It does look a little odd, but your neighbors will be singing another tune when these are up and as beautiful as your other roses:) What are the roses??
Leslie

Pappu all you have to do is show them some pics of your other fantastic roses and their jaw will drop open. Can't wait to see your pictures of all those Julias. I really want one too so I might as well give in and go get me one. I too covered all my bareroots after I had so much cane dieback and luckily lots of you told me what to do and I mounded those babies up and have left the dirt and they are gradually shooting up all kinds of new growth. Love the pictures, Judy

From your pictures I've seen in the past, of your roses in bloom, you obviously know what you are doing! Keep on moating.

You've certainly been "busy as a beaver".
Sorry, i couldn't resist. It looks like something a beaver would build.
But if it works that's all that matters.

Looks like dead rabbits to me. But since the old pigrims put dead fish in with their corn seeds and out came corn, I wouldn't be suprised if roses grow out of rabbits.

Well, I have a soon-to-be rose bed, where I have been cultivating the soil for two whole years with nothing planted in it.

It should be ready to grow some roses really well this spring.

Hey Pappu,

Looks perfectly normal to me. My rose beds look identical to this at planting time and I also am fastidious with making sure the mounds stay in place and ensuring they stay moist. Like you, I get similiar comments from neighbours etc. They already think I'm a nut job anyway, so par for the course there.

Tim

Yikes - This was my first year planting bareroots and I didn't do anything like this. Is this more for zone 5 ? I'm in zone 7 (or maybe 6b since it's iffy-looking on the map!) . My bareroots have already leafed out quite well so I guess I'm ok (or do I need to keep the soil over til this coming frost for next week passes??). Pappu - I have admired your rose photos many times so you obviously know what you are doing. I hope you'll come back with lots of rose photos of this new bed later! I only have one Julia Child and can only imagine the joy of an entire bed!!

Pappu, I understand. My husband thinks I'm obsessed with manure. I think you did a fine job and will be rewarded.

Carla

Looks like a Lochness Catepillar to me! lol

Put some eyes and a big toothy smile on the end hump and tell the neighbors it bites!!!

lol

Your so funny Ronda!!!

Are these the same neighbors who have the pleasure of looking at all your beautiful roses.

surely they must know you know what you are doing.

Just wait till they are all blooming---I can't wait for some pistures.

BTW---Your grass looks so healthy.

Florence

I think we are all a bit obsessed but to take obsession to great lengths, we have a professor in our rose society who digs his soil 5 feet deep, takes it all out, replaces it with a supersoil which contains leaf mulch, mushroom compost and sand (I think). He has hit water on occasion (LOL). Secondary to that, he supplies his own water and has a pump (yes, he lives in the city limits and I am sure the mayor who travels to see his roses annually is unaware since he hides it away with a hedge row (LOLOL).

I say do what works, and the neighbors can eat thier words later! I can't say I go to that much trouble, but I'm a rather lazy gardener too (and I can't resist being able to see the canes of my roses...the whole mystery thing of having them completely covered over just drives me nuts). I think it does look like a caterpiller, or frogs peeking up out of the mud! :-)

If mounding and moating roses works for you and makes you (and the roses) happy, by all means, ignore the neighbors & your family.

I'm impressed with your moat! I've never seen buried bare roots before. This should be educational--can't wait to see your JC's in bloom. It's one of my favorite roses. She puts on an incredible show all spring/summer/fall long.

Denise

Looks good. I can't wait to see how the rose bushes do. Don't worry it won't be long. Also Did you put in soil amendments? I have never gotten bareroots before.

Oh ,
LoL , Incidentally Your mounds and moat remind me of Lake Placid NY.
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It is a nice place Where the olympics were in 1980.
Samuel

good observation samuel. incidentally Samuel is a name my hubby and i had picked out for a boy once. Samuel Jonathan.

We've got to collect these into a volume. "The Pappu Stories". Required reading for all rose gardeners! I thought "Nessie" too!

I hope/trust the Pappu alfalfa tea story is preserved for posterity.

I was trying to find the alfalfa tea saga the other day. It's just a riot--and it reminds me of what I'm not supposed to put in my alfalfa tea, too. :)

Where is that thread?

Denise

Yah, how is your grass so green...? I'm in zone 6 and we still have yellow lawn all over town... Any clue what cultivar it is?

Wait, there's roses in there? I have to see proof:)

Whipping winds all day yesterday and a deluge today and I have been busy repairing and strengthning up the moat walls and maintaining the mounds. My wife thinks there is a very fine line between a keen hobbyist and enthusiast and a little koo-koo in the head and apparantly I have just crossed the line. My 5 yr old son seems to be fascinated by this construction and I know he is itching to jump all over it. It took me a great deal of time to explain to him how hard dad is working to make the yard look great and the value of the house goes up and we can pay for his college or something to that effect. The sad part is how normal and rountine this is to anyone who grows roses (I am sure you all agree) and yet I look like a complete nut in the neighborhood. This is a neigborhood where people plant hostas in blazing sun along the driveway and wonder why they are always shrivelled up or mound mulch in a 2 feet high cone around trees or scalp their lawns to the ground every time they mow and crib about how it dies every summer. Anyways, I guess we have to suffer this ignorance. Just venting..I got to run outside and check on my moat..

You are overdoing it. You are obsessed, weird and koo-koo. You have come to the right place. You should feel perfectly at home with the rest of the obsessed, weird koo-koos.

Next question?

A moat? Brilliant! I need a moat. The weather today is cold and windy. Sleet is expected tonight. So...of course I was out in the yard moving Madame Isaac Pereire to a sunnier location that I had already prepared. My neighbor said I'm nuts, and that no one "in their right mind" should be gardening in this weather. When I pruned the canes to about 2', she gasped, "OMG...the poor thing!" Then when I wrapped the bush in burlap, mounding the sides with manure and clunks of sod, she shook her head..."how can the damn thing breath?" Too funny.
After I build my moat, she'll really have a few choice words regarding my sanity.

I loved the pictures and the story! We appear obsessed to the public, but amongst us rose growers, we're just "normal" people.

Pappu do you have an update? How are your Julia Children doing?

Pappu I love your story.

Being a fairly new resident of my neighborhood has caused some of my neighbors to wonder about my sanity also. I am out there digging wet sods, planting pots, mounding roses in the pouring rain. They stop me on sunny days and ask me what on earth I am doing. I just tell them to wait another month they will see! I am sure they think I am really whacky when they see me digging through the truckload of mulch at the end of my driveway! It was free! My neighbor had some trees cut down and mulched, I asked if I could have it dumped here instead of it all being carted away! They only see sticks and pieces of trees, I see new garden areas all neatly mulched. They have such a narrow vision, LOL.

Well to the land of rosers Pappu, you are fitting right in with the rest of us. And, shhhhhh, please don't tell them about the 20 bags of manure I got on sale that are hiding in my shed. LOL

Valerie

Pappu...how about a picture update? I'd love to see how far the roses have grown, and how the moat worked out!
Thanks.

Julia CHILDREN????? ROFLM-butt-O!!!!!

Reminds me of environmental art installations:

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You can think of it this way: you're exposing your neighbors to another way of seeing things and expanding their horizons... ;~))

Pappu I always love the pics you post, trully an inspiration to us all. And don't let your neighbors and family get the best of you, anything that irritates them is probably fun and good for the roses. I bring friends and family into the backyard and show them my wonderful dirt, and they think I have lost my mind. I am going to be planting some hybrid teas and I will plant the "pappu method" for sure. And stick to the dead rabbit story, that will give the people something to talk about.

Neighbors can be such a pain! I need to think up some snazzy answers for some of them.

Sandy

Pappu, I mistakenly deleted the pictures (earthwork sculptures) I referred to in my last post. I'll try again!

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I think it looks great and wouldn't let anything anyone says deter you from your appointed duty.
I am sure I am OCD when it comes to my roses as I will find myself just walking around piddling with my rose 10 times a day if I feel like it. I even go out to see the roses before I eat or even smoke a cigarette--yes, a nasty habit I know.
I get nervous if I don't go outside the first thing in the morning and start my daily rounds in the rose beds. This is the only thing I grow and I have 220+ roses to be OCD over. I love it.
John

I think it looks great and wouldn't let anything anyone says deter you from your appointed duty.
I am sure I am OCD when it comes to my roses as I will find myself just walking around piddling with my rose 10 times a day if I feel like it. I even go out to see the roses before I eat or even smoke a cigarette--yes, a nasty habit I know.
I get nervous if I don't go outside the first thing in the morning and start my daily rounds in the rose beds. This is the only thing I grow and I have 220+ roses to be OCD over. I love it.
John