Gardening
We’ve been home almost a week from our summer adventures. Since then we’ve had rain everyday. I’ve barely walked through my yard and haven’t even started scrubbing the mildew off of the deck. I’m still gathering my thoughts about the amount of work I need to do to get this place back in shape. But I did wander out to look at my Don Juan roses right after one of our recent torrential downpours and snapped some pics. So here’s some loveliness for your Friday.
I lived in Texas for a few years. First time that I didn’t have a fulltime job and I put some of my newfound leisure time into growing roses. They required a lot of care but rewarded me with blooms of loveliness.
But not here in Perfect. It’s one of the few plants that have defeated me.
Too humid? Too hot? Same weather in Houston and the roses were glorious. After my first failure of about a dozen plants in a sunny spot along the seawall, I blamed our limestone and sand soil here in Old Homosassa and created an entirely new bed in a different sunny place, replacing all the soil with a mixture recommended from a rose website. They still didn’t perform and slowly withered.
The only rose I’ve had any success with is the climber, Don Juan. And only after I was digging up some rose failures and I stopped long enough to shake my spade at the two Don Juans to threaten them with the same fate. Suddenly they started growing and blooming. Yippee!
I even get the occasional rose that is bud vase worthy!
Sometimes you just gotta use tough love!
A few weeks ago while I was visiting our son and daughter-in-law, during one of our early morning walks, we stopped to admire these giraffes in the front of a house across the street. This was a four lane highway so we were quite a bit away but the homeowner saw us through her picture window and scurried right out and called us over to enjoy her entire yard.
I was expecting more giant tchotchkes but was happily surprised with a beautifully landscaped garden with meandering paths and blooming flowers. And, yeah, some tchotchkes.
The woman never introduced herself but I’m going to call her Helen, or maybe Alice. When I asked Helen how many hours she put into this remarkable yard every day and she said “none, Bill did it all.” And then Bill joined us. He said that it was nothing, they are mostly perennials. I think not.
Gotta get back into my own yard. Maybe put some giant giraffes in the front. Definitely more bird houses and a couple of benches!