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The weather has
simply been too gorgeous to sit inside
and blog. There has been no rain for
almost a fortnight, so every evening we
are out watering the garden with the
hose or the watering can. We don't own
a sprinkler. For a garden like ours, I
consider them a waste of water and a
primary cause of fungal problems. Roses
and vegetables are best watered around
the roots and not on the leaves as water
on the foliage promotes blight and
mildew, especially in humid weather.
Watering the garden by hand takes about
30 minutes for one person, but it is
time well spent enjoying the garden,
noting new growth, fruit or buds, and
seeking out any pests.
The gherkins I have
planted are struggling a little. I
didn't have as much compost for them as
I would have liked, so they have to make
the best of the poor soil in the rose
garden and the little compost I had. A
feed of liquid blood and bone seems to
have given them a boost though, so I
shall keep encouraging them along.
Something has been finding their leaves
very tasty. Possibly earwigs, by the
look of the holes. And I have baits
down for slugs and snails but have seen
no sick slimy creatures in the garden.
I may have to move some of the potted
garlic into the vicinity, or give the
gherkin plants a spray with soapy water
to make them less palatable.
The tomatoes are
booming. And the zucchini garden is
dotted with cherry tomato seedlings, all
self-seeded from the compost. I don't
put weeds in the compost, as the compost
doesn't always get hot enough to kill
the roots and weed seeds. So the
majority of "weeds" that now appear in
my garden now are self-seeded tomatoes
and broccoli! |
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Saturday was perfect for being
outdoors, but Sunday's cold rain drove
me into the potting shed and then into
the house. Part of Saturday was spent
solving the problem caused by thrushes
and blackbirds in the rose pots. Not
only do we have the contents of the rose
garden in pots, but we have a dozen or
so more roses that we obtained from my
parents. Mum and Dad had bought them
for me at about $2 per root stock from a
rose nursery that was closing near the
start of the decade. Mum kindly heeled
them in under the trees in her yard for
me until I had somewhere to put them.
Then I moved to Australia!
Now, about 6 years later, Mum has sent
in a search party to find what is left
of them. Not all of the roses were
still in existence. Some were just
bare, knobbly stumps, and others had
rotted away completely in the damp grass
under the trees. But she gave me what
she could find, even the stumps, and I
potted them like I had the others - in
compost and untanilized sawdust. To
make up for my many years of neglecting
them, I have doted on them ever since,
watering, pruning, cutting back dead
wood, spraying with Yates Shield and
Supershield, and generally fussing.
Incredibly, all have now recovered to
some degree. They all have leaves and
new growth. All but three have
recovered in full and are now covered in
buds, blooms, and lush leaf growth.
Most rose blooms are in sunset colours -
pinks, salmons and scarlets. Amongst
them there are also several Iceberg
roses, which make a stunning contrast.
It will take several seasons to train
the standards back into form, but having
them in pots for a cycle has allowed me
at least to identify their types and
colours so that I can design the rose
garden around them more easily this
winter.
But being in pots, the roses have been
at the mercy of the thrushes and
blackbirds that dig among the roots
searching for worms. The birds are so
good at digging that they turf out half
of the compost and destabilise the rose
roots. So on Saturday, Andrew and I set
about creating bird excluders for the
pots. We bought a 5 metre roll of
green, plastic dipped chicken wire mesh
for $19.90. Andrew cut circles from it
to cover the pots. Each circle has a
radial cut to the centre and a hole cut
in the middle so that the whole thing
can be wrapped around the rose rootstock
above soil and mulch level and tucked in
under the lip of the pot. The netting
is sturdy, with holes big enough to
water and weed the pots and drive in
bamboo support stakes, while keeping out
our feathered friends. The green
coating makes the wire long-lasting,
easier to work with the hands, and blend
in with the colour of the pots so that
the solution is not an unsightly one.
The passion fruit pots shall receive the
same treatment this week, then our
friendly thrush family and mother
blackbird will be back to digging in the
border gardens and eating the alpine
strawberries as they ripen, and I can
take a break from sweeping up the
contents of the pots off the ground each
day and trying to keep one step ahead of
my garden's avian visitors! |
