popular What have you done today in the Garden?

My roses are in full sun. I keep the center open, for drying air circulation. If a variety gets a lot of black spot, I get rid of it.

A few spots happen to some roses, but not a lot. My biggest problem last year was rose whitefly. For some reason, mainly on the container roses, not the duck yard. Maybe the ducks eat them? I neemed the container roses. Now there are only two in containers.

Weeds, especially trailing blackberries and mint, are my biggest rose garden challenges. I'm working on those.

 

I gave up on hybrid tea roses . After all Portland is crowned ‘The City Of Roses.’ I tried growing them for years and no matter what I did they would look utterly despicable heavily covered with black spots, and it’s spread like wildfire. It was way to much to continually babysit them. Now I just grow other types of roses that are not susceptible to black spot.

 

This am -

Finished cutting down the Stanley plum, Nd cut most of the branches and trunks into moveable pieces.

Cut down an unwanted, weedy looking, messy, ugly, hybrid buddleia tree. The catalog said they grow 5 feet tall. This was more like 20 feet tall with 6 to 9 inch thick trunks.

That leaves one final unwanted plum tree to remove, the last of my fruit tree culling. I felt a little sad, looking at the buds swelling. But they are too much work, I I don't have a use for so many.

I also winter-pruned this multigraft Asian Plum tree, which I am keeping. Methley, Hollywood, and Shiro. They are such good plums! And not available in grocery stores. I cut back willowy top growth, 2 or 3 feet of growth, and thinned the rest. Now I can reach everything without a ladder, but most is too high for deer to reach.

 

Looks great and so much easier to harvest.

 

Update.

I spent a couple of afternoon hours in the rose garden / duck yard. It was a beautiful day outside, mild, blue sky. Mostly I sat on my wheeled garden seat and used electric pruners and trimmers, to prune the rose bushes and cut off as much trailing blackberry as possible.

More than half way through them now. No rain expected tomorrow, so I hope I can get through another three or four rose bushes then. After that, rain is predicted every day for a week, although maybe not all day long.

 

Daniel— busy bee, you are. I am jealous that you can already do so much work.

 

I was in the yard for 5 hours straight. The weeds !! I repotted my dipladenia and a kimberly fern. Washed out 8 big pots cleaned and refilled the bird baths and then started out front digging out weeds. I got about 60' of the front garden beds weeded and while doing that I dug and divided 4daylilies, gave them new soil and watered them in. I had to remove the weed roots from the daylilies anyway and the only way to get those roots out was to dig them up and wash off the dirt just to get to the weed's roots.

I'm too pooped to pop !!

 

Nothing today it's raining again, but Saturday is going to be dry.

 

Annie— good onya. Now you deserve a little confort time.

 

Almost done cleaning up and pruning the duck yard roses. Yesterday I wore out, and it's raining today so I get a break. Three remain to finish heavy weeding and pruning touch up. I already started those, just need to do the rest.

There are some scattered roses, mainly climbers, in there too. I can get to those before major growth is underway. Maybe next week.

I think I'll renovate the bearded irises next.

 

I'm taking the day off. I'm making a blackberry pie with my frozen blackberries from last summer.

 

Nothing today, but as it will be sunny tomorrow, I may give the roses a spray of Sulphur Rose.
Most are starting to sprout new foliage.
I'll have another check on the clematis, to see if there's any development from those that look a bit dead. The only colour we have at the moment is from a few primroses and snowdrops.