Monday, May 11, 2009

Sleeping weather

I woke up at 6 this morning. I had neglected to turn off my alarm. It was pouring rain. I settled back into bed for another hour while listening to the downpour. We'll have occasional showers all day. It's 55 degrees and cloudy.

Before work this morning, I plan to transplant a couple roses from the woods into the gully. Driving to and from my parents' house yesterday, I noticed lots of these old, wild roses along the highway. I liked the look. Since the gully is overgrown with thorny vines (smilax and wild blackberries), I think the roses will be a good fit. This fall, I'll collect seeds from the Hardy Orange (Poncirus trifoliata) and wintersow them for planting out next spring. If I can't win the battle against the forces of nature, I'll at least plant a few things I'd like to see in the gully. The bird should love having a place to hide from the roaming cats.

The window boxes on the front of the house may also get repotted. I used crappy soil and it shows. I've got my sweet potato vines ready to be installed, and some petunias need to be pinched. The tops will go into the cloner to fill the areas where the poppies are today. A couple of weeks and the switch will be made.

Finishing my coffee, doing laundry and dishes, trying to get myself prepared for a long day. We've got lots of deliveries coming at the store. Hope they sold a lot of plants on Sunday.

9:54am - darker and wetter, 55 degrees. I moved a piece of the pink climber that I had missed when I dug it up the first time. I also moved a sport from the same pink climber to the gully. One that I had in a pot got planted too. That makes three rambling, climbing roses transplanted to the gully this morning. I also set out a couple pieces of honeysuckle that had popped up in the perennial bed. I love the smell, the birds love the seed, and hopefully, it will give the smilax a run for it's money. Also reworked the window boxes. I added a few shovels of composted leaves to the very cheap soil I purchased earlier. All 8 plastic containers are planted with petunias and sweet potato vines (green and black). I added a touch of fertilizer and took lots of cuttings as I was "pinching" them back. The weather today will be good for these transplants and resets.

2 comments:

FlowerLady Lorraine said...

Good morning Tom. The roses in your gully sound like a great idea.

Send some of your rain down our way, pretty please.

Have a good day at work today, enjoying all the wonderful goodies that come in.

FlowerLady

Hà Xuân said...

Hi Tom, I'm new at your blog (my name's Xuan (s-w-a-n), from Vietnam).
I really enjoy reading blogs and got into yours by looking at some others' blog.
You talked about rain - oh mine, we had one big one yesterday, too. So even we're half the globe away, we at least have one thing in common these days, don't we?
I hope you will have nicer weather soon so you can work out in your garden.