This week in the garden: (last week of June 2022)

It finally got warm around here. A little too warm. Near (or slightly above) 90 at our home three days in a row. Not today, of course, when I had planned a little garden tea with my mother and one of our children! Today we’ll be lucky to reach 70.

Still, the warmth was wonderful for my joints, and the sun did wonders for my energy level and mood.

I GOT A LOT DONE!

I’ll take some photos of the fully finished look on the next sunny day (which will show off the flowers a lot better), but here are some shots of the before, during, and almost-done back patio.

Before: overgrown roses that had literally bent the supports I had them on. They were taking up the original 4-foot wide planter and more than two of the four foot walkway.

During: We began by putting together a large garden arch. It was expensive, and frankly not worth the money, but once it was up I wasn’t going to take it back down. There were issues with the basic machining (some of the nuts welded to parts of the frame were misaligned resulting in a few panels having only 2 of the three bolts), as well as inadequate strength in the stakes that are supposed to anchor this to the ground. I’ll add some rebar to the structure later as reinforcement. Also, it was brutally difficult to maneuver into place – partly because it was flimsy but also partly because at 2 feet wide it’s not completely stable until completely constructed and the ground isn’t entirely level at this point in the yard. And it is entirely too big and unwieldy to build and then move into place in one piece, even with 3 people. I LOVE the design… but next time I think will just pay a local artisan to weld or make garden art.

After: The severely pruned roses untangled and woven into/tied to the arch. The flowers that remain should do well, but I removed at least twice as many as remain! Yes, there are lovely bouquets in the house and on the outside tables for now… I worry that I removed too much, but since time and healthy constraints limited the “when” this will have to do. Given the cool weather for most of the spring and today and continued cool expected the rest of this week, the plants should survive and might even put on a second growth of shoots and leaves once I add the organic material and fertilizer (mushroom compost now, then a foliar feed of fish fertilizer in a couple weeks).

Here are just some of the prunings in a mop bucket filled with water, I am lucky to have oodles of spare vases… which I will use later if they haven’t wilted to make the rooms in the house a little prettier.

Pics of bouquets …