Weekend at the Farm January 5-6, 2013

Ehrlicheer Daffodils and Ox Eye Daisies - some of the only green growth in the January landscape.

Drizzly and cold on Saturday, but it ended on a high note on Sunday - sunny and cool.

• I moved my Bailey Red rose.  It was being engulfed by Bermuda's Kathleen.  I moved the Bailey Red to a box in the Rose Garden that has been empty for several years.  Roses should be dug up and moved in the winter months.  Cut the canes back to about 18 inches long.  The plant  shouldn't expend any energy on trying to keep its long canes alive in the midst of the shock of being dug up.
• I moved my Sombreuil rose from the entrance to the Orchard to the entrance to the Star Garden.  I am going to train it over the arbor at the front of the house.  It has never prospered in its previous location due to being crowded by cannas and blackberry vines.
• My husband and I cleaned up a lot of dead trees that had fallen across the trails.  There were some strong winds last week and 6 dead pine trees fell across the paths.   We also cut down some dead cedars for flower bed borders.
• I used the cedar logs to build a new flower bed in a shady part of the Star Garden.  I dug up all the grass, filled it with a layer of shredded oak leaves, and filled it with soil.  My husband, step son, son, and mother-in-law chipped in and bought me a load of soil and mulch for Christmas.  I'm happy about that!  You'll always find the way to my heart with dirt.
• Sprayed herbicide around the outside of the new bed and in the Orchard.  It was cold, but I sprayed anyway.  Herbicides aren't very effective in cold weather.
• Cut away some dead branches on a few rose shrubs in the Rose Garden.
• Shredded leaves for my new bed and for the compost pile.
• Planted a Manzanillo Olive tree that my niece gave me for Christmas.  I already have an olive tree that my sister in law gave me many years ago (before I started writing down plant names).  I'm hoping that with two of them I will get the cross-pollination needed in order to produce olives.  Olive trees like alkaline, sandy, dry soil.  I have that in spades.  Other than that, I don't know much about olives, but it seems that people want me to learn because they keep buying them for me.
• Lots of deer tracks in the Star Garden.  All my Sweet Peas have been nibbled to the nubbins.