Early Spring Garden Inventory

Yesterday was perfect; about 50 degrees, sunny and windy - the perfect day for hacking down the Rosa Rugosas. On a day like this, I can wear a lined nylon windbreaker that the thorns will slide off of (usually), lined leather gloves and boots without sweating too much. And, maybe "hack down" aren't quite the right words to use, I trimmed them up as I do every 2-3 years so they don't take over the universe:

   Before
After

Okay, maybe "hack down", was a pretty apt description. I am pretty ruthless, aspiring to cut off at least 1/2 the growth and thinning out the center. Toward the end of this several hour job, I get so tired of being stabbed by thorns that I am less than judicious and really go to town on them.

All the stuff outside the rock wall (see top picture) will be poisoned today. I have tried being nice by just digging out the canes, even tearing out portions of the rock wall to get to the roots, but that hasn't worked. I will use vine and brush killer brushed on the tips of the cuts to the canes and hope it works (I'm figureing it is about even odds - RR's are so tough that I would not be surprised if they survived it).

After spending several hours on this project and ruining one pair of leather gloves (I plan for that), Karen showed up and we took a tour of the yard to see how things faired and what was blooming. Naturally, the forsythia are blooming, I didn't take a picture because this doesn't seem to be their best year (or it may be that they aren't at full bloom - they weren't blooming at the beginning of the week).

To my surprise, a lot of the roses are budding out. Especially surprising were buds on Sheila's Perfume, which I gave up as dead last year and put in the "Last Chance" garden before sending it to the great mulch pile in the sky. I was also happy to see that the Rainbow Knockouts that I had aquired last year (at Shaw's no less), have already started leafing out. 

   Sheila's Perfume Buds
  Rainbow Knockout
 
 Daffodils have started appearing here and there (although the showing is suspiciously light, perhaps chipmunks have helped themselves to the bulbs). I was happy to see the Hellibors are blooming - the first time that I remember (take that for what it is worth). I was surprised that the Pachysandra was already blooming too. I'm only surprised because I never find it until after the blooms have dropped.

  Daffodil
  Hellibor
  Pachysandra

And here is the obligatory kitty picture:

 

Fuzzy, on the back retaining wall (under the vegie garden), was intent on getting Karen to pet him. This isn't actually the shot I wanted; he had been sitting on the upper retaining wall and the wind was blowing thru his fur. The pose he struck, all distant eyed and magnificent, and the way the wind parted his hair, he looked to be a truly feral cat. Alas he has come to covet the human touch too much for him to stay in the pose once he noticed we were close (okay, that's not a bad thing, just didn't work for my picture taking).

We had a fairly mild winter and everything seemed to be in good shape. I need to get out there and rake up the leaves and cut off dead stalks so that everything is tidied up for the coming spring explosion of green and color.

Comments

[Cop Car]

Bogie--You did a great job on the RRs. I waited too late, this year, but went ahead and pruned our roses. We won't have much, this year.

Great photos! You say that you had a mild winter. We had a mild winter with a couple of fairly cold (for us) spells at the end which killed a bunch of stuff (not the weeds, of course!) Our really expensive redbud (I think it was $400, with planting being about 1/2 of that) died.

I've never had a purchased redbud survive for longer than this one did, though - about 5 years? What was I thinking? Fortunately, we have a lot of other redbuds that are from volunteers at Sunrise and at Elegant Friend's house. (Her tree got so bad looking that it was replaced with something else 3 or 4 years ago.)

[bogie]

I am surprised that redbuds don't last longer for you. Most that I have seen are supposed to be good for zone 5 (and I believe you are zone 6), so one would think they would be a bit tougher than that.

I have alwasys wanted to plant a redbud, but figured I'd be wasting my time.