Red Dirt Ramblings

One of the many piles of garden debris to haul off to either a burn or compost pile.

Dang it!  My hand weeder is again missing. After all the work I put it through yesterday, it is probably hiding under a pile of rose canes.  Debris piles are all over the garden right now so it wouldn’t surprise me.  If I don’t find it soon, I’ll be forced to buy another.  Then, one day, I’ll find this one as I cleaning and clearing away.

It’s important to have good tools.  In fact, it is one of Carol’s five keys to garden happiness, and I agree.

Whether your passion is cooking, baking, crafting or gardening (all things I enjoy), good tools make your job easier and more enjoyable.  I’ve found I only need a few garden tools to make me happy.

• A good pair of loppers is one of the essentials.  I like the 28- inch Fiskars Power-Lever Loppers because they have gears which make them more powerful and easier to use.  I also like these shorter ones because they are more manageable to navigate deep into the roses, and they make clean and easy cuts on dead wood.

• A great pair of Felco Classic Pruners. Mine are the original model, but I think these are neat because they are more ergonomic.

• Speaking of ergonomic, I love this weeder spade thing, the Radius Garden Natural Radius Grip weeder.  I actually found mine at a discount store in the city (sorry, there were only a few).  It is wonderful for digging out dandelions and other deep-rooted weeds.  It also works great as a trowel especially for bulbs.  Have you ordered your rain lilies yet?

• I wouldn’t go gardening anywhere without my Muck Boot garden clogs.  I love, love, love them.  They keep my feet dry, and they can be hosed off for cleaning.  Better than destroying another pair of walking shoes.

Wolf draw hoe leaning against the garage with tomato staking supplies below.

• My WOLF-Garten Draw hoe is another great tool.  I’ve had many hoes, and this type is my favorite.  It is aluminum and can be left out in the garden with no warping of the handle and no rust.  After well made, low maintenance, is essential in hoes.

• I have several, favorite brands of gloves.  When I had a lot of arthritis pain, I used the Bionic Women’s Elite Gardening Gloves with the reinforced fingertips.  (After I quit eating dairy and wheat, I don’t have as much hand weakness and pain, but I still like this brand.)  I also like WomansWork and Ethel gloves.  Ooh, Ethel has a rose glove.  Boy, I’d like to have that.  I bet the gauntlets would breathe, and my arms wouldn’t sweat.  Very, very nice for different types of jobs.  Why do I wear gloves?  A couple of reasons.  I’ve been stung by assassin bugs a couple of times accidentally (they drop to the ground when startled).  I like to squish grubs, but not bare handed, and once I got into a mess of blister beetles, which caused Leprous looking blisters on my thumb.  I also have fake nails.  I know, the last is odd for a gardener.

But, back to my hand hoe.  Smith & Hawken, in those days when they made really good garden gear, had the most wonderful hand weeder.  This one, from A.M. Leonard, comes close, but the handle should be a bit bigger around to reduce hand strain.  I also love my CobraHead Weeder and Cultivator, but I use it for different tasks especially dealing with the dreaded Bermuda grass.  If anyone knows of a similar, triangle-head, forged, hand weeder, I would be very grateful.

Sniff.  Sob.  I miss my weeder.

By the way, in accordance with full declaration rules by the FTC, I bought all of these products myself.  I have, in the past, received Ethel and Bionic gloves as gifts during the Garden Writers Association’s annual meeting and the Garden Bloggers’ Spring Fling in Chicago.  I wore out both of them in the garden and then, happily bought more.

Tweet This Post

Tags: Favorite Garden Tools, Garden Gloves, Hand Weeder, Hoes, Muck Boots, Pruners and Loppers

Crocuses herald the beginning of spring

Dear Carol and Mary Ann and all of our gardening friends,

I planned to have this letter up before now, but my Internet went down sometime last night. Now, it appears to be again working.  Who knows?

I didn’t plant any other veggie seeds this weekend, but instead, cleaned up and cleared out the garden to make room for them.  I cut back several roses, and my arms bear witness to their scratches.  I still have quite a few roses to prune, but it won’t take long now.

A bird nest I found while pruning Rosa Carefree Sunshine

HH broke ground on the potager.  He worked both Saturday and Sunday digging the sub-base, which we will cover with landscape fabric to discourage the Bermuda grass.  We will also line the beds with landscape fabric for this same purpose.  Carol asked how high the walls of the beds will be.  I haven’t decided, but they will be high enough for me to sit upon so that I won’t need to kneel to work the beds.  I’m trying to plan for my arthritic future.  (LOL)

Helleborus 'Honeyhill Joy' in a downpour

Today, as I drove Bear to school, a misty rain fell.  Since I’d worked so hard on the laundry beforehand, I decided to reward myself with a trip to TLC nursery.  I needed a mugo pine and another evergreen for the garden.  I am replacing a couple of roses, and I’ve decided evergreens will add more year-round interest to the back garden.  I found the perfect mugo pine, but I’m still thinking about a holly for the other spot.  I also bought a couple of Helleborus niger ‘Honeyhill Joy’ because I already have one of this variety, and I love the way its yellow/green blooms light up the shade in the front garden, along with the fact, that they look you in the eye.  They don’t face downward like most other hellebores.

There were so many perennials I wanted, but I stuck to my original plant list with only a few additions.  I bought a variegated Abelia x grandiflora ‘Twist of Lime’ just because it was so beautiful.  Not sure where I’ll put it yet, but I have an idea or two.  I put three ‘Sweet Tea’ heucheras in my cart, but then I put them back.  I’ll get them later after the freeze.  I also saw the coolest euphorbias, but I put them back too.  Although I didn’t give up buying plants for Lent like I did last year, I will be strong and resist buying everything I see.

While I was at the nursery, the rain went from a misty afterthought to falling in buckets, so I spent a lot of time in the outdoor greenhouse, where I could almost feel the pressure of the drops as they pelted the plastic above my head.  All in all, I must say it was a very nice experience.

I have lots of seeds to plant, and once the weather clears up, I will do just that.

Till next week, I remain, your most affectionate friend,

Tweet This Post

Tags: Abelia Twist of Lime, Hellebore 'Honeyhilly Joy'

Both hurt.

This afternoon, I untangled the wreck between Rosa ‘The Fairy’ and R. ‘Carefree Delight’ (a thornier beast never grew), and I was stabbed on my arms, head and backside.  Note:  Friends keep giving me rose gloves, but I find them clunkier than regular gloves, and they make my arms sweat.  Besides, they don’t don’t solve the sticky head or backside problems.  I’m thinking full body armor?

While I worked, I pondered how pruning roses is a lot like raising teenagers.  I’m on numbers two and three in the children category if you wondered.

Planting a new, young rose bush

First, let’s back up a bit.  Like a new parent, you plant your tiny roses in the garden.  You give them good things to eat like bone meal, manure and leaf mold.  For those first couple of years you prune them lightly and water, waiting for them to grow.  With a guiding hand, you protect them from late freezes and other dangers like thrips, Japanese beetles and cane borers.

Then, one day, you go outside with your sharpened pruners full of hope and expectation, and you discover that during winter (or when you turned your back), the roses grew six feet tall and became all prickly, unruly and sullen.  Suddenly, they don’t want to go to Tae Kwon Do anymore (even though they are one test from earning their first black belt), or to Boy Scouts (although they are one step from their Eagle).  Instead, they want to mingle with friends, listen to music you hate, and think incessantly about girls or boys.

Whoops, I’m talking about the teens, but you can see the similarities.

The roses are now clambering through the other shrubs and are taking over pathways.  You gently try to prune away dead wood, and you are stabbed by reflexive thorns (prickles really) which let your hand in, but force you to scratch your way out.  You take the canes gently and pull them away (to cause the least bit of damage to you and the rose), but then, the rose slaps you in the face.

Someone to watch over me

It isn’t pretty.

You ask the teens, “Where are you going tonight and with whom?”  They spout off a name . . . someone you don’t know.

“Do we know their family,” you ask.  With a look of disdain, the teen mumbles something unintelligible.  After much discussion, you realize you do know the new friend, and with fingers crossed and silent prayer, you say okay.

Roses are the same way.  It’s good to know their background.  Does the rose have ‘Carefree Delight’ in her progeny?  If so, expect great disease resistance, but also, disturbing growth and wicked thorns.  Sometimes, for ‘Carefree Delight’, a complete chop down to three or four canes is necessary.  I call this “rose grounding.”  It is similar to teen grounding, like when you discover the school has your teen’s phone.  Again.  Resigned, you have your teen work off the phone’s ransom.

Another useful thing for climbers growing wildly out of control and reaching for the sky (a good analogy for a teen boy) is a bit of guidance with vinyl tie tape or jute twine.  It guides the rose toward the arbor or trellis while providing some give and take.  Everyone needs their space.

R. 'Carefree Delight' (L) mingling with R. 'The Fairy' (R)

Then, once the pruning, gentle or severe, is over, it’s time to feed and mulch your babies.  Come summer (i.e., adulthood), you get to see them bloom, and suddenly, you realize all the pain and struggle was worth it for moments such as these.

R. 'Baseye's Blueberry' which, by the way, is thornless.

Tweet This Post

Tags: Parenting, Pruning roses

Cl. Old Blush in better days

Today was the day. The wind was calm, and the sun shined down upon my quest.  My first rose in the back garden, ‘Cl. Old Blush’, but affectionately known around here as the Dowager Duchess, groaned under the weight of the evil autumn clematis. DD was just beginning to break dormancy, as she is always the first and last rose to bloom, but, twelve feet up in the sky, I could see her straining beneath the autumn clematis’s dead blooms.

Do you ever regret planting something in your garden? I mean, at the time, it seemed like a good idea, but after a couple of seasons, you realize you’ve let loose a monster in your midst?

For me, autumn clematis is one of these.  It came here as a small and innocent looking plant, but those ivory blooms belied a terrible, secret desire for world domination.  After the first season, I should have listened to my friend, Katie, when she said that she didn’t trust a plant which did so well in Oklahoma weather.  Like the lotus eaters in Odysseus, I was seduced by autumn clematis’s foamy blooms and didn’t listen.  By the second season, I was spending every available moment yanking the clematis back under control.

Need I say more?

Laughable really.

I knew we were in trouble when the clematis starting re-seeding itself throughout the garden.  Suspiciously, it often chose places where other pricier clematis grew making it difficult to catch it before it had the unsuspecting plants in a strangle hold

This afternoon, I heard the pleas of the Dowager Duchess and after clearing away the dead leaves at the base of the rose, I found her completely encircled by an already growing (spring has sprung) autumn clematis.  With spade and hoe, I hacked away at the clematis’s roots while trying not to disturb either the rose’s roots or the earthworm population.

I think I’ve won Round One, but I doubt I’ve won the war.  Only time will tell.

Tweet This Post

Tags: autumn clematis, climbing roses, heirloom roses, Roses