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Bzzzz May 27th, 2008

After the rains that devastated my New Dawn roses, I had nearly given up hope of finding a solution.

But I bought my husband some brand spankin’ new post hole diggers as a Memorial Day gift–I am nothing if not considerate–and he put them to good use.

He managed to ease the roses out of the offending and broken down trellises. He then dug some impressive holes. I installed lag eye hooks and wire to support the dangerously thorned branches.

They don’t look so bountiful right now because I had to do a wee bit of pruning. Okay, it was a mambo pruning session.

I maybe got carried away in making up for neglecting to give these bountiful roses their proper prunings for a while. These are the remains of a single New Dawn pruning. (Please note by the orange paint on the grass that I called Miss Utility to mark where the power and other wires are located. I’m not ready for a new husband.)

Frankly, nothing short of a natural disaster could kill these roses. In fact, as I was paging through Barbara Damrosch’s newly revised Garden Primer the other day I happened to read her section on climbing roses in which she called the New Dawn “indestructible.” Indeed.

I am so buoyed by my husband’s skills with the post hole diggers I am plotting numerous new projects–trellises, outdoor showers, grapes. Don’t tell him. He’s still recovering from his Memorial Day project.

Posted In: Flowers, Gardening

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I don’t usually make a habit of publicizing my laziness or gardening errors.

But sometimes something so serendipitous happens that I just have to share it. Here is a spontaneous garden container.

I neglected to clean out and put away this pot that was the home for a beautiful hibiscus last year. I had nothing else planted in the pot. At all. And this spring, some pansies have self-seeded. Then, hot dog and holy moly! A small sunflower seems to have sprouted from among the dead hibiscus stems. I was so intrigued by the whole thing, I have just let it go to see what happened.

And now, I rather like it.

What about that? I have an automatic garden! What if everything were this easy?