Day at the Farm November 13, 2015

 

 The two photos above are Gruss an Aachen rose. 

Above, Mrs Dudley Cross rose.  This morning there were 5 huge blooms on the shrub.  I've never seen such large flowers on any of my roses.  It was a beautiful sight.

Bert and I arrived on Friday afternoon and left on Saturday afternoon.  Bert wanted to hunt, and I wanted to finish planting my daffodils and seeding my flowerbeds.  Saturday evening was a marriage celebration party for Nancy and Lisa and mom and dad's house.

• I finished preparing a bed in the Rose Garden next to La Vesuve rose that I began last weekend.  I planted 10 St. Keverne and 10 Sweetness daffodil bulbs.
• Grey kitty follows me everywhere and wraps herself around my feet.  I'm going to fall and break my neck if I'm not careful. 
• I feel like I'm running out of places to put daffodils en masse (I can tuck them in here, there and everywhere, but I've run out of places where you see nothing but yellow in the spring), and I still have about 150 on order from Brent and Becky's Bulbs.  I have 20 that I still need to plant from my Old House order.  
• Spent some time mulching - my Carefree Beauty rose, several of my La Marne roses, my Dwarf Flowering Almonds, and around some of my newest daylilies along one of the paths in the Star Garden.
• Saturday morning I prepared the bed and planted 10 Thalia bulbs and 10 Trevithian bulbs next to my Peggy Martin rose.  To do that I had to fork up about 30 daffodils that I planted 2 years ago.  I dug them up from my back yard in Houston.  I didn't know what they were or how they had gotten there.  I've given them two years to show me something pretty, but they are duds.  They never bloomed, maybe one bloom, but nothing more.  So I dug them up and threw them in the compost pile.  Unfortunately I have them planted all over the place, so this year I will be replacing them with good bulbs.
• I pulled up all my reseeding ageratum in the Long Border and raked it out.  I used the fallen leaves and pine needles to mulch the Madame Antoine Mari rose nearby and my Sangria Crinums.  I spread seed mixed with sand in two sections of the Long Border.  And I spread seed on top of the new bed where I planted the St Keverne and Sweetness daffodils.  
• Spent some time in the Rose Garden weeding and raking.  It looks pretty good in there.
• Mulched around my cigar plant in the Star Garden, and I raked a couple of wheel barrows full of pine needles and mulched a bed in the Star Garden.
• Spread seed here and there in the Star Garden.
• I went down to the Orchard, raked out the Black Beauty plum bed and spread seed.  I still have a lot of seed left, but I think I'm nearly done for the year.  Now all that's left to do is keep the weeds down until spring.
• Bert built an arbor for my Veilchenblau rose, but it seems pretty spindly to me.  I don't see how it will stand up to a ten year old, massive climbing rose.  But I didn't say anything.  He doesn't like criticism.  Ha Ha.