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!

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!

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.

Oyster gardening

Yes, there really is such a thing as but most land/soil gardeners will not get the opportunity to try this out. Oyster gardening is something I never heard of before I move from the mid-west to Western Washington. Do any of you do this type of gardening? Over on the Hood Canal side of the Kitsap Peninsula is a well-known business, Taylor Shellfish Farms . Early Spring, one of our dock neighbors at Brownsville Marina (Puget Sound) pulled up a bag and told us about growing oysters off the dock by our boat. The tide in our marina is +4/-1 ft so we are in an ideal location for such a garden. Mike and I made the trip to Taylors to get oyster seed. Very sustainable. So now we begin a new experiment in our new western way of life.

Taylor Shellfish Farm sale: Oysters, clams, mussels.

500 seed oysters. Pacific Triploid.

#WordlessWednesday

Everything’s coming up …

Take a peek into my garden today.

‘Jeanne Lajoie’ Climbing miniature

‘Jaqueline Du Pre’

‘Watercolors’ Floribunda