hoping your roses will recover quickly.

sharon

Oh no! I don't think I've ever seen hail that size. Poor plants! I'm sure they took a good battering. Always is a bummer when something ruins nice leaves/flowers. I hope they bounce back quickly!

Oh no! I feel your pain - we have had two nights of cold with snow. I was able to cover some plants last night, but I am worried about the buds that were ready to open. I hope you have warm weather coming - it's amazing what a little sun can do. Best wishes!

Vanessa

I hope your roses recover quickly! Hailstorms like that are common here also. I love all that stone in your garden, gorgeous around the roses!

Take heart, they will recover. We are in the path of summer hail storms that bring large hail. One year, it was so huge that all of my tomato plants were chopped down. Each one recovered and still produced tomatoes, just a little later than ususal. I heard of a woman that was so happy with her tomato results after they had been damaged by a hail storm, that she took a broom and beat her plants up every year just to get more and bigger tomatoes.

Your roses still look happy and very beautiful. Enjoy the calm after the storm.

Rebecca

Good night friends. I could not open the forum page until now that I finished dinner. I can finally read what you have written to me.

You do not know what I appreciate your beautiful words and your good wishes for my roses.

Fortunately, strong blooms have already occurred. There are roses that bloom in summer, but the buds are closed and have not been damaged.

The flowers that were open before the hail, evidently, have deteriorated greatly.

When the storm was over, I came out with a lot of fear to check the whole garden. I thought everything would be shattered. To my surprise the foliage of the rose bushes has not been damaged as much as I thought.

The part that has suffered most has been a small orchard that I have in a corner of the garden. It had tomatoes, peppers, aubergines ... vegetables were beautiful !! But many leaves have been broken.

In short, you have to accept things as they are. Nature is like that, does what is right for her, not what we want.

Really, my friends, thank you very much for such good words.

Maria.

Maria, I am sorry for your loss too. Nature sure has a way of throwing us curve balls, or should I say Hail Balls...If the roots are ok then in a months time, you won't even know what happened...)

I love gardening in general but roses is what I love most about the garden.

Two years ago I was curious to learn a little about the cultivation of vegetables and prepared a corner of the garden to use as an orchard.

This is a forum for roses and for that reason I do not dare to share with you pictures of my garden. I think it looked nice and I would like to show it to you if you allow it to me even if it is not a rose theme.

Tomatoes are not dead, they have good roots. I think that tomorrow I will clean the whole area well, apply a good organic fertilizer and wait a few days to see if there is luck. Tomorrow they forecast a good time here in Madrid. We will not go over 20 degrees ... a good temperature. Soft and pleasant, so that the garden replenishes.

It seems that the translator does it wrong. I wanted to say that I do not dare to share pictures of the area of the vegetable garden because this is a forum of roses. I would if you told me to let me. It's a corner that took me a lot of work to prepare and finally I'm like a little girl hahahaha so happy that I want to show it to everyone. Oh, how are the gardeners ajjajajaja

So sorry your having to deal with this :(

I think you should show us your vegetable garden!! What a treat that would be!! :)

Where I live, we have at least one strong bout of hail every month of summer. Sometimes we have many/month. It is disheartening, isn't it. Big strong canes break off, blooms get ruined...But growing roses is so much more than these events...it's our heart and passion. You'll get through this. :) Life is good. :)

Is that Munstead Wood in your pictures? The color is divine!

Carol

We love to see all pictures that you want to post Maria!

Thank you very much for allowing me to share these pictures that I put next, friends.

This is the current aspect of my garden, but this was not always the case. Recently in this space there was nothing !!

Three years ago we came to live in this house. The plot was wild. Totally wild. After arranging some areas of the garden I thought it might be interesting to learn how to grow vegetables because I only knew how to grow roses! HAHAHA and maybe to eat something was preferable to have lettuce! : P Just kidding!

Here I show you how the space that now occupies the garden. It is a corner of the garden between the garage and the southern boundary of the plot.

We made some terraces with wooden boards to make the growing of vegetables more comfortable.

In order to make our own compost, with pallets, we make two composters that we place to the right of the path that goes through the garden.

We cover all the way and the spaces between the terraces with fabric anti-weeds and on it we put quilting to avoid that many weeds leave.

The orchard has two entrances: one from the center of the garden, through a wooden arch with fence on both sides. The second entrance is from the access ramp of the car that runs from the outside of the street to the garage door.

It also has a small iron door that gives access to the street directly.

Our dog runs freely around the garden which is very large (1650/1700 square meters) but I did not want to "water" the vegetables even though he sure does it with very good intention !! That's why we closed the whole outline of the garden, so that he could not enter.

I show you how it was the area of access to the garden from the interior of the garden in these two photographs and then two more that show the look that now has outside the garden.

The orchard has two entrances, through the center of the garden, through a wooden arch with fence on both sides, and also by the access ramp of the car from the street to the garage.

Separate the orchard from the access ramp of the car by means of wooden latticework. Last year, I grafted four apple trees and one nectarine into dwarf patterns. They are planted at the foot of the cleosias that appear in the images but they are still so small that they are not seen.

Over time they will cover with their branches placed horizontally, all lattices.

He accepts no more than ten photographs. I am forced to continue in another post.

I commented that we closed the space so that Iker, our dog, could not make his pee on the vegetables.

You can see that the fence has enough space for Iker, if he wanted, to enter the area below ... but he does not, he does not enter !! Is not it delicious? Hahaha Just look at the fence and know that you should not go to the vegetable area.

We put a good mix of substrates (coconut fiber, earthworm humus, well manure mature) so that the vegetables grew happy.

We also install drip irrigation on all terraces.

I wanted to grow raspberries, blueberries, strawberries from the forest .... I thought that if I made a corner for these plants in the SE corner of this area of vegetables, they would grow well. But the sun of Spain literally burns and when summer comes, raspberries burn the leaves.

So in this corner I decided last week to put a cloth of shading to prevent the midday sun from falling on the berries.

To prevent the birds from entering and eating all my fruits I covered all the sides with anti-bird mesh. Raspberries are not yet ripe.

I think I'm getting heavy with so many pictures. I am sorry!! These are the last photographs. They are vegetables growing in my terraces.

Besides being a food, I see beauty in them. They are so beautiful!! :)

I hope I have not shared too many images and that you are tired of seeing this space.

I thank you for allowing me to share it with you. Regards, friends.

Maria.

Wonderful pictures Maria, thanks so much for sharing your corner of the world. And Iker looks like a very good dog!

Your property is stunning, Maria! I love your sweet dog!

I love the look of your dog!! So handsome!!

Your yard is amazing!!! Everything is organized so beautifully!! My husband would love that...I'm a throw everything anywhere and see if it works. :) I love your fences, your compost areas, your raspberries/covering. Everything looks like it was done by a professional landscaper!!! I am truly impressed and want you to come and do my yard. :) And yes, I agree...I love the look of vegetables and often take pictures. Here are some peas that I grow in pots. :)

Carol

LAVENDER, VFTHOMPSON, ROSECANADIAM: thank you very much to all.

Yes, Iker is a very good dog, very playful. He has good character, is always happy. Except when a cat enters the property, then it transforms !! He gets angry. It smells like a cat hundreds of feet away. He is asleep and suddenly goes in the direction where he thinks there is a cat. They stand in front of the fence (the cats do not dare to enter our garden, they remain on the other side of the dividing fences in the gardens next door) ... Iker can spend minutes and minutes until the cat has retired Far enough.

Thank you very much, Rosecanadian. I am so unprofessional in this orchard that I have always grown roses but never, until three years ago, did I grow a lettuce. No, I'm just a gardener in love with roses but determined to learn about anything she does not know. I'm curious!!!

Peas are climbing vegetables of great beauty. I love to go down to the garden vegetables, early in the morning, with the pea bushes full of dew on the pods. And when they are tender, small ... open some pods and with the index finger provoke the little green balls, perfect !! Jump on my hand ... they are so sweet !!! You have beautiful peas, Rosecanadian :)

Thank you very much, Rosecanadian. I am so unprofessional in this orchard that I have always grown roses but never, until three years ago, did I grow a lettuce. No, I'm just a gardener in love with roses but determined to learn about anything she does not know. I'm curious!!!

I love your pictures! If only my vegetable garden and flower beds were so pretty :)

Maria, I absolutely love your rose garden and vegetable garden. The plants look so healthy!!! For a person who has never grown lettuce, your lettuce is BEAUTIFUL!!! I always plant mine too close and it never matures so well. I grow tomatoes, lettuce, shallots, cucumbers, beets and carrots in a raised bed garden next to my rose garden and love them together. Thank you for sharing your pictures with us!!

Rebecca

Here's some more peas.

Here's a strawberry flower

Here's a picture of lettuce that I took...I really do find vegetables/fruits pretty!!

Carol

Imomx3, thank you very much !! Actually I do not know anything about photographs. I do not know how to handle them and I do not have time to learn because all my interest is in learning about roses !! Hahahaha My partner says that if I do not read the instructions I will never learn to take pictures and he is right ... but it is so much I do not know about roses and the time is so brief ....

REbecca, if you look at my terraces (wooden crates filled with earth ... is that google does not translate the word "elevated terraces" which is what they are called here) have a wooden grid on the ground. Each square meter is divided into six smaller squares ... what comes to be a measure of ...

I will make the calculations in length measures that you use:

The drawers measure 100 cm (39.37 inches) each meter is divided into three so each small square measures: 13.12 inches.

Therefore the vegetables are grown quite close. I only have six terraces of 39.37 x 78.74 inches. Not much space for vegetables. Well, I also have the corner to grow berry fruit (blueberries, raspberries, strawberries in the forest). So I am forced to plant a vegetable closely enough in another.

We, as good Spaniards, take every day "gazpacho". I do not know if this dish of classic Spanish cuisine is known internationally. It becomes a cold soup of vegetables (very ripe tomatoes, red pepper, green pepper, cucumber, garlic, olive oil, salt, vinegar and very cold water). Therefore, to be able to make gazpacho every day, I almost only grow the vegetables used in this recipe.

One day if you want to teach them to make a good gazpacho and you could explain to me how to make a good hamburger jajajaja What do you think?

Rosecanadian, very beautiful your images. Look, these are my strawberries in the woods. These days are starting to mature and yesterday I could try two or three. Oh!! How rich, they taste like sour strawberry chewing gum.

If you want the fruit to be sweeter, they need to be grown in full sun (at least here) with not that much water. Love your strawberry flowers!!

Carol

Rosecanadian, has made me smile. Another thing may not be in Spain, but sun? Ufffff It's a relentless sun !! Especially in the climates of the interior of the country. In the north, by the sea, the climate is softer, the sun burns less. But here, in central Spain, summer is horrible. Burn everything, roses, everything !!

When I read blogs, forums, books, talk about roses and say they should be set in full sun I always think .... it will be in England or in countries in northern Europe. I always look for places sheltered from the midday sun to locate my rose bushes, especially the English rose bushes of David Austin (as far as I find location of these characteristics in my garden) The rose in full sun can not stand in good condition nor two days.

So my vegetables probably get more sun than they need. That is why some of the vegetables I have been forced to shade them a little.

Maria your garden is amazing! Love how your roses compliment your fruit trees and vegetables. How do you prevent the birds and other animals from eating your veggies?

What a paradise you are creating. Every aspect is beautiful and so well thought out. I'm curious about the "quilt" you put on top of landscape fabric to keep out the weeds. I have so many and they're so hard to control, but we get a lot of rain. Please don't hesitate to post more pics.

El Jardin - you are so right!! We get weather that rarey gets to 80F...mostly stays around 21-24C.

Carol

VaporVac: Thank you very much. Little by little, with great work we are transforming the whole property. It was wild when we arrived. Only large evergreen trees had grown there. I do not know if in your country there will be these trees, they are Enebros (Juniperus oxycedrus) of their fruit you get the gin. They are very slow growing trees, the ones I have in my garden are very big, so they must have many, many years !!

There are also some pine (Pinus pinea) and some oak (Quercus ilex). It is a land located in a mountainous system in the center of Spain (Central System, it is called) the soil is sandy, granitic, with low pH, it leaches very easily and both nutrients and water go down, to the subsoil with Too fast.

This forces me to take good care of my soil if I want plantations to thrive.

In my climate, as I say, the heat of summer is terrible and above all the low humidity. It's a totally dry environment. If I did not protect my soil, I should water it constantly.

To take care of it, I make constant contributions of organic matter, based on compost and manure. On the ground, twice a year, generous layers of these materials that nourish the soil, will gradually give a good texture and increase the organic life of the soil.

On this layer of dung I cover with what we call padding here, I think you call it mulching.

If you want to read an article from my blog where I talk in detail about how I put it, what materials you can use, at what time of year, what advantages and disadvantages this quilting has .... you can open this link. The blog has a translator (right button at the top) and you can read it in your language although you know that google does not translate well but I think you will understand the general meaning of what I say. In the blog, introducing the word "quilted" (in Spanish) will offer several articles in which I deal with this topic.

http://eljardindelaalegriaenmadrid.blogspot.com.es/2015/06/renovacion-en-primavera-de-los.html

Usually I use crushed crust. A good coat, generous. With this the soil stays cooler in summer, less watering and also has a great advantage, helps to grow less weeds.

Here are some pictures of the process.

First remove the old padding.

Then I add the layer of manure on the ground

Finally I cover with the padding.

In the case of garden vegetables, directly on the original ground of the garden, between elevated terraces, we put anti-weed fabric that you can see in this image. On this cloth, we put a good layer of cushioning (chopped wood). This greatly avoids weeds. Some leaves, undoubtedly, but much less than when the ground is bare.

It is very difficult for me to express myself in a language that Google must translate. I always think I may be saying something stupid hahahaha

Rosecanadian ... how terrible the translators are. I can not understand what he wants to tell me !! Google translates me something like that: I'm right !! I do not know what it means to be on the right hahahaha

"You are so right" means that what you're saying is correct in a meaningful way. Does that make any sense? :)

I'm amazed at how well you are doing by using google translator!! Well done!

Carol

Ah !! Now I understand. Thank you very much. Rosecanadian what I do is the following: I write my text in Spanish and have google translate it. Then, with the translation that has offered me the place in the English area and I have Google translate it into Spanish to see how it is understood. Sometimes he offers me an English version that sounds very strange !! When I check that he does a strange translation, I change a word of Spanish and I repeat the process again until the translation of English when I put it in the translation, I realize that in Spanish it is understood.

It is a long and tedious process. I apologize if I ever write in English some barbarity or stupidity.

We're just grateful you're part of our "rose life" here. I'm very proud of you for going through the long and tedious process. :) :)

Carol

My God, nothing better than FRESH lettuce in salad, and to know it's all organic with our own made compost..Nothing better than fresh compost. You know, you are pretty much self sufficient and if you keep going like that, you might not need a market. Just grow a cow for milk and you will have just about everything you need, including of course fresh roses! Just beautiful and thank you for taking the time to share your space with us. What a nice looking dog. Very handsome. Seems you know how to live life to the fullest and enjoy what ever it is that you do. Good work and what a difference...Thank you

By the way, how do your rose bushes look today after that hail storm? Is there any noticeable change since then only a few days ago?

Mikerno - I have no luck with growing lettuce - it always tastes bitter to me. But you make everything sound wonderful!

Carol