Mid November and the roses are in full swing and its a high flying one this year. The roses for the most part have extreme happiness and are making really big and beautiful Spring flowers.
Here are a couple of new roses in my garden this season, both via a good friend who has imported them from Europe. The first is a beautiful gallica reminiscent of Anais Segales, called Frederic 11 de Prusse. His flowers are larger and more tidily arranged, although the perfume is not as strong as with our old roadside faithful.
This next one is a stunning damask, damascena Koszuty. A darker shade than Ispahan and a more lax growth habit, but equally vigorous and fragrant.
Some heavy bouts of wind and rain have spoiled a few, but for the most part the show is wonderful. A dash of humidity a couple of weeks ago awakened some blackspot that was obviously lurking in the background, but despite having had no settled weather to spray the afflicted, they seem to be bouncing back with vigour.
November is a bit of a crazy month here, lots of birthdays and buses and ever so many roses to admire in the garden with not enough time to do so. With a new grandchild on the property to liven up the family dynamics, its all go! I do try to go for a walk with the secateurs every now and again and pick a few blooms for the house or somebody’s house, but sadly cutting blooms or dead-heading, both activities I love doing, slip rather badly on the priority list this year. Ah well there’s always next year!
I’m flat out planting things grown from seed during the early Spring, the last 2 weeks. The seeds hatch and get potted on, then seem to falter on purpose and remain too small till it’s nearly too late. It’s feeling like Summer is upon us, as the long range forecast full of rain keeps changing to mostly sunny. Once the heat is upon us any small plants with roots still near the surface will need daily watering to keep them growing. With a garden the size of mine, dragging out long hoses is very time consuming and not fun. Daily watering of the nursery is quite enough!
I have mulched the veg garden with a bale of rotten baleage from last winters cattle feeding. This really helps keep the moisture in, weeds out, and also makes for good fertility. It’s a bit of a sticky, smelly undertaking, but well worth the effort.
I’m working at the nursery towards our final Open Day for the year, on December 7th. Lots of big perennials and roses will be out at a big discount to try to make watering easier over the Summer. If you need big space fillers it will definitely be worth a visit. Whilst there won’t be another Open Day till some time in January or February, I’ll be around all the time and anyone passing through the district over the summer break is welcome to get hold of me and arrange a visit. The sale items that haven’t sold will remain on special.
I’ve just found this rather out dated draft of a blog I never finished and have never got back to. I’m ever so slack on the updates front and really admire those (like Wairere) who never miss a week , let alone half a year…
Ah well, we can’t all be saints. I struggle to force myself to work on the computer, even though I sit at it some part of every day and do word puzzles and mindless games. At this time of year the annual accounts are due to be sorted and delivered to the accountant. Now there’s a job I loathe! so it turns out that blogging is at least more fun than accounting! I can tap away here and pretend I’m achieving something whilst avoiding the worst job of all.
As it is now April I can’t realistically fill you in on the whole of Summer/early Autumn, suffice it to say the weather gods have been kind to us and the roses, perennials and of course the weeds, have had a bumper season. We have been super busy with family affairs, have had some lovely Open Days and I’ve been sending lots and lots of orders around the country.
I’m now trying to get myself in a regular “cuttings regime” which involves me working my way through my alphabetical list of roses I grow (think up around 600 + now) and making pots of cuttings of them all! It’s a big job. Hope someone comes to help me! Today I have failed as its been pissing rain all day, so I’ve stayed in to do housework in readiness for incoming family coming to celebrate my gold card birthday! OMG, next week I’ll be a pensioner.
On that sad note I shall leave you to admire some asters from a few weeks ago and promise to endeavour to be more saint-like in my dotage!
