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| Here I am, posing with 50 Easy Does It Roses. |
I wonder if everyone's rain procrastinates. I was sure Sunday would feature rain all day - as predicted, but it was overcast instead. But today, storms are on the way.
Sassy is enjoying a sleepover at Ranger Bob's. All she needs to pack are her sleeping rug, her food bowl with food, and her leash. She ran double-speed when Bob appeared at the door. "There you are, you old chow dog."
The gladiolus bulbs came, so I am obliged to plant them for the first time ever. I bought 50 so the crew could have some, Bob could enjoy a dozen, and I could plant a row - cost per household, $6. I always choked when it came time to order them, perhaps too soon after rose ordering. My favorite source - Dutch Gardens - charges too much for them, so I got them from another source - and they are huge.
The big thrill this weekend was the blooming of the Easy Does It roses. Last fall I began using peat humus (Stinky Peat) for building up the roses. I bought some bags and shoveled it around the base of the most promising bushes. The most favored are Easy Does It roses, for their constant production.
By the way, soil amendments do not need to be forked into the soil. God made earthworms and other soil creatures for that. I still have a thick layer of leaves on the garden. In late spring they will be gone - or more accurately - digested into the soil by mites, earthworms, and other digesters. Slugs are in the same category (shredders) as earthworms, so they should not be loathed and poisoned - a battle no one can win. Slugs help the vast enterprise of turning organic matter into the food plants can use.
I do very little digging, because soil fungus is the network feeding and watering the plants. That is a recent discovery.
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| Veterans Honor are too beautiful to believe. |
Very early this spring I added more Stinky Peat to the Veterans Honor red roses.
The Easy Does It bushes were green and growing first, benefiting from generous but not overwhelming rain. They begin the season with rose production on short stems, but the stems grow to vase length soon after. The variation in sunset colors make them even more interesting. When other roses are sulking and not blooming from bad weather, Easy Does It still blooms.
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| Sunset colors, varying always. Some are pure orange. |
