it? Funny thing. I was telling a friend last week how nice the lady at Lowe's was for going back to get a great big bag of potting soil for me. She slung it up on her shoulder and away she went. "And she was an older woman," I said before realizing the truth. "Gee, she was probably younger than I am." My friend, two years my junior, quickly replied, "yeah, we forget we're not young anymore."

My point is not to be depressing but rather to remind everyone to be careful in the garden this spring. Lugging heavy bags of soil, digging holes, reaching awkwardly all can result in a wrenched back or twisted knee so easily. Watch where you step and how you step -- and how you lift. Stretching warm-ups probably would be a good idea. Perhaps start now walking regularly to get those muscles back in shape and the juices flowing again. Once we get out of shape it's harder to get back in shape, and the activities we never thought twice about may now get us in trouble. All is not lost though. Look at Jack LaLanne, who passed away today at 96. We can stay fit and able to do the gardening that we love. We just have to be smart about it. After all, one of the perks of aging is wisdom.

P.S. That's Duchesse de Brabant, a tea rose bred in France in 1857. How amazing that exactly the same rose grows in my garden in 2011.

Cloves! And other garden surprises

Facing up to competing priorities is difficult, but I did it today and was happy with my decision. I attended the January meeting of the Marion County Rose Society (my poor track record has been one meeting per year) which meant no work in the garden today. We were treated to an excellent speaker and Power Point presentation on fertilizer with bonuses of delicious food, raffle prizes and, of course, good company. Many new members made for an almost full house. If you're within a county or two of Ocala, you ought to check out the link in the sidebar for upcoming events and meeting places. Next month's meeting is the pruning demonstration. Rose people are truly the nicest you'll ever meet.

I did manage to throw on DH's jacket over my pajamas (nobody else does that, right?) and get out to take some photos on this chilly day. It all started with the Stock beside the sidewalk. It appeared to have a fresh flower on it. Hmm, I thought, they're supposed to be fragrant. Let me check this out. Now this plant is only 8" tall, so getting down on both knees on the sidewalk was a risky maneuver, but it worked out OK - and was definitely worth the effort. Wow! That flower was like sticking my nose in a can of ground cloves! Wonderful! These plants were from Lowe's, but I have planted several seedlings of Double White Stock (Matthiola) that I bought online from Monticello, Jefferson's home. They're supposed to be 36" tall so they'll be easier on the knees.

Another surprise was this cute Lupin 'Tutti Frutti' seedling. I have no idea what shape it will grow into but these little leaves are darling.

'Maman Cochet' gave me a shocker with a basal break 3" above the mulch. Lots of other new growth popping, too (and on other roses). Poor things have no clue that we still have to get through February.

But the pièce de résistance was 'Rose de Rescht'. This little guy went into a big purple pot in November.

And look at him today, boasting three new canes from the soil and a basal break.

I guess the garden appreciated the three inches of rain on Thursday night. Me, too.