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| Sassy loves to catch her ball - for a cheering audience. We walk the neighborhood twice a day, and her fans come out to greet her. I was near our helper's home when his little girl, playing outside, opened the front door and told her parents, "Sassy's here." |
She helped me deliver roses to our neighbors earlier, barking to hurry me up. Sassy's walk is so important that she barks me away from conversations, if possible. I ask her, "Do you have an appointment somewhere? What's the hurry?" At other times she will sit and scan the area, keeping track of all activity and sound. Between her talkative Cattle Dog energy and her German Shepherd protection, she never rests.
Mrs. Gardener answered the door and admired the roses. Her husband opened a front window and said, "Are you the guy who keeps giving my wife roses?" He laughed.
I said, "You ordered them," so she mentioned an old song about a man losing his girlfriend to a guy who brought her roses. Right in the middle was a very large red rose with powerful fragrance and bronze to green foliage, certainly the best single bloom among many marvels.
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| Knockout - small, rapid bloomer, intense color. |
The roses go through their bloom cycle a bit differently. The hybrid tea roses are slower but yield much bigger blooms. The small, red Knockout roses bloom constantly, especially when Alex has been there to prune all the old blooms off.
The only soil amendments are newspapers, wood mulch, earthworms, and Epsom Salt. I read some more about the Epsom Salt, which is especially good for roses.
I sprayed a couple of roses once but never again. I do have some black spot on one rose, but I expected that on one or another rose. The old Persian rose introduced colors into the rose family - and vulnerability to black spot. The only thing I can do is prune black spot away and throw away the affected parts (see John 15:1-10).
Epsom salt is good for germination of seed, so I added some to the new spinach row and the White Profusion butterfly bush. The tiny flowers already had a Monarch butterfly sipping from them.
Epsom salt dissolves instantly in water, so I laugh at all the websites that say "Stir Epsom salt into the top layer of soil." (Martha Stewart too.) I sprinkle it on top before I water the plants or I go out during a rain. Very few advice pages come from active gardeners. They often read like public relations blurbs written by city slickers who don't know which end of a shovel to use.
I have never had such strong and productive roses in the first year. Our yard is blessed with clay soil, and a concentration on soil health has made that clay even more beneficial.
Clay exchanges mineral ions better than any other type of soil, but clay needs organic matter to lighten up its cement-like heaviness. Given a feast of organic matter on the surface (mulch, manure, leaves, compost) - the soil creatures will tunnel, dig, and mix that clay into supersoil with a great ability to hold water.
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| Let's skip the laxative. Great for human feet and rose feet (roots). |
