Some pretty roses

I got the rest of the sod removed from the beds I cut edges for last weekend. I thought I would have so much room, but, my extra irises are still going to take up most of the space. No matter how many beds I cut, I'm still out of space. My math definitely failed me- realistic math got thrown out the window and optimistic math happened instead and now I simply need miracle math to get everything in the ground in time. 

The following roses did so much better this year. Pomponella especially was such a wimpy rose last year and now this year it was pretty much problem free. I don't know if Charles Darwin even bloomed last year and I think Moonstone only bloomed once last year. I definitely planted some roses too shallow last year, this year the bareroots got planted a lot deeper and you can tell they like it as they are close to catching up with these ones already in their first year. 

I didn't really think Moonstone would overwinter and was a bit surprised to see it in the spring. I will take cuttings of it this year though as grafted roses struggle a bit here generally. If I'm lucky, I'll have a replacement in the event surviving last winter was just a fluke. 

Charles Darwin

Pomponella

Moonstone

Natives and Nativars

One of the first plants that I planted in my new yard back in 2023 was common milkweed. I started the seeds but they didn't do very well in pots and then I decided I should just plant them in the ground and hope for the best. They did much better the following year and this year they looked great. This was also the first year that the Monarchs actually found them- which, honestly worked out pretty well as by this point I had 10+ large plants in 3 separate clumps. Even though I really wanted to see the caterpillers in year one, this probably worked out a lot better as I didn't have to panic and try to find more plants while the caterpillers ate them down to nothing. I don't know how many actually made it to butterflies as they did seem to attract a lot of bird attention- but it felt like nice progress anyways.  

 A monarch caterpiller, photo from a couple weeks ago.

The below variety took a bit longer to get started- which was probably my own fault as I was waiting for the plant to look more vigorous before planting it in the ground while the plant was waiting for me to plant it in the ground before it would grow. It was such a good learning experience though - from now on I'll just get the native seedlings in the ground in early spring because they are more likely to thrive like that than if I wait for them to look like real plants. This was a pretty variety- makes me want to collect more different varieties.

A swamp milkweed variety called Soulmate.

I bought several quart sized elderberry plants last year when proven winners direct had them on sale. They were very tiny and definitely took some time to get their bearings. The Lemony Lace really did well as soon as it started to warm up. My black lace ones did not do as well- but I'm thinking I may have had them too close to the driveway and more than likely the previous owner of our home salted the driveway in winter. I just moved them to another bed, so hopefully next year will be their year to shine. I had planned to make a goth garden with them as that sounded like such a fun idea- but, they are taking their sweet time turning into anything large enough to build a themed garden around. 

Lemony Lace elderberry

It's almost time to start seed shopping for next year- whenever things calm down I need to figure out what I will be prioritizing in terms of natives for next years. I would really like to add a lot of butterfly/moth host plants but it is really challenging to make a list of host plants, make sure those insects are in my area, then find a place to buy the right locality seeds. Hopefully I will get time this winter to really put together a useful pile of seeds to get me more pollinator variety. 

September dahlias

 A few dahlias from this morning's garden walk - GG"s Ruby Tuesday, Wyn's New Pastel, Foxy Lady. These were all new for me this year and I can't help but think they would have done better in the ground. Ruby Tuesday seems best suited to the pot I have it in, but the others all seem like they would like to be in larger spaces. I'm still not entirely sure I'm sold on Dahlias- I do like the wide variety of the blooms, they just seem so disease prone.

New flower bed finally cut in

I cut the edge for the new flower bed over the weekend. Started cutting out the sod today after work- worked until the mosquitoes came out. I wish I had purchased this sodkicker back in 2024 when I started seriously gardening. It's such a game changer I wish I could rewind and do everything this way. I made it so much harder on myself tarping things and trying to solarize these large sections of grass.

I'm still playing around with design- I did not want all formal- so this was an attempt to lighten it up a bit. Fortunately, it is easy to trench again to change it all- the square beds may not stay square. I did have some people remark that I should have cut something more formal like a rectangle here instead of something asymmetrical. For what it's worth though, I really like this irregular bed a lot more than all my square beds. I should probably add that I'm more of a plant collector than a decorator with plants. I have one of each plant- I'm not planting in clumps of 3 either. It's more like, 'hey, I like this plant, where can I stick this plant', rather than a planned landscaping effort.

Here are my garden helpers- more like garden saboteurs most days. Panda is on the left, Poppy is on the right. They mostly get along, but, they were both adults when they ended up with me and Poppy was accustomed to being an only dog. They do a great job though of keeping the deer out of the fenced yard- almost good enough where I'm tempted to expand the fence to give them access to more of the garden. However, then they do something awful like dig a tunnel under a rose and I change my mind again. They are cute though and good natured so it's hard to be too upset that they wanted a lair under the roses. 

Joining Mastodon

Flowers from my garden- from a couple of weeks ago when alliums were at their peak. #gardening #flowers

First is the unique rose Rainy Blue. This one has limited information available to me as it was never officially released in the US market. I obtained mine from https://www.myblackthumb.com/ where they carry a variety of unusual imported roses. This rose was bred by Hans Jürgen Evers of Germany and introduced in 2012. For me in zone 5a, it is a low sprawling rose, something like a miniature rambler sort of thing. It's very likable and healthy for me despite its significant winter dieback last year. 

 

Second we have a "Millenium" Allium. This one is likely a hybrid of a couple species of allium however I couldn't find anything more detailed than that. This one was purchased back before I was keeping track of where my plants came from- so no information beyond that I planted it in July 2024. It was not impressive in the first year, I'm assuming it was a clearance plant as I cannot remember going out of my way to obtain it. However, I will say it redeemed itself this year and was absolutely covered in bees. This motivated me to try to find some native versions for next year- I have seeds picked out and we'll see how it goes. 

Third is an Echinacea called "Berry Powwow". This was another clearance plant in 2024 with no note as to where I got it. It was also unremarkable in year 1 and a lot more fun this summer. This is another that motivated me to seek out more similar and I planted a few new echinacea from seed this summer and got more seed packets for next summer. 

Hmm.. solved one problem, promptly created another

 I got in my new edging blade that goes with the kick sod cutter I bought last week. I will say, has a bit steeper of a learning curve then the regular sod cutter and I had to fix the first row I did with a shovel. Because it's cutting less, you would expect it to be easier to kick along then the regular sod cutter, but it is actually a bit harder. Still glad I bought it because I can't cut that angled trench consistently with a shovel to save my life. I kicked along and cut a nice trench around 2 of my 10' beds. When I got to the third one, I realized the way I made my earlier beds is going to come back to bite me a bit.

I made those earlier beds by solarizing and then spreading weed barrier and mulch. The problem is that the edger snags that all a bit and shifts it OR if I cut a bit more to the outside, then it doesn't get all of the grass. Debating rolling up the weed barrier a bit and making a sweep with the regular sod cutter OR adding a bit more weed barrier and taking the barrier down into the trench. Leaning towards adding a stripe of barrier down into the trench. Guess I will decide and start that tomorrow.

Switching out the blade requires the use of a couple of wrenches- none I have are a perfect fit. In other words, now I'm sort of locked into finishing all the edges before I circle back to the last couple of beds that need to be made. I rearranged my design a bit to have a few plants left for a more symmetrical bed with the others I've made. Otherwise though- my current beds are planted other than the borders of irises.

Left to plant now, other than a bajillion irises and a couple seedling trays of hollyhock and echinacea, I just have 3 roses, 2 peonies, 1 clematis, 2 astilbe and 2 elderberries. That feels great though- I added so much this year- and that's most of the expensive stuff safely in the ground. The two elderberries I dug up yesterday as they just were not thriving at all where they had been planted. I wanted to plant them near the driveway- which is where I planted them last year. BUT, I'm thinking maybe the previous owner of our home used a lot of salt along the driveway. Anyhow, these things have not grown at all- they are no bigger than when I planted them last June. The other elderberries I planted elsewhere in the yard are 36" shrubs now and these are sticks with 6 leaves.

Should be a nice day tomorrow- spouse has promised to follow me around with the wagon picking up my cut sod- so we'll see how long he lasts out there. I think I have 6 more square beds to cut edges around, then the big round and the front bed along with the side bed. Might do the big round tomorrow if he actually helps just because it's so daunting to look at. The smaller square beds are something I can do in a half hour with short breaks.

In terms of beds I'm still hoping to add- I hope to add one more 10' square bed to finish my 3x3 grid of those - that's where the last few roses/peonies/astilbe/clematis will go with a border of SDB/BB iris. I'll probably add a 24" wide 50 foot stripe in front of the rambler row for the overflow irises. Then I want to make a longer, more freeflowing style bed that widens and tapers to the side of my grid of beds. That won't get planted until next year- but I learned the hard way this year that you cannot save infrastructure changes for spring. Too much can go wrong, it can take too long to thaw, too much rain and so on and pretty soon all your preordered plants are coming in and you then get to spend the rest of the year frantically trying to catch up. Nope. Not going to do that to myself next year. I'm going to set myself up for a good year next year- not a bunch of nonsense like this year.

Getting a new toy in tomorrow

 So, I bought the manual sod cutter last week or so and that has been so much fun to use. I can make a garden bed in an evening after work. Anyhow, I was freaking out a bit about how I was going to edge all of these beds I've made. I was looking at the plastic edging and the tin edging and all of it was ugly and expensive. Anyhow, came across a technique on Youtube where you pretty much just cut down with a shovel below the grass roots and then taper in and use air as the edging to cut down on grass intrustion. Looks pretty cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Of course, that lead me to wonder, is there an easier way to do that other than scooting around the yard with a shovel?

Anyhow, it turns out there is an edging attachment for the sod kicker I already bought. I couldn't find a single review or video of anyone using it- not sure if the algorithm just hates me today or there simply aren't any reviews yet. It comes in tomorrow- I figure if the cutter works that well, the edger probably works great too. If the edging tool works as well as the sod cutter, I'm going to be unstoppable after tomorrow.

Today I worked late- the drawbacks of working in accounting in the first week of the month. I only managed to get an hour in the garden before it got too dark to see how deep the hole I was digging was. On the brightside, I'm down to just 11 roses left to plant, still plenty of other plants, but, only 11 roses. I let myself skip around a bit and get the most urgent in the ground first- ones that had outgrown their pot or ones that looked stressed or ones that LOVE to tip over in the slightest breeze. All the tippiest ones are planted as of tonight, so I should walk out in the morning to no tipped over pots.

Picked another giant pile of cucumbers and tomatoes- eating them as fast as I can. Love this time of year for the bottomless veggie buffet. Eating veggies with every meal, still can't get it all eaten. I keep making pickles and freezing tomatoes for sauce later.

Almost done with roses for the year

 I'm down to the last 18 to plant. I added around 121 different kinds this year- slightly more because the mini's were multiple and I forgot to add how many I bought of each of those. Maybe 140 including the multiple mini roses?

Had my first growing season rose loss- usually I just lose roses during the winter. The loss was a Joseph's Coat planted earlier in the season that just kept struggling and never had more than the slightest growth. It's last branch fell off last week and I dug it up to find the rootstock was just dead. It had hardly any feeder roots when I planted it- but, that happens sometimes. It was one that came packed in sawdust and the sawdust was noticeably hot from breaking down. I don't really like grafted roses here in zone 5. They were a necessity when I lived in Florida in the land of root knot nematodes. Here in northern Michigan though, they are absolutely a liability. They just add that extra wrinkle where they can be failing even though the top of the plant was healthy. I need to make a real effort next week to get all my grafteds air-layering so that I can snip and overwinter some props indoors.

Planted a Gemini 'bareroot' today that has a similarly crappy grafted root system. Stuck three air layer pods on it. That thing is not going to survive the winter. The graft is already splitting as well. I filled the crack with wood glue just so it wouldn't rot before I can get some air layers off of it. To be fair, it was Home Depot clearance for $1. But, if I can get an own root off of it, will have been well worth it. Either way, $1 isn't much of a gamble. It did bloom correctly- so that's nice at least.

I worked in a light rain this evening- because that's the point I'm at. It was brisk.. lol

Tomorrow should be great for garden work- cool, overcast but little to no rain. Hoping to get into the garden for about an hour before work and then from 6-8:15 or whenever it gets dark.

Well, this is the latest I've ever still been planting - lowkey annoyed with myself

 I took a break from creating more beds to just go ahead and work on getting everything in the ground that has a spot now. It looks like I should be able to take a couple days off next week to just work in the garden- so hopefully someone else doesn't snag those days off before I book them.

I can't even remember where I left off last time I posted. Basically, I've added eight 10'x10' beds so far this year along with my rambler row. I had two of those beds fully planted a few weeks ago and 4 that were solarizing waiting on grass to die. Since then, I weed barriered and mulched those four beds and last Monday I got in my sod cutter and have since cut two more beds out of the lawn without solarizing. I am extremely happy with the sod cutter! It's a manual, 12" wide, kick style from Maxim. The easy part is kicking it, the hard part is cleaning up the sod chunks. But, of course, that would be the heavy and dirty part with the big gas one as well. It's one of these:



It's really grown on me and the beds are so much easier to plant without working around so much weed barrier.

The two new beds are fully planted as of this evening and I've doubled back to plant the 4 weed barrier beds. I got the large plants in the center of one of them planted this evening, but, still have the iris outline to plant. Of course, that will be super time consuming because of the weed barrier. UNLESS- I maybe just remove 12" of weed barrier around the outside, cut the grass remnants out with my sod cutter and just plant like that instead. I might. It might really be faster.

Everything really needed water today- which is really annoying because we get rain the next three days- but, I went ahead and watered the most desperate looking even though they will get rain tomorrow.

I'm wildly disgusted by my dahlias. I need to go through and trash can a bunch of virused plants - from- oh yeah, the same small seller that sent me a bunch of blind tubers. The ones that did survive are all really virused. So, that's fun. I counted 8 virused plants today and checked the tags, all that seller again. I keep reminding myself that other than that seller- the other stuff looks good. But, I'm in a murky mood towards those things and just sort of over it. It will be something to do tomorrow evening while it's raining and too difficult to dig. At least they are all potted- but even so, does this mean all the healthy looking ones will have virus next year from being near those ones?

Anyhow. With the cool weather the oddball yellow colors really popped on them- it really explained why so many haven't got to be blooming size either- stunted from virus. Lesson learned- dahlias are not something you can buy from a new seller. You have to just stick with longer term hobbyists that really care about their plants- not all the 'flower farm' people who are just in it for a quick buck.

Toyed with the idea of just trashing all of them and starting fresh since of course these ones could have infected my healthy ones. BUT, I might as well experiment with overwintering these ones and get another year of practice before buying good ones. But, if I have more virus in the fall next year, might just trash them all for a fresh start. I thought roses were bad- but, roses are so much less disease prone than dahlias.