Snow Day

If you watch the news, you must be aware of the winter storm that hit the southeast this weekend. In our SE Alabama town, we saw four inches of snow. Incredible! Too bad our kids were down with the flu, otherwise they would have been able to help Dad build the snowmen (some better than others honey).

It was quite picturesque seeing everything blanketed in white. Made my poor rose shrubs look more pathetic and sickly, but if you squint just right, you can make them disappear.

Needless to say the weather has prevented me from doing much in the gardens thus far. But not for long. I've got a feeling spring is just around the corner.

P.S. In other news, I'm experimenting with bulbs. I planted a few tulip bulbs in December and almost gave up hope. But seems like this cold weather was just the thing they needed for they decided to finally break the surface. Can't wait to have a tulip boquet on my mantle.

Ground Zero

I wanted to include some before pics so you'll know what I'm working with.


The first vignette is a rose garden on the north side of my house. On the far right is a knock-out rose bush. The other three are various hybrids which I can't recall. The one on the far left produces a yellow bloom, which has a counterpart in another garden.

The second picture is of a smaller rose garden on the west side. The one on the left is the second yellow blooming rose bush. (I actually got these yellow roses for Valentine's Day two years ago.) The one on the right is some kind of hybrid. In front of this area is a small azalea bush which I think I'll transplant (again) and replace with some more roses.

The next two pictures are two miniature rose bushes in the front of my home facing east. As you will notice, the one on the left is about twice as tall as the other. It gets a few more hours of sunlight due to the slope of the roof.

So I'm no rose guru. Obviously. And my rose gardens are actually just a few rose bushes here and there. For now. But I do love them and would like to learn as much as I can in caring for them.

Sometime in November I visited a friend's new home and saw a very large rose garden focal point in her backyard. It was gorgeous. Apparently the previous owners spend about two hours each day in the yard doing whatever was necessary to keep it looking spectacular. Wish I knew where they live now and take a crash course. Anyway, that's kinda what I would like, on a smaller scale, in the designated areas in my yard. I'm also including a picture of my friend's backyard so you can see my inspiration.

Looking forward to spring!

I Met Paul James

I met Paul James (only the greatest gardening guru ever) yesterday at the Greater Montgomery Home and Garden Show. Well, I saw him and attended his Q&A segment more than met him. But I got to ask him a question. Yay me!

Here's my problem...I'm trying to establish several rose gardens in my yard, but failing quite miserably. I have several varities - some engineered to withstand any condition, buy all the recommended fertilizers, soil amendments, they get the right amount of water and are planted in the right light, yet, if I don't deadhead a rose the nanosecond a petal turns, the entire branch dies. The tree itself is fine, but the branch is a goner. More often than not, I have more dead branches than healthy ones, with occassional healthy looking blooms. So what did my highly esteemed gardening hero answer? "I'm stumped." That's it? He's stumped? I traveled more than an hour for this? In my mind, Paul James was losing points big time.

He then went on the explain it doesn't sound fungal, viral or bacterial. It's probably pathological. He further recommended I send a few cutlings to the plant pathologist at Auburn to figure out what's going on. How dedicated am I to this task, when a very attractive alternative is to dig them up and replace them with any number of flowering bushes I do very well with? VERY! I love roses and damn it, I want to be surrounded with beautiful rose bushes.

So presents a terrific opportunity to blog about my rose gardening adventures this year. I'll show you pics of the before and after and keep you updated along the way. And hopefully by late summer, I'll adorn every horizontal surface in my home with rose arrangements (much to my husband's chagrin I'm sure).

Here's to everything Roses. Cheers!