Pruning

With heavy work schedule, necessary travel, stress, exposures to multiple ill people, it's no surprise that i finally came down with a nasty bug. Five days & I still feel very crummy. I did take about an hour outside yesterday and today, pruning backyard roses and all of the miniature cherry trees.

There is disagreement on when to prune roses or how much. I would have waited, but needed at least a little sunshine. All varieties were pruned to about 4 to 8 large canes, each about 12 to 24 inches tall depending on the vigor of the individual shrubs. Tamara is the most vigorous in the back yard and has the most growth remaining after pruning as well. Some of the newer information suggests just shearing back to the desired height, stating that this results in more flowers. I dont think this is for organic roses, however, so effects of this method on infection control, without pesticide use, are not known. The older information often recommends severe pruning. My approach is somewhere in between, with more growth removed to reduce black spot (removal of sources of infection, removal of branches that clutter and shade the center of the shrub, to allow sunlight to enter), but longer than some of the older recommendations to allow for more flowers.

The cherries are pruned to open "bowl" pattern where possible, with new growth generally pruned back to 2 to 4 buds, the last one outward facing.

I also pruned the "north pole" apple to shorten it a little (could not reach the top apples last year), shorten branches back to spurs, and maintain the columnar appearance.

I cut some apple branches for use as scions later this winter. These went into a plastic bag in the fridge. They came from a tree that overhangs my yard severely, but isnt my tree. The apples are tart and crisp, but the tree bears poorly due to poor maintenance. I will use these scions to rework a miniature Golden Delicious that has not borne edible fruit in 4 years and I doubt ever will without the reworking.

Several prunings were stuck into a shady border to see if they can be grown as cuttings by this "benign neglect" method: some small forsythia sticks, ginkgo prunings, korean lilac prunings, and one apple pruning. If they don't take, that's OK - I dont know what I'll do with them if the DO take. The location is shady, has a tall fence o n the north side, and generally stays fairly moist. I think that last year's attempt at ginkgo cuttings ultimately failed when they were blessed with too much sun.

Fall Blossoms

This is my favorite lily, I almost missed it. This is a species lily, so not as flashy, and the fragrance is strong and sweet but not as overwhelming as some hybrids. Doing well wtihout much water - but may not be as ready for next because of my neglect this year.

The rose is "Happy Child", getting by and occasionally blooming. It took about 4 years from cutting stage to really perform.

Update

No photos today.

Weekend in Quincy IL. Things look stable there.

Interesting - growing up there, everyone had a backyard garden. I didn't see any this time.

Back in vancouver, lots of beans on Ning's Chinese Bean vines. There have been several batches to eat.

Grapes are "almost" there. Sour but starting to sweeten up.

Roses are blooming nicely.

Another bud on the Epiphyllum.

There have been 3 breba figs plus one main crop fig on the petite negri. None yet on the others.
Too much going on otherwise. I hope that I can weed and prune a little this weekend.

Flowers

Ville de Bruxelles
Opuntia
Oriental Lilies
Angel Face

More roses

"Peace". I had given up on this one. It looked "viral". This Spring it was cut back to about 1 foot, and it hasn't received any water. This is it's nicest blossom so far.
Beautiful in the garden and in a vase. "Fair Bianca." Very fragrant. The perfect white English Rose.
Symphony. This one is so-so compared to some English roses, but is reliable and hardy. This set of blossoms stuck up out of the ground about 1 foot from the main plant. It is own-root.

Scepter'ed Isle. Reliable, hardy, and very fragrant. There are a lot of pink roses around. I like this one a lot.

Roses in bloom

Backyard rose bed. The pink one is Gene Boerner.

Below, Fair Bianca

Below that, an unknown fragrant purple floribunda-type rose. This was an abandoned rose growing against a telephone pole on a Portland street. The last time that I was there, it was gone.
Unknown, rustled from a bouquet at work, yellow hybrid tea.

Organic Roses

"Billy Graham" hybrid tea, fragrant.
"Playboy" not fragrant but quite vigorous, own root.
"Scentimental" very fragrant
Unknown red Hybrid Tea, very fragrant.

This is the best year so far. They have only been "fed" with a mulch of leaf compost. I pruned them back to about 18 inches this spring. They were sprayed wtih neem oil about once weekly for the past couple of months. Currently it's cool and rainy - I hope they dont wind up covered wtih black spot before friday when I can spray them again.

Roses,Strawberries,Dumplings

This remarkable rose is "Evelyn"; a David Austin "English" rose. It's made a slow start, this is its 3rd summer. It's covered with numerous perfect appearing, highly fragrant, blossoms. If I didnt also have several other favorite roses, this would be my favorite. All organic, of course. My hand isn't dirty - those are wounds. I was weeding in a raised bed and the retaining wall gave way. I fell on the bricks. Ouch.
This is 'Gene Boerner'. I'll have to look it up. It's about 5 years old, has been moved twice, and looks quite settled in now.
The first strawberries. I'll eat them tomorrow.
The filling inside these dumplings is about 1/2 chopped chinese chives, and the other 1/2 is finely chopped tofu and scrambled egg. The use of the chives as a major ingredient, instead of just for flavoring, is why they are considered a vegetable instead of an herb. They were very good. But not as good as Ning's (He's in China for a few weeks). These are "slow food" at the extreme: grown from seeds from plants that were grown from seeds that were brought from china; in homemade compost-amended soil; fertilized with coffee grounds and leaf compost; and the dumplings hand made from flour and the ingredients as listed. Here's a similar (but not identical) recipe.

Lots of things blooming

Red Poppies. Seed grown, took 3 years to bloom. Now 5 years old.)
Tamara
Playboy
Palm is also blooming.

Fragrant Rose. Black Bamboo

This is Ville De Bruxelles, an antique variety of rose. It is very very fragrant, with a strong "old rose" scent. The shrub is about 18 inches tall and is 3 years old. It was in a bad location so may do better now.

This is a Damask rose. The internet photos are different. It was bought at Heirloom roses and DOES look like their photo. They state "One of the most sublime of old roses" and give a mature height of 5 feet, so it has some room to grow. It was raised in 1832 by Monsieur Hardy.

Here is some more information about this and other Damask roses.

This is a black bamboo that paused for 2 years, but now is growing rapidly.

Don Juan Rose and Ginkgo with cat

The first rose of the year

Saturday Projects

Neem Oil. I sprayed the Anigozanthos again. The Kanga Red-Green is looking very sad with inky black spot disease. It might die. The yellow "nameless" is more perky, but I may be risking it by having it outside now. It's raining, but they are in a protected area under the eaves. Since I had some neem mixed up, I re-sprayed the back yard roses and the peach leaf tips. There is frost damage on some of the rose leaves, but most are looking sturdy. The new rose bush (Fair Bianca) is growing a number of shoots. The new bare-root rose (Pascali) is further behind but buds are starting to swell. I suspect that leaf curl will be a problem this year again. The strawberries got another spray of neem as well.
This daffodil was 'rescued' when it appeared in the lawn. There is also a larger bunch. The flowers tend to nod, so it can be difficult to see. It would be nice as a cut flower.
I made another bee house for the Orchard Mason Bees. That's the one on the left. The one on the right was purchased last year. The holes are all drilled out. I hope that they return. I'll leave some mud for them as well. The cherries are starting to bloom. so it's time for the bees to do their thing.

Overwintered Geraniums and Spring Gardening

Here's the geranium as it came out of the pot. This one was left in the garage without watering. Most of the scented-leaf ones look REALLY dead-looking, brown and crunchy. One, a "pine scented" (more like turpentine) does continue to have green leaves. They were all cleaned up and watered. We'll see if they grow.

In another container, a wooden planter, was a zonal geranium , a geranium called "Vancouver Centennial", the pine scented geranium, some sweet alyssum, and a Tradescantia pallida. I cleaned this up as well, but left them all in the original container. I watered it and will leave it outside. The zonal and the Tradescantia look alive, in addtion to the pine scented geranium.
Planted.
Pruned, watered. Since it's in the 60s today, I think it is OK to leave outside now.

Other gardening:
Ning planted a short growing cattail for his pond.
Ning planted seeds for ornamental grasses, in flower pots.
A rose (Golden Showers)was moved.
A large bunch of Miscanthus sinensis zebrinus was moved from the back yard to the front, where it will have more room. Last year it grew to about 8 feet tall (the label stated 4-5 feet). It went into the spot vacated by the Golden Showers rose.
A new rose was added, this one a David Austin rose, variety "Fair Bianca". As with hybrid teas, I like some English roses, and others just didn't perform. I hope this one does, since I haven't had a lot of luck with white roses (JFK, a hybrid tea, was a fungus magnet and died, Glamis Castle, another English rose, didn't perform well at all. There wasn't room for the old garden rose, Mme Hardy, and anyway it only blooms one yearly (although I would have kept it in a larger yard).
An Anigozanthos (Kanga red and green) was potted up. I didn't want to yhet but it kept drying out too fast and wilting.

More Random Thoughts. Rambling on roses.

In the previous entries on global warming, I commented about how gardening influences our attitudes about nature, and the importance of feeling connected to the rhythms of nature by gardening. The thoughts today will be about working with the local climate and growing conditions. The example will be roses (because that is where my rambling mind drifted).

When we first started gardening here, we planted a series of rose bushes in the front yard. The soil was compacted, rock-hard clay. The roses were big-box store Hybrid Teas. It was summer. We dug big holes, soaking the ground, digging, soaking, digging. We mixed compost into the clay and added it back around the roses. The roses were watered frequently, and given some rose-food granules. They grew rapidly. Blossoms, black-spot and aphids ensued.

More watering, more fertilizers, more aphids and black spot, more sprays. Not a lot of flowers, although some were big, classic Hybrid Tea blossoms. Ultimately, it didn't seem worth the trouble, and other gardening priorities took over.

I became uncomfortable with this methodology. First, it wasn't very rewarding. The blossoms were not that spectacular, not that many, and they faded quickly. Second, I wanted to grow more edible items, and the idea of eating rose-poisons in my tomatoes wasn't appealing. Third, it seemed too much like work, and not enough like fun.

The roses started to take then 'back burner' as the rest of the yard filled with kitchen-garden plants, trees, and shrubs. Other ornamentals were added. We experimented with David Austin roses and other varieties that were thought to be less chemical-intensive. We started cuttings from rose bushes that seemed to do well locally. We quit the chemicals, went organic, started mulcing and composting, and drastically cut back on the watering. Some varieties died and were not replaced. Others looked so bad, or performed so poorly, that I dug them up.

Others have persisted, and they actually looked better than they did with the fertilizers and chemicals. The blossoms were not as big, but they seemed to last longer. There was less black spot, and fewer aphids. They have been much less work.

I think, that what happened, was an evolution, both for the roses, and for me, in adapting to the local conditions and the inherent capablities of each plant. The ones that were better adapted to this climate and growing conditions, remained. They used less resources, including watering. They required no chemicals, because the chemical-requiring ones either died or were removed.

The result now is a less picture-perfect, but better adapted rose bed. There are still quite a few rose bushes, and I enjoy them more.

This entry is the result of rambling. The photo is a retaining wall, built from a pile of broken-up driveway down the street 2 years ago. I was going to write about reusing local materials, and using locally adapted plants, like the mosses on the stones. I rambled instead into the roses, but left the photo anyway.