Finished with my crocus. Got all my crocus planted. Well, at least until my second round of bulbs arrives in October. But that Southside Rose Garden should look so pretty next spring with the 600 crocus blooming.

Now it is true that each one crocus flower is not exceptionally spectacular but plant a bunch of them and they look really nice.

Cindi - How well does the pecan tree hold up? I'd love to have a pecan tree.. I had one in my yard when I was a little squirt (well, never was *little*, let's just say young).

They are great trees. Kind of an open canopy. They take a while to bear nuts, but the leaves are a decent size, and the tree itself is strong enough to hold up to storms. I don't water ours, but they do like water. I'll look around and see if I can find one in a pot that I can mail to you! Some years, every pot has a tree in it.
Our weather is cooling off a bit. I may get shrubs, roses and trees planted this week! Iris and roses are on the way to me, yay! The drip line project is not done...kind of lost urgency when the forecast changed to rain, but that was silly because most of the time the rain doesn't materialize.
i still have 500 sq ft of tile to lay plus a shower to build, then plumbing and electrical and i hate doing that by myself. There's 3 stained glass projects waiting to be finished. Every table in the house has a glass project on it!
THEN...if the temperatures are right, I can finish painting the eaves of the house! And then build the pergola and the deck and the dock. sigh. I still have not divided all the daylilies and iris, and that has to happen soon.
What I really want to do is go visit my parents for a few days while I can. Then, finish the work. .

Wow Cindi, you shouldn't be bored for a while!

Toni, pecan trees here are very slow growing and do not stand up to wind very well - especially when it is dry. The drought of the recent summers has killed half of our younger pecans and caused the older trees to drop limbs. Perhaps Cindi had a different cultivar; I wouldn't recommend our native pecans.

I don't know what kind of pecan I had when I was a child. I know it was an older tree.. probably about 35-40 years old. It would produce a couple of bushels of pecans every year. I know they weren't the papershells, I think, after doing some googling, it was a Stuart's pecan tree.

I don't know what kind of pecan tree we have because it was here when we bought the house. It is 20' from a huge cottonwood, so it is sheltered. We removed a cottonwood limb that was reaching through the pecan, and since then the pecan has grown quite a bit. Amazingly enough, pecans are sold as ornamental trees up here. On a "normal" year we get 33 inches of rain and 14" snow. That may be a lot more than what you get. Here, it's enough to grow a pecan without extra irrigation.
And Porkpal, I have never in my life been bored. My work list is too long. We bought this place because I totally filled the last yard and finished all my remodeling. Here, I can't possibly do that. Next year, I would like to add a chicken coop and a bog filtered swimming pond pool. Since I've had NO experience with chickens, I'm reading lots of books before I start any of it.
It's hot and windy again today. The pretty late flush we were getting may not hold up long enough for me to get pictures!

Looks like snow in the high country already... Yay!! Hopefully we get lots & lots of snow up there ...

http://www.9news.com/news/arti...

had spectacular weather this weekend, beautiful up until about 530 yesterday afternoon. Then a massive storm came roaring through. Went outside during the storm to cut a bouquet for my office as I figured that the storm would smack most of my roses.. they're blooming SOOO beautifully right now...

Beautiful indeed! And equally delicious to smell, I bet!

So beautiful! What is the white rose with so many petals, looks like an Austin? what is the light pink one with a touch of red of the edges? (The one on the left side of the photo on the lower left)
Those blossoms are huge! Around here, most people only get small blossoms at the end of summer. Yours look like it's springtime, and first flush!

White One = Pure Perfume
Light Pink w/Touch of Red = California Dreamin'

The two darker mauve ones .. Melody Perfume & BlueGirl.. especially Melody Perfume, is massive. Like 6" across. Cut another Baker's dozen tonight to give to my boss' wife.. she's like permanently depressed, so I help as much as I can with simple things like a bouquet of flowers every week.

My roses are going absolutely beautifully right now. They're just blooming like mad. I have a bazillion new buds everywhere, new growth everywhere. A week worth of rain will do that I guess. And, less than 2 weeks from now, we have a predicted frost. Go figure. Snowed over 6" up in the high country. Guess winter's will be here soon.. this was a short short year for growth. Bleh.

Beautiful bouquets and what a sweet gesture to bring roses for the boss' wife.

Today's bouquet

Anyone having a bad day?

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/si...

Ok, that's it, I quit. I live in Douglas County.



http://www.accuweather.com/en/...

That's disgusting!

these are all the same rosebush. When I posted the skimpy bloom, Sue doubted it was really 'Heaven on Earth'. I double checked and found the metal tag on it. The blooms now look more like the real deal, don't you think? Maybe the hot dry weather made the earlier blooms have fewer petals?

Well Toni, you almost made it to October. Do you get an Indian summer there, or just zip right into fall?
Here, this is the sweetest time of year. The grass is green again, daylilies send up new leaves, and the roses put on a decent show.
I'm still planting roses from mamajack's chamblee coop. It may not have been the wisest move, getting bare-rooted, actively growing roses mailed to me while it is still hot in Texas. One box was held up an extra day, and of course it was the box with the bigger roses, so they were noticeably stressed while the smaller ones were fine. When I buy them potted from Chamblee, they break in transit, but they don't wilt.
Winds are roaring here today, so I don't know if mulch will even stay around the newly planted ones.
My youngest daughter is driving back here from Colorado today and weather channel says western Kansas has a TorCon index of 3, meaning she will be driving through some rough storms, possibly tornadoes. She drove out there last Monday and had to sit and wait out a windstorm for several hours while I-70 was closed. She just left, so she'll be in the thick of it.
Have any of you ordered maiden roses from Wisconsin Roses? Did you have trouble getting them to grow? Palatine is shipping my order this November on their first ship date because our falls have been so mild the past few years. Since Palatine roses are so sturdy to begin with, I'm not worried about early freezes.
Wisconsin suggested I take delivery in April, so I agreed, but April is one crazy mother here. Should i grow them in pots for the first few months? June is sometimes very hot and windy, so the goal is to get everything in the ground by middle of May. It the maidens are in pots, at least i can move them inside if we get a late freeze. These roses were budded this summer, and they'll be heeled in all winter in Wisconsin so I'm hoping they'll be somewhat hardened off. Any advice for proper care? Steven from WiR has videos and instructions on the website, but my concerns are more about dealing with climate.

The color does look more like it Cindi Still, odd that it doesn't show the large cupped form but I did see maybe one or two like yours on HMF.