The Daffodil Border March 11, 2017

The Sweetness daffodils are blooming now.  The little narcissus odorus and the doubles growing along the fence are just about finished blooming.

Fortunes' Double Yellow March 11, 2017

This rose was discovered by the Scottish botanist and plant explorer / collector Robert Fortune.  He traveled to China in 1842, dressed as a Chinese man with shaved head and pigtail so that he could move about the country freely at a time when white people were not welcome, and he brought back many plants and seeds.  One of his most famous finds is this rose.

Other names this rose is known by:  Gold of Ophir and Beauty of  Glazenwood.  The flowers are loosely double with gold and pink tones, very thorny, and once-blooming.  Because it is so thorny, I have mine growing off in a corner of the Rose Garden where it is out of the way.  It is in full bloom right now, and it won't bloom again until next spring.

Weekend at the Farm March 3, 2017

 

Friday afternoon was lovely, but Saturday was drizzly and grey.  Left early Sunday morning to go to Caracal for brunch - Nancy's birthday with the whole family.

• I took advantage of the rain and fertilized the entire Star Garden.  The rain will water-in the fertilizer.
• I planted 3 Powis Castle Wormwood in the Medicine Garden.  I love the silvery color of the lambs ear and the artemesia.  
• I also planted 2 Greek oregano plants in the Medicine Garden.  Oregano are perennial, evergreen, they spread like a ground cover, they flower in the spring, and they are edible.  They check a lot of boxes for me.  Oregano is a great plant. 
• I found 4 tiny (therefore inexpensive) Thryallis (Rain of Gold  Thryallis) shrubs at Arbor Gate.  I bought them and planted them in the flowerbed that borders the back of the house amongst the autumn sages.  I didn't pull up the autumn sages, but I won't be sorry to see them get crowded out by the Thryallis.  Thryallis are great bloomers in the heat.
• I am down to the very last of my mulch, so every wheel barrowful is precious.  I mulched in the back bed and near the hydrangeas that I planted a couple of weeks ago because I can see my least-favorite weed (and they come up like a carpet) springing up.  I definitely need to order more mulch, but I will need to take off work to wait for the delivery.  
• I planted some more of my Zebrina seedlings that I grew under the grow lights.  Mostly in the Orchard, but a few in the Star Garden.
• I planted 2 Victoria Blue Salvia in the Star Garden.  I am going absolutely NUTS with the blue salvias this year!  Well, the blue farinacea salvias are great bloomers.  They bloom all through the summer - what else do I need to say?
• I raked in the Vegetable Garden and around the entrance where leaves pile up against the gate.  I dumped them in the big piles I have been making behind the Vegetable Garden.
• I pruned dead vegetation off of some autumn sages in the back garden and cleaned out fallen leaves.
• I spread Nicotiana seeds in the Medicine Garden.  I can't wait to see them NOT bloom.  I have tried for several years to grow Nicotiana from seed.  No luck.  Maybe this is my year!  Many years ago I had some white Nicotiana growing in the Medicine Garden - I can't remember where I got it, but I know I didn't grow my start from seed.  I had a very large stand of Nicotiana, and I recall vividly that I was unimpressed with the smell when I bent over it and smelled it, until one evening I went outside and the entire garden was full of their unforgettable scent.  For several years after that I had a volunteer here and there, but never again did I have the healthy stand of plants like that first year.  Ever since then I have tried to grow it, but I have had no luck.  I bought some plants last year, but the caterpillars got them all.  When bugs eat your plants to the ground (eat them to death) that means you planted them at the wrong time.  That's my theory, and I expect that I am correct.  Anyway, one calamity after another has prevented me from having that wonderful plant in my garden again.  Ever hopeful, I have spread seeds again.  This time they are right underneath a sprinkler head where the seeds will get misted on a regular basis, so hopefully they will sprout. 
• I noticed that I have lots of Buttercup Turnera seedlings in the bed where the Mrs. B. R. Cant rose is growing.  I'm very excited about that!  Such a pretty plant.  I had one plant there last summer, but I have no idea how that one, lonely seed ended up in that flower bed.  It flowered so beautifully!  Strange, though, because I haven't had Turnera in my garden for years.
• The 500 Sweetness daffodils that I planted in the fall are beginning to bloom.  Very cheerful and lovely.  

Mrs Dudley Cross March 4, 2017

There are not a lot of blooms on her right now, but they are so pretty.  Globular and bi-colored.  They start out yellow and turn pink as they age.

Blush Noisette March 4, 2017

Blush Noisette looks very pretty today.  The home of the class of roses known as "Noisettes" is the American South. John Champneys of South Carolina crossed Rosa moschata with Old Blush to make the rose called Champneys Pink Cluster.  I have that rose growing in my Rose Garden as well, but it is not a great bloomer like Blush Noisette.  The class of Noisettes are great for the south because they can withstand our hot summers.  They have a waterfall shape with medium-long canes, so they can be grown successfully as pillar roses.  But I have Blush Noisette and Champneys growing side by side in their natural forms with cedar fencing on two sides to keep them from getting too unruly.
 

Weekend at the Farm February February 25 - 26, 2017

This is my new Julia Child rose.  She is still tiny in stature, but the flowers really pack a punch.

I arrived Friday afternoon shortly after Bert. Temperatures dropped to the upper 40s and Saturday was cool and sunny.  Sunday, cool and cloudy - it never cleared off, but that's fine, much easier to work in that weather.

• Saturday morning the first thing I did was spray my roses with fungicide - for blackspot which they already have, but I can at least try to keep it from getting worse.
• I loaded the cub with mulch a couple of times and finished mulching my Mojito Colocasias along the boardwalk.  I also got about halfway finished mulching the area along the boardwalk where my White-by-the-Gate Camellias are planted.  I managed to get mulch around one of the camellias and the whole area around it - it's a big area.
• I made up some sugar water Friday evening when I arrived, and I fed the bees.  I'm determined to get some honey this year.  I haven't harvested for two years.
• Next I headed to the Medicine Garden.  I raked out the beds - so many leaves - and wheeled them in my wheel barrow over to the compost pile.  I have two huge piles of leaves that I'm building up for use later in the Daffodil Border (after my daffodils quit blooming I will dump the leaves in there to keep the weeds down).  I spent quite a bit of time raking.  
• I planted four lambs ear in the Medicine Garden.  I love the pretty white furry things.  
• I loaded the cub with mulch a couple more times and began mulching in the beds I that cleared out in the Medicine Garden.  It's a big area with lots of beds, so I didn't get finished. 
• I decided that the path straight through the middle of the Medicine Garden needs more definition.  So Bert cut down some dead cedars and I made borders with them.  It looks good.  I think we will need three more trees cut down in order to get the whole thing done. 
• Sunday.  I worked on the Medicine Garden for a long time.  I'm almost out of mulch unfortunately, so I won't be able to finish it until I have more delivered.  There are still a couple of car loads left in my mulch pile, but I will need that to keep the weeds down until help (in the form of 10 yards of mulch) arrives.
• I planted a bunch of seedlings that I started in peat pots under grow lights.  I planted them in the Long Border, the Rose Garden, the Orchard, and the Star Garden.  I don't know why I bother, the seeds I sowed directly in the ground last weekend have already sprouted.  And they look healthier than the ones I've been babying for weeks.  I guess I just do it for something to do during the winter.
• I raked up pine needles from under the pine trees that grow along the trails and spread them under the blackberry bramble in the Orchard.  Two loads in the cub cadet.  The pine needles are working to keep the weeds down really well in the places where I have already used them.
• I planted two Wendy's Wish salvias in the Orchard and two Blue Bedder salvias in the Long Border.
• I planted two aloe vera plants  in a pot in the Medicine Garden and two comfrey in a pot, also in the Medicine Garden.
• I spent some time raking in the Vegetable Garden and doing some general clean up.
• Transplanted an Indigo Spires from the edge of a bed in the Star Garden over to the Long Border.
• Watered here and there in the Rose Garden and the Medicine Garden.
• I fertilized all my fruit trees in the Orchard and all the roses in the Rose Garden.
• Looking good everywhere except the Boardwalk Gardens.  They need mulching.  I've done a bit, but there is a lot of area there, and it will take some time - and I need to get more mulch delivered!  

White Ducher Rose and Purple Homestead Verbena Feb 26, 2017