I saw it too. Thank you.

Lyn, Summer Song was the weak rose. Francis Meilland died most likely because we had a horrible summer last year and I didn't water, and I know better. The first year I have a rose I have to water on a regular basis or it won't make it through the winter. Francis Meilland was still growing when we had a temperature drop from 79 to 29...and it stayed at 29 for a day. Other people in my area did not have the same issue with that rose because they treated it right. Not pampered...just right.
I'm VP and program chair for our Rose Society, and for our program, we discussed what survived the winter and what had to be cut way back. FM was great for others.
Our rose sale is next week. We're selling Austins, Kordes, and Drift roses. Those are the winners in this area. Neal, the climate here is much like there--lots of temperature swings. Here, though, we don't have so much of the humidity, so that's probably why the Austins do so well here.

Thanks, Cindi ....

If the one nursery I trust down the mountain carries the rose next year, I'll get it. I have finally reached the point where I don't have room for more roses unless I let another one go. Surprisingly, that feels good. It means that the only roses I'll be getting will be ones I truly want or truly yearn to add to the garden.

The one rose I want to replace is 'Firefighter'. It's a great plant, but the blooms crisp quickly in my dry heat.

My two Austins are finally getting their feet under them and are starting to take off and look like viable plants. 'Perdita' shut down completely in the heat last summer. I think the drought was particularly hard on that rose. It's not a mature plant, so it was more vulnerable. 'Bedont', also a young plant, also shut down.

My roses are looking simply wonderful as plants this spring. We had a milder winter with lots of rain and I think that gave them a chance to recover from the impact of the drought.

Smiles,
Lyn

I'm glad to hear Francis is a good performer- that one is high on my list of wants!

am I too late to the party? I know I was supposed to write an article, but this month has been a really really bad month and I just haven't been here at all.. don't really want to get into what's going on as it's a long sad story that's full of ridiculous anguish.. but I can probably write an article really quick if it's not too late..



sorry I dropped the ball.


on a plus note, I did pick up a Dark Night at Home Depot for $25! Yay!

Don't worry about it, Toni. We have enough articles.

@gemini_sage
???ohmygosh--really?

zuzu said:Neal's article is about his personal experience with RRD in his garden.

I don't know, I guess I saw a kind, hairless face and long hair and ass-umed that you were a woman--sincerest apologies for all the times I've used the wrong pronoun and/or other erroneous gender based phrases

Nice article, btw, and congratulations on overcoming that horrific hurdle so far. Hope your new roses reward you well!

LOL, @dirtdorphins! I've never noticed that you've used the wrong pronoun, but wouldn't have minded anyway- I often feel like "one of the girls" anyway, LOL. Come to think of it, I don't know your gender...? I'm guessing female, am I right?

Thank you
representing red-egg-face
Yes--I am female, sort of--
and you will likely continue to be 'one of the girls' in my mind anyway
cripes, you should win the award for the most (and best) deep-thoughtful and thought provoking-interesting-insightful-entertaining-inspiring-etc. gardening related threads started this winter. (I did a fair amount of lurking with limited time for engagement. Perhaps next winter I will resurrect a few that I wanted to see more comments on!)

Thanks! Please do resurrect any of those threads!

"Yes-I am female, sort of' " LOL- that just cracked me up!

A friend of mine is a college professor and researcher/author who studies gender identity, women's studies, and LGBT issues. She once described me as "one of the most gender non-normative people" she'd ever met, LOL.

Yesterday I went out on the farm and gathered dry cow patties for the roses. My vehicle was in the shop when the new roses arrived and prevented me from doing it then. The soil here is quite good already, so I wasn't too worried about it. This morning I gave half of them a generous helping (about a 5 gallon bucket full per plant) and worked it in well. Need to gather more for the other half.

Neal, how do you apply the cow patties? Whole, shredded, in water?

I shred them up a bit with the shovel, then they break up more as I work them into the soil.

I was asking the fellow at the garden center at Lowe's about manure products and mentioned I was using un-composted, or fresh manure, and he warned me that it could toxify the soil. Later while gathering cow patties I realized he thought I meant really fresh, as in wet, goopy, and stinky!

I have used mainly horse, pig, and chicken manures as the cow manure seems hard to work with. It would make better construction material than mulch, I believe. Maybe my cows eat differently than yours.

Neal ...

The guy at Lowe's is correct.

"cow patties" ... all steer manure ... contain a lot of salt. If you water the plant very well the day before you add your cow patties, you reduce that toxification affect. Too much salt will kill soil organisms and burn the feeder roots of plants. After you have applied your manure, water it in well. That, too, will reduce the impact of using straight manure.

There is no need to put manures in the planting holes. The feeder roots of most plants are near the surface. Since nature drops all organic materials on the surface, plants have adapted by putting those roots where the nutrients are found. Soil bacteria which break down the nutrients are also more active near the surface because they have work to do.

Horse manure contains less salt than steer manure ... not sure about chicken poo ...

I haven't research this myself, but learned it from my rose mentor. He had a garden of over 1,000 roses in the high desert in southern California. A friend would deliver trailer loads of horse manure to his garden. Kim told me that he even applied fresh poo to roses in that garden using the method described above.

There is a caveat. Kim was gardening in an arid climate with high heat, which breaks down the manures faster than if he was gardening in a cooler or a more humid climate.

However, the information about the salt content and soil bacteria is not climate specific.

Smiles,
Lyn

The high salt in the steer manure probably is due to the practice of adding salt to feed when feeding stock "free choice" in order to limit consumption. My cows eat mainly pasture grass and only get the salt they choose to lick up from the mineral feeders. I would guess their manure is as low in salt as the average horse's.

A few years back, I taught with a gal who would bring me buffalo patties from her ranch. The kids were always shocked to see plastic bags of it on my desk, thinking someone was "punking" me.
Today I spread out the last of our mountain of tree mulch. The bottom of the pile was pure gold!
Time to call the tree company and get a new mountain started.

porkpal said:The high salt in the steer manure probably is due to the practice of adding salt to feed when feeding stock "free choice" in order to limit consumption. My cows eat mainly pasture grass and only get the salt they choose to lick up from the mineral feeders. I would guess their manure is as low in salt as the average horse's.

That's good to know. Thank you, Porkpal.

Smiles,
Lyn

A few shots when I got home from work today:

Rose (Rosa 'Sweet Dream')


I call this color orange juice, it's Rose (Rosa 'South Africa')


Rose (Rosa 'Teasing Georgia') and a poppy


Rose (Rosa 'Tradescant')


Rose (Rosa 'Ring of Fire')

Floribunda Rose (Rosa 'Cafe')





Dixiplexis


My favorite alstromeria

Pepplegoose and Crepuscule. Talk about a phrase that just trips off the tongue.

I love my Crepuscule!!!