Friday Favorites

It’s the dry season now. The area gets a 20% chance of rain some days, but my garden has not had rain for two weeks and I have been watering regularly now. Rain barrels are good but soaker hose is quicker and less work for me. I can do more fun things if I’m not tired from hauling five gallon buckets of water around.

‘Julia Child’ is a first year plant in a pot and is having an impressive flush right now.

‘Jaqueline du Pre’ has such beautiful stamens, My camera cannot stay away.

‘Red Eden’ has more blooms every year.

This ‘Marilyn Monroe’ does nor have a perfect center, but I still love the color.

English roses

In my garden that was just started last fall, I now have a few of the David Austin English Roses blooming. First blooms on first year plants show great potential for this location. I was not sure if it would be sunny enough.

‘Sharifa Ashma’

‘Abraham Darby’

‘Graham Thomas’

Garden grapes

Since I have had no grapes in two seasons, this year I decided to hire a landscaper to prune the grapes last winter. We would always get lots of vines and leaves but no grapes. Now I understand why. The landscaper had experience with grapes and really pruned hard and went on about fruiting spurs…

The variety is Interlochen. Now I have more fruit to protect from birds!

Blueberry protection

I went away for one day this week and the crows must have known I was gone, because when I returned and did my morning rounds, I saw the tell-tale signs under the early fruiting cherry tree. Grrrr! They take one bite out of a cherry then drop the rest. Plus there was a mess of green leaves covering the grass. Time to spring into action. Now my strawberries and blueberries are covered with bird netting. Soon I will need to cover the grapes also. It is so ugly, but if I expect to get any fruit, it must be done. I also put flash tape around to startle the birds before they even consider landing. The last thing I want is to see would be birds tangled up in the netting.

Cherry damage!

Evening gardenwalk

A week of warm weather made everything bloom.

‘Rainbow’s End’ climbing on an old section of fence.


‘Graham Thomas’ first year plant.

Slugs, Snails And Puppy Dog Tails

Reblogged from Town & Country Gardening:

• 

Natural Ways to Keep Slugs Out Of Your Garden So you’ve planted that organic garden and much to your dismay, your plants aren’t thriving and you begin to notice holes in the leaves.

YOU’VE GOT SLUGS!
Slugs multiply rapidly and can totally destroy your garden if left unchecked. Don’t be fooled, not every “all natural” garden pest control technique will actually work on slugs.

Read more… 542 more words

Got slugs? Get rid of them!

June roses

‘Neptune’

‘Climbing Golden Showers’

‘Chihuly’

Oyster gardening

Oyster gardening.

Today’s blooms

I never get tired of blooming roses. It’s what we wail all winter to see. I hope you also enjoy them!

‘Distant Drums’

‘Rainbow’s End’ miniature rose

‘Dorothy Rose’ a single miniature

‘Halo Today’

‘Golden Showers’ a young climbing rose

Blooming in the rain

After living here nearly two years, I understand why the roses and other beautiful flowers grow so large and colorful. Moderate temperatures and plentiful moisture. I love the moderate temperatures but the rain keeps me indoors more than I would like. There was no sailing over the Memorial Day weekend but the roses look great!

‘Eglantine’ was transplanted with me from Minnesota. A+ in my book.

‘Summer Wind’ was hybridized by Dr. Buck for conditions in Iowa and it does well in the NW also as many of his roses do.

‘Tyrelle’ is a sport of ‘Jeanne LaJoie’ that was discovered by a friend, Jan Staetler who is no longer with us.

This is ‘Playboy’ which is a very successful rose in my climate.

Last, but not least is this unnamed Clematis that has very showy blooms and was purchased at a local Big Box store on clearance a few weeks after we moved in. It is so beautiful, I think it deserves sharing too.