Yay first tomatoes

I got lots of rain now.

I watered a lot with manuer in bucket split among 3 roses. no midge would live there. I broke their cycle. I watered heavy mixed with compost and wet manuer. Go ahead midge I dare your pupae to go there and drown. On top of plastic.

We get rain every couple of days.

I got Ebb Tide, alnwickers ,Wedgwood blooms post tomorrow. I watered and put the plastic back till 4 days. Pictures tomorrow.

Tomorrow me and neighbor are going to get our second load this year of compost topsoil we are getting it from a different place with manure and compost and clay topsoil. I NEED CLAY. My soil is just lots of organic matter over a Sandy soil. It drains fast so every 5 years I buy from the guy with the clay manuer and garden waste. instead of the town recycled yard waste at the American tree company.

The rose Yaddoo garden in Saratoga has all David Austin roses.

First off Sam " Who won the Nascar Race at the Pocono???"

Glad to hear the plastic you placed down worked for rose midge Sam! I bought two young Carefree Sunshine roses in 2013 that came from the vendor with Rose Midge... After discovering that fact I took the roses completely out and bagged em in 2014 and since the bed was new with only one other rose I covered entire area with plastic...I have seen no rose midge this year...

We are just starting to get ripe tomatoes here also Sam... Your tomato pics have made me hungry Sam...

Glad you made it back safely Sam! Have fun with your compost... I actually enjoy spreading the stuff...lol

Morning Glories growing up through our Dogwood Bushes... Adds some excitement to the bushes...lol

Just took these pics...

I just noticed our new Earthsong has a bud... :-)

Sam: What type of tomato are those? They look Yummy. I froze my tomatoes few weeks ago: golden boy & early girl. Thank God for the hot weather, tomatoes get ripe fast & sweeter too.

Jim: Are those herbs in pots? One looks like lavender, and what's that plant in the pot to the right? Thanks for the info.

Yes Lavender on the left and a Mosquito Plant on the right...

A member of the geranium family, mosquito plant carries the fragrance of citronella in its foliage. When a leaf is crushed and rubbed on the skin, it smells wonderful and helps naturally repel mosquitoes. (The plant itself does not act as a deterrent to the pests.) Though growing mosquito plant is not as effective as using bottled repellents, mosquito plant works gently, and when you grow it in your garden, it is always on hand.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3262327/roses-and-stuff-4-2015?n=60

A bunch of cars ran out of gas so Matt Kenseth won the race. What a funny end to the race.

I got one big beefsteak tomato in the back of the picture, 1 Jersey Rutgers front. and one patio picnic middle tomatoes.

But back to roses.

The message midge and plastic thing is so easy.

And digging and spreading buckets of compost is so amazing to see all those worms come from a pile of sticks and weeds. I like to look at the compost like I am looking at gold or struck oil or just caught a fish. I feel like I got a winning scratch off lottery ticket when I see it's the looks right. It's fun.

It didn't rain. In Pocono. Beautiful partly cloudy day. I think the soil has a lot of clay.

Cars running out of gas wow Sam!

We actually been mostly dry here for 2 weeks now... We did get a thunderstorm last night that dumped some fast rain...

Good ole worms...lol

Wedgewood

Alnwick is to tall and slim to take a picture. The roses are 6 feet in the air 3 small chewed on rose blooms. I don't want to prune it because it had two tough winters so everything is being left alone by me. Garden is a little messy and overgrown but I don't want to cut anything.

Champlain, phlox,

In the back is Viking Queen 8'x6'x15

Earthsong is somewhere in the middle of those.

Jim my compost pile is on top of two maple stumps each 2 ' diameter. 8 years ago the stumps were there I poured coffee on grounds on them. Finally the stumps are just orange light brown dust now. It takes a long time but the bugs , fungus and worms eat them.

Elaine Ingham says the compost has to be 150 just right. So I am working on getting the compost right. She said poor anerobic compost can be bad for the plants so I turn the pile . I wanna get a thermometer.

Great pics Sam! I had to look up Wedgewood I see its an Austin Rose...

Thanks for sharing Sam!

I got Wedgewood aInwick Mayflower and heritage.

I went out to see my compost pile and turn it over and there is still 6 inches of stump after 8years.

Wedgwood and are too delicate for me maybe they work better in Pennsylvania.

scepterd isle , I cut the grafted the roots off with the garden hose. Now it's only 1 foot high growing on its own roots after 3 years.

Guess I gotta buy a new grafted scepterd isle

Sorry to hear that about your scepterd isle Sam...

You cut it off top growth? Roots? with a garden hose and its stunted now?

It was 3 big canes first year. The hose sawed the roots off at ground level. Three years ago.

So I put the 3 canes in the ground. One is left. The other two died from heat.

The original roots i think multiflora was as big as two loads of bread.

Oh ok Sam... Oh man... Yep you will probably have to get another one...

I like the colors. Pink with yellow center. It fragrance is similar to heritage. The roses are smaller and less petals. I think it is very cold hardy.

Thank you, Sam, for showing us your garden .. I like the natural setting of your garden ... I think you have good loamy soil, rather than really-sandy. You have good grass & flowers growing. My sister has sandy soil, and grass couldn't grow.

Scepter 'd Isle is very vigorous as own-root .. mine was clean in alkaline clay, but other folks reported their GRAFTED-Scepter as BS-fest. I gave my own-root-Scepter away since it got too big & got tired of pruning that one.

So Glad I experimented with Azomite .. I like fertilizing with minerals more than manure. Manure these days has so many antiobiotics, medications, salt, added phosphorus ... it's NOT good for plants. My tomatoes in front (with cow manure) is a big JOKE this year, 10% production of tomatoes last year with Tomato-Tone in the planting hole. Here's Wise Portia with Azomite for trace minerals, red-lava-rock for potassium, and cocoa mulch (for moisture-retention). No horse manure on that one. Pic taken today, August 4:

Here's my 1st bloom of Bronze Star (orange), bought from Roses Unlimited for $10 at end of June. The scent is great, fruity-yummy, like an Austin rose. Picture taken August 2. I gave Bronze Star rose Azomite, which enhanced the bloom-color. I also pinched off the other bud on Bronze Star:

Here's Radio Times ... doesn't get much sun, like 4 to 5 hours of evening sun, it blooms continuously. I put gypsum & cracked corn in the planting hole, topped with red-lava-rock for potassium and azomite to deepen the bloom's color. Picture taken today, August 4. It doesn't get any horse manure, and stays clean. I don't think I will buy or get any manure ever. Minerals are lower-salt than manure, and no drugs like antibiotics or deworming.

Wise Portia lookin good Straw!

Bronze Star bloom nice orange!

Radio Times awesome too Straw!

I've been reading articles to the fact that a person needs to be real careful these days where they get there manures...

I use a little manuer on the black plastic to make it miserable for the midge. Then I went to Pocono PA. those three have a little black spot. Not much. 2 or 3 leaves. Here is Alnwick Castle . with a few cosmos in the back. The blooms are 6' up in the air. The rock is from Delaware water gap. PA. I bring rocks home. The winter was so harsh that these 3 died to the ground.

Hi Sam: Super-healthy leaves on your Alnwick Castle .. great testimony to no-spray, no chemicals. My first few years of Austin roses (own-roots), they threw 4 feet octopus blooms. I finally learn how to tame them: nitrogen-fertilizer (chicken-manure) only in spring time to reach established height. After that slow-released fertilizer to encourage blooms: red-lava-rock for potassium, and dolomitic lime (has magnesium & calcium) for blooming. If there is tons of rain in early summer, then I give it a 2nd dose of chicken manure, but I withhold that 2nd dose from Austin climbers such as Crown Princess Magareta. Austins stay compact with that approach. I really have to be careful with nitrogen on Austin. Austins are even TALLER as grafted on Dr. Huey. Jude the Obscure was 7 feet tall at the rose park, compared to my super-tiny own-root Jude.

Except for Sharifa Asma: it's always tiny as own-root, that stays small no matter how much nitrogen I give. It really became vigorous after Azomite. I think the trace-elements has a lot to do with growth, rather than just nitrogen alone.

Viking Queen

Great garden shots Sam!

We just got back had to take our dog to get groomed...

Thanks

I got a new cement bird bath, switched out the plastic one with the heater for winter cause I had to wash the black every day. The cement and glass ones kept breaking. This new one is 5 " thick so it won't break. Got it 19$ Lowes. Now I wait to see if my little bug catchers like it. How long you think it will take them to use it?

I bet the doggie will be cool

Hopefully it won't take them long to use it... We have a plastic birdbath but it must be cleaned often... Only for Spring and Summer... Winter we sit out a large metal dish and yep it freezes fast...lol

Cost me 80$ for the plugin heated one

Heatin ones are nice...

Man deadheading all these flowers is getting to be a bit too much! I'm just going to let them go until the end of season I think... Hotter weather the blooms are not lasting quite as long... Most Marigolds and Petunias have approx. 20-30 flowers each and there is 75 flowering plants.... That doesn't include roses...Those I will deadhead..

Sam: I love your garden shots ... look fresh & natural. Lovely summer tall phlox you have. Would love to see your bird-baths, the $19 and the $80 ones .. heated for the winter? Great idea, we had a dry early spring, I felt bad for the birds. My ceramic bird-bath cracked also, but I'm happy with my 2 plastic-ones.

Jim: I used this hedge-trimmer to dead-head ALL my flowers. Takes less than 2 minutes per bush. I got it from Walmart, have been using for 15 years, don't need sharpening .. hopefully they keep the same quality as 15 years ago. Lots of stuff are made in China nowadays, I always read the fine-print. One time I bought an apple-peeler from Walmart, could not even peel a simple apple !! It was made in China, how can they screw up an apple peeler?

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Corona-8-1-4-inch-Hedge-Shear/1551110

I'm ok with deadheading all the roses but trying to deadhead 75 Marigolds/Petunias has got me wore out...lol... So I think I'm just going to let them deadhead themselves...lol

I do have a pair similar to what you show above Straw! But I usually use a type of scissors to deadhead...lol

I may try using the hedge trimmer shears I got...

Our hedge trimmer shears did not work out...lol... Because out of 25-50 good flowers on each marigold/Petunia plant only like maybe 5 are dead and they are scattered throughout the plant so easier for me with scissors...

Some people let all rose blooms get spent then cut them all off the bush at the same time with hedge trimmers...

I walk the garden each day and if I see a spent bloom I cut it off...

I use a scissor to cut for the vase & dead-head, but I am too lazy to clean up annual flowers. Jim, your garden is very nice & neat .. I have too many weeds to pull. My neighbor ordered over $100 of mulch per year, his garden is 1 /10 the size of my garden. I don't mulch, so plenty of weeds to pull. I'm going to scrape off the salty horse manure OFF my roses, and kill weeds with that. Horse manure is very good in suppressing weeds (salt plus lime) ... but isn't best for roses in dry & hot weather.

It's been a busy several days from me, looks like I have to catch up! :)

Some of the roses have thrips ... I will be using Conserve which has spinosad as active ingredient on the severely infected roses. One mini and one own root had some blackspot, but I just picked that off. I haven't fertilized in many moons, so this weekend I gotta get back on schedule.

I'll probably do a preventive spray on the new Austins because they are also looking like they're succumbing.

Blooms from past couple of days (Tahitian Sunset, Ballerina, Grande Dame, Chrysler Imperial, Good as Gold, Francis Meilland, Distant Drums, either Claire Austin or The Pilgrim).

Looks like you have some real nice blooming going on msdorkgirl!

Sorry to hear about the thrips! If using spinosad on blooms you might want to spray during the late evening after bees are gone as spinosad kills bees...After the spinosad dries which takes a few hours then they say its no longer harmful to bees... So if sprayed late evening it would be dry by next morning...

Yes, Msgirl's blooms are divine ... so healthy. I enjoy them all. Ballerina is a stand-out. I love the thick & healthy foliage.

I like the second picture. The pink one. I've never seen that one before. Which rose is it?

Sam, I'm not sure which 2nd pic of pink you were referring to? In the first post, it's an unknown mini bought from Home Depot. On 2nd post is Distant Drums.

This morning's shots:

I switched out my order of Mary Magdalene to Happy Child, Straw. I don't have room for spreading and don't want to deal with thorns. I think the next semi white Austin I spend money on will be sharifa.

Good choice, Msgirl !! I was about to warn you that Mary looks best in cold weather ... in hot weather above 80 her bloom has black-button when old, plus fade to white. Sharifa is worth $20, it's one-tenth the size of Mary. Cold-zoners complain that Happy Child is wimpy .. so it would be great for warm-zoners, plus compact & nice yellow.

Golden Celebration is another fragrant yellow, except it's a climber, and is HUGE as own-root. Your Claire Austin and Tranquility are both perfect-form, very nice.

About thrips: Switching from lime (pH over 9) to Azomite (pH 8) might help. A few people report that Azomite repel insects. I tried to find the salt-index of Azomite, couldn't find it. So I googled for the salt-index of calcium-chloride, a major component of Azomite ... no number was given, except for the fact that calcium-chloride is very bitter, plus salty. Something that bitter would make flowers less edible, and less tempting to insects.

Jim: Would you start another thread? Thanks.

Yes I'll strart another thread Straw! I was going to start a new thread at the 100 post mark but I see it has passed that point...lol

Let me say though WOW! msdorkgirl those are superb rose pics! Glad to see things are going better for you! Those once black thumbs are turning green...LOL.... (Teasin)...lol)

Haha, you must be joking.. they're blurry, out of focus, "soft" focus, etc. I think it might be time for me to upgrade my phone for a better camera :P

And I generally only take pictures of what's doing good, not what's doing bad :P

I take pics of everything whether it looks good or bad...lol...

I tried many flowers and roses here over the years...A lot failed in our conditions! I've learned to keep what does very good and to discard those roses/flowers that do not do well... Sooner or later the garden will then be full of mostly good plants...

Actually I focus on the subject in the pics and never noticed any blurriness...lol