Some glamour shots

The thing about glamour shots is that they are tight, zoomed-in shots that mostly exclude. I suppose every gardener dreams of whole garden glamour shots. Someday – maybe this spring, I hope – mine will be wide, all-inclusive ones. The very thought of it makes my heart skip. However, now in the dead of winter I only have small spots of glamour scattered around the garden. I always fear that tight shots give a false impression of my garden, and that if someone actually strolled through it after seeing a post like this, they’d think I had lied and wonder where all those beautiful roses are. Well, they’re there – a couple on this bush, one on that bush, mostly few and far between, but their scarcity only makes them more precious and makes me all the more impressed with a rose that can produce such beauty when all around it others are sleeping.

'Maggie' is coming into her own a year after being planted as a tiny rooted cutting. The cane that holds this bouquet is about 3-1/2 feet tall and vertical. Her flowers have no white or light pink in them. Unfortunately, the coloring in this photo is a figment of my camera's imagination, and I can't correct it, but this is her first such bloom cluster and I simply must post it. She is fastastically fragrant, too. Can't wait to see her growth this year.

The femme fatale of my garden is, of course, 'Souvenir de la Malmaison' .

SDLM cycles quickly from flush to flush, and I wouldn't be without her even if her ugly stage does at times tempt me to reduce her numbers from three to two or maybe even one. The ugly stage only lasts a matter of days, so I buck up and wait for the beauty to reappear almost magically.

When she re-clothes herself with deep green foliage and her big, round buds appear everywhere, I say to myself, "See! What were you thinking?"

'Le Vesuve' is definitely struggling with her health, and unfortunately, this gardener hasn't much of a clue as to why, but she has two blooms on her now. Somehow I managed to get the setting sun behind me in this photo. I can't figure out where the reflection is coming from.

Here's 'Maggie' again. Her color is a deeper crimson than in this photo..

Not a great pic of 'Clotilde Soupert', the bush. These all-white blooms are more summer-like and a little puzzling. Since her foliage is a bit yellowish perhaps she's showing her need for food. She's trying to flush with our recent warm weather, and I just don't think she's got enough energy to pull it off. Soon I'll be pruning her and the January feeding will be kicking in and she'll be off to the races. Of course, I could be totally wrong in my analysis - just guessing.

Now here's 'Clotilde Soupert, Climbing' showing us more typical cool-weather blooms.

Another cluster of Climbing CS. So fragrant as well as beautiful.

'Hermosa' is a great small bush, only reaching about 3-1/2 feet tall and a couple of feet wide in my garden. I have three of them planted together. In the spring they are continuously covered with pepto pink flowers and are quite breathtaking. They have a peppery sweet fragrance courtesy of their China heritage.

'Madame Abel Chatenay' surprisingly has a single bloom on her nearly naked body and one bud. I thought I would be pruning bare canes, but she is leafing out a little. You can see why she's my Belle of the Ball.

I had to snap this pic of the first bud of  'Belinda's Dream'. Fuzzy focus in the waning light but exciting nonetheless.

Talk about exciting!! 'Rosette Delizy' is giving me palpatations. Planted last November, I think, she is really filling out and has lots of flower buds on the tips of her new canes. She's between Maggie and Madame Lombard, so I think her yellow/carmine pink combination will be lovely in this part of the front garden especially with yellow daylily 'Sherry Lane Carr' very nearby.

Here's a tall shot of the lower part of  'Clotilde Soupert, Climbing'. I like the way she blooms in the middle of herself and not just at the ends. She's only a couple of years old, so her blooming will only get better. I wonder what her spring flush will look like.

Granted it's not really black spot season, but I am so pleased with 'Hot Cocoa'. Being a grafted rose and an older plant than my typical own-root bands is making for some unexpected instant gratification. She's shooting up a nice, strong cane already.

The lovely 'Mrs B R Cant' is actually a deeper raspberry than she appears here.

'Bolero 2004' is one of my new $7 grafted modern roses that I got at Lowe's. Several flower buds offer more instant gratification if they survive the rest of our winter.

This rose may or may not be a mistake on the gardener's part. First of all, she is a bareroot grafted rose ($5.98 at Home Depot) that had already broken dormancy and was sprouting new canes which I thought was a good thing. Upon further education on the subject, I learned it may not be "productive growth", but I'm not sure what that means exactly. I bought this 'Perfume Delight' fragrant Hybrid Tea in my recent mini buying-binge of cheap fragrant modern roses, and I think 'Pink Peace' might have been a better choice, disease-wise. But I didn't want to just throw her away, so off we go on our adventure together. She's in a pot because there's no more ground available.

So I'm just going to sit back and watch what happens. Basically, "new growth" is always a good thing - in the plant and in the gardener who is spreading her wings beyond OGRs at least a for a little while. Feels like a Star Trek episode - boldly going where no man has gone before.

This is 'Heirloom', a bareroot from Aldi that to this novice seems to be a better quality plant than the Home Depot rose with more canes, less wax and no growth at time of purchase. It was inside in air conditioning whereas Home Depot's were outside under shade cloth. This new modern bed is the former fish pond. Two whites (Bolero 2004 and Pope John Paul II) and the deep lavender Heirloom will be pretty together with daylilies and a purply 'Le Baron' dahlia.

The winter shadow cast by the house is slowly moving closer to the house. Eventually, it will move several feet to the left of this photo with only two or three feet of shadow remaining and a sun-drenched patio. The cool shade is nice, but the spring sun's arrival will be most welcome.

I so enjoy this side of the back garden, but it seems it is forever in transition. There are three new roses in the bed along the fence - 'Vanity', 'The Charlatan' and 'Moondance', and poor 'Alexander Hill Gray' took a near-death spiral after I moved him a few feet last November. He's finally coming around. 'Duchesse de'Auerstadt' is on the arbor on the left with clematis 'Venosa Violacea' and 'General Gallieni' is at the far right. 'Pat Austin' still resides in the clay pot, not doing much but noticeably more vertical recently. Photos always look like an indistinct jumble, but here it is anyway.

My blogging seems to have shifted to midday. Seems like I should be outside in the garden not inside on the computer, so that’s where I’m headed now. It’s time to get out the 8-foot ladder and the long grabber, because the climbers all need to be tied up again. Oh, joy! One of my least favorite tasks that I always procrastinate on and that always seems to come un-done and need to be redone - sort of like cleaning the toilet and about as enjoyable. That's no way to end a blog post, is it? Okay, attitude adjustment coming. Gardening isn't all pretty flowers and peaceful strolling. There is also strenuous work involved which I accept easily on the ground, but eight feet in the air is another animal altogether. Suck it up, woman, and get to it. When it's done, you'll love it!!

Video time

Whether it's from growing up in the television age or just the way my brain is wired, I seem to learn from watching. Let me watch you do a thing, and I will be able to repeat it on my own. So how-to videos on YouTube are priceless and free, to boot. Also, meeting people who know roses on video whom I will likely never get to meet in person is a real opportunity to glean from the experts. This morning I stumbled across a video which lead to another and another. You know how that goes. So I thought I'd list the ones I really liked here so you could simply click away. It proves the old adage that learning can be fun, so let's get teachable.


This first one by Paul Zimmerman is about planting roses in shadier locations. Really?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3B8DkGw8c0


Terry Reilly of the San Jose Rose Garden shows how to plant a bareroot rose for optimal bloom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3B8DkGw8c0


A surprising method of pruning Drift roses by Steve Hutton of Conard-Pyle Roses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fCD3L8AAWc&list=UUEd0UPicjMLHANuS5UDKvxA


Steve Hutton of Conard Roses and Alain Meilland of the House of Meilland, rose breeders for 150 years, discuss the evolution of the rose.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=6JibSngrPHo&NR=1


A series of four videos with Alain Meilland and Jacques Ferare as they walk through the rose fields discussing their roses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZOmndj9iD4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=UnwuBZNlvaM&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXHgib_ElSA&feature=endscreen&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=17meRmZvT5M&NR=1


Alain Meilland's father introduced the 'Peace' rose in 1935. Very interesting,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=6JibSngrPHo&NR=1


They weren't just kidding when they called this one "A Little Bit of Paradise".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&v=0q2gpG-MHLE&NR=1


A different take on roses for arbors by Paul Zimmerman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkyqAJKEA8w


Do climbing roses scare you? Paul Zimmerman takes the mystery - and the fear - out of dealing with climbers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf7F5qhChFM


Knock Outs are vigorous roses, to say the least. Here's a good look at taming them with a late winter/early spring pruning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_192COm58qE

A winter rose garden in Florida takes some getting used to for this Floridian. Admittedly, it doesn't look as bad as the post-hard freeze garden, but my vision is still colored by what is coming so the actual view is more tolerable. Mine has been through only a couple of nights of 32 degrees (quite unusual) several weeks apart, so there are only a sprinkling of blooms and the greenery is less. Some roses are in desperate need of pruning, but that must wait until the freezes are past. The last freeze was a couple of weeks ago, I think, and temps have stayed in the 70's during the day since then, so the roses think it's spring and are sending out new growth like crazy. 'Mme Lombard' has three basal breaks coming out of the ground!! Oh, joy! The teas are suckers for this weather. Being evergreen, they are growing machines, and my heartbreak will be huge when the hard freezes come during the next month or so - and they will come. I've got the gardens tidied up pretty well. New things are planted, and this week the plan is to go get the composted horse manure, spread it and then the wood chip mulch. I'll be cleaning out the shed, too. This weather has been glorious!!

So whether your roses are the virtual kind this winter or the kind you actually walk among, enjoy your gardens!!

January feeding

Our rose society’s award-winning newsletter, Rose Rambler, offers great articles and practical information every month from September through May, a definite perk that comes with membership. One of the most useful pages is the monthly check list. It’s a neat reminder of what should be done in the garden in the next month. All I can say is that’s it’s a good thing I retired because I have never had time to read them in time for them to be useful – until this month! I did not know that “many rosarians recommend applying organics in January so they can be broken down by microbes and become available to the plant in early spring.” (Don’t forget, since spring comes earlier here, this timing is specific to Florida.) So I’ve been doing it wrong or at least not optimally because in previous years I have applied my organics around the end of February or early March when I was spreading horse manure compost and mulch. Last year I did manage to read one item on the check list. “Apply 1/2 cup of Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) per medium bush 30 days prior to pruning.” So this year I was prepared to get an early start.

Since feeding time is upon me, last Thursday I took a rather long ride to Newberry to Growers Fertilizer Corp., because they sell their own sewage sludge for $6.13 for 40 pounds. That’s called half price compared to Milorganite!! That made the trip worthwhile, and I bought 10 bags which hopefully should last a few years. I also got 50 pounds of Epsom salts which I applied on Friday. This year I don’t have access to my usual Purely Organic Rose Food, since I finally ran out of my stash, and I figured what was available at Lowe’s, Rose-Tone, would be more expensive than I wanted, but the only organics that Growers had was cottonseed meal (50 lb for $30). This made me decide to make my own “complete food”. I bought the cottonseed meal and went online to find a recipe. Here it is.

Use equal parts of:

Alfalfa Meal – NPK 2-1-2
Fish Meal - NPK 10-6-2
Cottonseed Meal – NPK 6-.4-1.5
Blood Meal – NPK 12-0-0
Bone Meal – NPK 3-15-0
Sludge – NPK 5-3-0




Naturally, there were problems with this recipe. First, I couldn’t find alfalfa meal, only the usual pellets, and I opted to wait until after pruning to apply them. Soybean meal is an option, too, but I couldn't find that either. Also, couldn’t find fish meal, but I did find a smallish bag of Kelp Meal at Seminole Feed. It’s a good source of trace minerals, and roses love seaweed. I also opted to not include the blood meal and sludge at this time because they are immediately available to the plants, and I don’t want them growing yet – anymore than they already are anyway. The weatherman says we’ll have 32 degrees tomorrow night, and certainly more freezes and harder freezes are coming. I also added sulfur and greensand to the mix. Sulfur not only lowers pH, but it also Greensand is slow-acting potassium, and I was ecstatic to find it at Seminole.

So in a 5-gallon bucket I added 4 cups each of the red items and 1/2 cup each of the kelp meal and sulfur (which was a total guess on my part) and mixed them thoroughly. (I'll probably put the rest of the kelp meal in the fish hydrolysate that I'm going to make that I learned about in another Rose Rambler article this month. No more bottled fish emulsion!) I repeated this three more times to fill the bucket as full as I could carry it. It turned out I used four buckets (plus a little) to feed all the roses, daylilies and about two-thirds of the azaleas. I still have more left of all the ingredients. Since the Purely Organic used to cost $25 for a 50-lb bag and I needed 2 bags, I probably didn’t save much if any money doing it this way, but I had no choice and I’m happy.

50 Pounds of Epsom salts and 400 pounds of sewage sludge - oh, goodie!

It’s not as critical to scratch organics into the soil as it is for chemicals because the microbes manage to find them as long as they’re touching soil, but it is advisable to water everything afterwards. Since my back hates scratching it in anyway, I kill two birds with one stone with a hard stream of water from the hose. I just have to be careful not to obliterate any delicate plants in the process with my bad aim. I did good today – everything got mixed, applied and watered in and no plants were blasted apart...and DH took me out for Chinese!

As I moved along, I dug up a few Purple Coneflowers that were invading the space of some roses. (I told you they’re thugs, didn’t I? Beautiful, but they don’t play nice in this small garden especially when planted by the dozen.) Then I noticed that one of my two ‘Fred Ham’ daylilies had gotten huge and was too big for its space. How convenient that I had just taken out a coneflower on the other side of ‘Madame Abel Chatenay’ from ‘Fred Ham’. So I split off two big fans from Fred and planted them in the newly vacant spot on the other side of MAC. I’m so pleased that I’ll have twice as many of these large, gorgeous daylily blooms this year.


By way of follow-up I think I told you that I had bought a bareroot rose, ‘Heirloom’, at Aldi the other day after I had bought a grafted ‘Hot Cocoa’ at Lowe’s. Well, the modern-rose bug has given me an awful bite, and I’ve been scratching the itch. I checked both Aldi stores for more bareroots, but they were sold out. The other Lowe’s had no roses, so I hit my Lowe’s again on Sunday. I found two with labels, ‘New Zealand’ and ‘Moondance’. Referring to Helpmefind.com on my trusty smartphone in the garden center, I discovered that both of these roses are described as “very disease resistant”. Now, one location’s very disease resistant rose may be another location’s black spot magnet, but what the heck, there aren’t that many very disease resistant modern roses out there, so I grabbed them. (Remember…I don’t spray fungicide.) For $7 each I got two beautiful, fragrant roses, albeit a bit bedraggled. I guess it’s true…if you buy them, space will appear, because I am finding places for them in the garden, either in the ground or in pots. On Sunday at the rose society meeting Annie said for $6 each she got Oklahoma, Mr. Lincoln and another fantastic hybrid tea rose (darn! what was the name?) at the Home Depot in…oh, gee, was it Crystal River? Well, wherever it was, keep your eyes peeled, folks. Roses are out their for the taking. With a little TLC they’ll make wonderful additions to your gardens. I know I’ll be out there looking. No self-control!!

No more pond

Is anyone else good at tangents? ...those things that take you off the what-should-be path and send you down the what-shouldn’t-be path? My brain is so capable of being switched-on to something with all the intensity of a nuclear blast. Have you ever tried to put a mushroom cloud back in the bottle? Blessedly, I only had to live with this tangent for two months instead of years and years.

You see, maintenance isn’t my strong suit. You knew that, right? Around Christmas the pond went from clear on Sunday to tea-colored on Monday and then black on Tuesday. I could only see the fish if they were a few inches from the surface. Miss Clueless was dumbfounded. That’s the thing about tangents. There’s never a knowledge prerequisite.

So Saturday I was going to fill it in, but then the goldfish were so cute so I tried to save the day. DH suggested the Shop-Vac to suck out the leaves. Then we put some one-inch foam and some quilt-batting in the tank to filter the water, but the vacuum only worked until the tank got full, so it was an on/off, on/off proposition that would likely take the rest of my life. Then I asked DH if the pump could be used to filter somehow. I know you know the answer to that question, but I have zero mechanical abilities. So I hooked up the pump appropriately. (No joking – I had to have him explain it three times. “Hook it up” just was not sufficient.)

The batting was getting blacker and blacker, and by 2AM the fish were visible just below the ledge. I was excited and decided what I needed was a Bio-filter for $62 and the required vinyl tubing for $15 – $20 and a vacuum for $25 if I could find one with more than three stars that half the reviewers on Amazon didn’t hate, but I wasn’t settled on all of that so I didn’t pull the trigger. I did find two books that looked to be the perfect solution to my ignorance of fish and ponds, and I ordered them.

Sunday morning I dashed out to see the clear water and the bottom of the pond. That didn’t happen. Visibility was still terrible even after filtering for 18 hours. I was dejected. I couldn’t get past the thought of killing the fish, so there was no decision on Sunday and no decision on Monday, but Tuesday was different. Different day, different tangent. I made the decision to go buy the bulk potting soil and fill ‘er up. Before I left I turned on the pump, and when I got back an hour later it was almost dry.

It's going to be my Hybrid Tea bed, my cutting bed. Well, la-de-da! Never had one of those before.

I was at Aldi today. They had body-bags (bare-root roses so named because they're stuffed in plastic, and they're kind of a no-no especially in Florida and prone to failure because their root systems are chopped short) for $4.97, so I got 'Heirloom' which I had been eyeing online, and it's soaking in water now. Possibly another tangent but I prefer experiment. Apparently, it gets bigger than I thought and may get some BS, so I'm going to plant it over by the post where the purple clematis is growing. Borrowed leaves are still leaves. I have hopes for the cuttings I got from the bouquets at the Festival of Roses. One is growing new shoots like crazy, and 'Sweet Juliet', 'Bride's Dream', and a couple others are doing well. They won't all fit, but I hope at least three will, and I have pots ready for the ones that don't fit.

Black dirt is indeed possible in Florida. You just have to truck it in. I threw on a bunch of Milorganite so the worms would hurry over, and then when I was cleaning up, I noticed two bags of Black Hen (chicken manure) that had been hanging around so long the plastic bags were disintegrating. So I threw them on. Well, not exactly. The former granules were now congealed into actual wet poo of a very solid consistency and stink-ee! Oh, my goodness! It was like tar, very hard to break up. If this turns out to be a very successful bed, I'll be using this stuff a lot.

Now on to the pretty faces of 'Clotilde Soupert, Climbing'. These blooms were quite large, almost 3 inches across.

Considering these were buds when we had a recent freeze, I'm amazed they're so gorgeous.

And they're fragrant, too.

When my work was done today (it only took four hours), I had the feeling I was back in my comfort zone, the place where I have the most control over what goes on. I’m comfortable with dirt. I know dirt. Dirt is good.

Got dirty and sweaty today

But it was wonderful! The day was beautiful, sunny in the 80’s and nicely humid. I got a little sunburned since I was working in the front facing south and the sun was hot.

A dear friend gave me a huge (maybe 10-gallon) ‘Belinda’s Dream’ last month. I took her home, because I dearly wanted her, but it seemed hopeless that I would be able to find a spot big enough for this girl. Or any spot really. The only possible spot I could think of was the one ‘Bow Bells’ is occupying, but it has a problem. It’s pretty shady. ‘Bow Bells’ handles it but doesn’t bloom a whole lot. So it was off to the Antique Roses Forum to ask my question. Should I choose to keep ‘Bow Bells’ or ‘Belinda’s Dream’? I got really good information from these rosey friends but was still undecided.

Then yesterday it hit me. I should keep both. The how was suddenly simple. I would put BD at the end of the bed next to the front sidewalk where the ‘Red Ruffles’ azalea is. I never put a rose there because it’s not as sunny as roses like. The sun doesn’t come up over the garage until at least 10 o’clock and it leaves behind the trees by 3 o’clock. (Correction: I believe I did have a rose there when I first planted this bed, but that rose is long gone.) In light of what my rosey friends had reported about their BD’s in shade I figured less sun would be a blessing in disguise. Four to five hours of sun would keep this rose smaller than she's capable of being, making her more comfortable in this six by six space, without much if any negative effect on bloom or disease. I was a happy gardener!




She was in bloom when I brought her home. Her blooms take my breathe away, and her fragrance is heavenly. Did I mention I’m really happy to have her?

I know she's nearly invisible, but she's big - at least three feet tall. She was pretty leafy when I brought her home, but we've had a freeze in the meantime, and many of her leaves have dropped. And most of the rest are damaged and black spotted.

The white blob is a rock that I paid $30 for. What can I say? In a state without normal rocks I have a thing for rocks. She has three feet of bed space to the left, rear and foreground, and more than that to her neighbor, 'Clotilde Soupert' to the right. I think she'll be fine. Eventually, BD will probably be five feet tall maybe more. I don't think the Walter's Viburnum to the right of her will be a problem, but I can move it a bit if it is.

On Tuesday I was in the Lowe’s garden department. Very casually I made my way to the rose table. Expectations were low, but the sign I was hoping for was there - $7.00. I rummaged among the dozen or so non-Knock-Out roses, many unlabeled, realizing there wouldn’t be one there for me. They’re always modern roses, and more often than not modern roses don’t appreciate my no-spray garden. There were three or four seemingly identical plants, but only one was labeled. It was ‘Hot Cocoa’. I met a couple there who were eyeing the roses, too. Kim and Derek and I chatted. Kim was admiring one of these plants on the other side of the table and was frustrated by the lack of a label. I told her it was probably ‘Hot Cocoa’ based on the one label. She was really taken with that rose, and why not? It was so healthy, had lots of leaves and lots of buds. Kind of rare for Lowe’s. I was so tempted by the rose I had latched onto, but finally, being the mature gardener that I am (cough, gasp), I put it back. Though I kind of remembered good things about this rose, my memory is not the most reliable friend to have. The next morning I looked up ‘Hot Cocoa’ on Helpmefind.com/roses. The words “very resistant” caught my eye, and I immediately got dressed and made a beeline for Lowe’s. The plant that I had been admiring was gone – probably to Kim and Derek’s garden, but I found one that made me very happy.

Now that's a $7 rose!! It may be grafted but I'm not sure. If it is grafted, the bud union was buried, and I buried it, too. So eventually it will go own-root.

I know you're wondering how I found room for this new rose. Well, of course, I booted another azalea. Not out of the garden though. They're both now residing at the back of the driveway bed. They were heavy buggers, even dragged on a tarp.

This photo doesn't convey her odd color. Definitely unusual by the standards of my pastel garden but also unusual by other people's standards. However, the russet color is growing on me.

You know how much I love foliage.

That's 'Quietness' on the left of HC and to the right is Ellie's rose, 'Stephen's Big Purple'. Not really visible, he's just a couple little sticks, but he does have a new leafset. I was beginning to get impatient for the swollen budeyes to do something. He gets no sun in winter because the sun is so low in the southern sky that the trees block it. 'Quietness' gets sun now and maybe 'Hot Cocoa' will, too.

As I stood admiring the finished planting I realized that the daylilies that are between HC and SBP are russet-colored, too. I think the DL's and these roses will be a good combination. You may have noticed a good bit of sand in the bed. Not to worry. I amended the hole wide and deep, removing four buckets of builder's sand and adding bagged garden soil (I like Scott's soil for sod), fine pine bark, composted cow manure, sulfur in the bottom of the hole for my neutral native soil, alfalfa, milorganite, bone meal, 3 or 4 bananas and their peels fresh out of the freezer, and a complete organic rose food. Composted horse manure and mulch are coming soon.

Today was such a satisfyingly wonderful day. It taught me a great lesson. Though the blues thrive while surfing the internet all day on my butt, they fly away and completely disappear after a day of working hard in a warm, sunny garden. I think I may be back on track. Whoopee!!!!!!!!!

Free mulch

Finally, the tree trimmers arrived this morning. The power company kept saying they were coming to trim the tree on our back property line that borders the power line easement that runs through the water retention area. I could never understand what threat it posed to those wires that are so high and so far away. Just so you know, the mention of power companies trimming trees sends chills up every spine in Ocala. Last year they butchered many large oaks growing in the wide median in East Silver Springs Boulevard. Incredibly horrifying!

So when DH said the power company was going to top and trim my ‘swing’ tree, I about had a cow. That was months ago, and I kept hoping that the day-glo orange paint spot they put on my tree would fade beyond recognition. A month or so ago the man came back and said it would happen later in the week. As nice as he was, he still didn’t convince me that it was necessary or that they would be gentle with my tree.

My first words to the tree guy were, "Are you going to be nice to my tree?" He said, yes, he wouldn't hurt the tree. The second thing I said was, "Can I have the wood chips?" He said yes. Whoopee!

He also said he would not be able to get as high as he needed to be to cut off all that the power company wanted him to cut off. He really was way up there with that pole saw.

I picked this lot because of that tree, instantly picturing a swing hanging from the sideways-growing part. Later the guy with the saw described the power company's aerial mapping and measuring (maybe not infrared but something techie like that). They do wind calculations and what happens if the wire swing this way in the wind while the tree falls that way into the wire. He said my tree would easily take down that wire which carries 250,000 volts. He said upon touching that wire my tree would instantly explode into 5,000 degree flames, destroying and electrifying everything under it and in the ground.       Aww, there goes my swing.

I asked him what would happen to the house. He didn't answer me.

He said the tree needed to be cut in half really, because it definitely could fall into the wires. $1,000,000 cost per day for every day it takes to fix it. He's telling me this after he's done and on the ground, so I asked him why he didn't cut the tree back farther than he did. He said he couldn't reach it, and besides, it would kill the tree. The power company doesn't care if the tree dies. It's the homeowner's problem and cost to take the dead tree down which would be a couple thousand dollars for this tree. He left me with the thought that he hadn't taken enough out of the tree to keep the wind from pushing it over, but DH was watching from the porch and said he took a lot off the top. I guess I won't worry about it.

Back her up, boys!

Ahhh. Beautiful stuff.

I could hear the roses getting all giggly.

Now I need some composted horse manure to put down under the mulch.