OGRs for rocky soil: GDR? Others?
slumgullion in southern OR
6 years ago
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Lessons learned and surprises in your garden?
Comments (30)Months ago I put a bar of Irish Spring soap next to Gruss an Teplitz rose. Deer came and ate 3/4 of Gruss. Plus our spring rain made a soapy mess. Deer are frightened by objects hanging rather than the smell of soap. My hanging white plastic bags from trees and putting strings across to block them work 100%. Floridarose reported a guy hanging CD's discs from a tree and successfully kept deer away. The year that I hung CD's discs on my cherry tree was the year that I kept birds away so I can make cherry pies. There was a previous thread on keeping deer away from roses. Both studies, Illinois Walnut Council and Connecticut Agriculture concluded that fence works best, second is stinky egg-wash, which can lasts up to 3 weeks if no rain. Mint repels deer well, is used in a few commercial deer-repellants. My Mom surrounded her 5 acres land in Michigan with a border of mint, garlic, and pink yarrow ... we never see any deer for the decades living there. I found this clever info. on using mint to fertilize roses and keep deer away, see link below, written by Ita West: "At the end of that first growing season we moved some roots of mint into the bed with the roses. The thinking there was that mint brings a substantial amount of minerals and other nutrients from the sub soil to the top soil because of the itâÂÂs deep roots. During the year as the mint grew to around a foot tall weâÂÂd cut it back and mulch around the roses with the cut mint. WeâÂÂre still doing that now, so the roses get fed and weâÂÂve got lots of mint for tea. The routine now is that during the year when the roses are in flower theyâÂÂre constantly mulched and fed with cut mint, in the winter theyâÂÂre pruned hard back and mulched with layers of hay." *** I think it's clever to use plants like mint to fertilize roses, plus to keep deer away. Nutritional analysis of mint: 9% vitamin A, 2% vitamin C, 2% calcium, 7% iron, and 6% manganese ... the last 2 are much needed in alkaline soil to fix chlorosis. Here is a link that might be useful: Growing roses without manure This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Thu, Jul 25, 13 at 9:17...See MoreFall garden work
Comments (24)Mmm, autumn always seems like the start of the gardeners year - new bulbs, lots of pruning, cuttings for overwintering, harvest, ladling on compost and planting the new bare root fruits, roses and shrubs. After a truly bizarre rainless summer, the allotment has turned sere and brown much earlier than usual. Rudbeckias, dahlias and heleniums and asters had an attenuated show - I always struggle with these prairie type beauties on my sandy soil but one must have them. This year, not even emergency hosing was going to prolong the luminous late summer show of golds, bronzes and purples so I turned my face to the gravel garden which never fails to thrive. Melissa, how I love spanish broom - yep, Spartium junceum can be a thug but what a gorgeous fragrant and elegant one. They twist and bend, making fantastically gnarly shapes and grow huge and fat in East Anglia. Cytisus also grows to shocking tree size, as does Tamarix. Desperate savage pruning has been done. even though the shrubs in question are less than 6 years old, they are eating the shed. A glorious stipa gigantea, planted so carefully to filter the low evening sun, has been overshadowed one one side and totally mugged by a giant acanthus on the other. In truth, the entire gravel garden has to be redone, lifting the remnants of the old membrane (which utterly failed to prevent the millions of verbena, centranthus, ox-eye daisies, althea and eryngiums from seeding with total abandon) and replacing plants which should never have been placed there (legion - Dieramas, Schizostylus, echinaceas - embarrassing how clueless I was to plant these moisture lovers in gravel!!!)Then there are the plants which clearly love it but are far too keen - helianthemums, nepetas, salvias, hebes - small cushions are ground swallowing mounds. Apart from lots of lavender - I have hedges of L Hidcote - the deepest blue, I do not have as many silver plants as I would like. A colony of pulsatilla does well with summer silky seedheads. Santolina and a lone artemisia (Powis Castle - another huge thing). Would like to try astelia and also celmisias. A plant grown much by Ingrid, and a revelation to me, was Limonium - violetta, I have and it looks terrific with eryngiums and stipa tenuissima. Stachys or Phlomis have, so far, failed to touch my heart and I have done verbascums to death. Still throwing out flowers is the modest Zauschneria, looking good with the last of the escholzias, Salvia greggii and microphylla are flowering profusely and unstoppable. Also, pushing out another cycle of flowers - a lovelu silver leafed mound of erodium chrysantha (might be good for you, Melissa, it is a lovely thing). However, much of this is happening out of my sight since I am woefully stuck at home in a kitchen which resembles Entebbe. A simple flooring job turned into armageddon - the massively heavy cast-iron and enamel sink is upside down on the sofa, the old washing machine has been drug to the tip and a new (to me) one has arrived - although the sink issue means it is still in the middle of the kitchen. Am running out of knickers and socks - may have to be a slut and turn them inside out since the whole water system is now only usable with a lot of fiddling about with stopcocks. In a moment of frenzy, I thought we may as well go the whole way and ripped off great swathes of old painted wallpaper - which of course, came off really easily....on one wall - the rest seems as though it was cemented in position. The ingrates (offspring) have absented themselves for large amounts of time yet still manage to materialise at sensitive (shouty, sweary) moments and chip in with ludicrous suggestions (we could put speakers in the new sink cupboards, why don't we have an indoor hammock?)Estimates of finishing time have gone from 'around a week' to 'in time for Christmas'. We are eating a lot of 'bread based snacks' - although the rate of jam consumption is worrying as I was definately slack this year, using the virusey raspberries as an excuse to cut down on all the 'earth mother' nonsense I had somehow got myself into(what was I thinking?) May be forced onto chocolate spread - sweetheart can have marmalade (shudder). Even so, it has been a spectacular tomato year (no rain - no blight)- have had kilos and kilos from 40 plants. I now have wrists of iron from poking hundreds of tomatoes through a sieve. The first bareroots will be arriving soon so I will have every reason to flee the kitchen chaos....See MoreOur garden will need another generation
Comments (31)Hi Melissa, when I was still gardening on my 100 square metre rooftop terrace in Rome, containing among other plants about 70 mostly OGRs and some Austins, I used to follow your always interesting posts on the forum of compagniadelgiardinaggio. What you said in this post has so many parallels to my own experience that I just decided to add my little comment. Losing or giving up a garden, even a pot ghetto, is never easy for an appassionate gardener as we all here are supposed to be, but I finally did it, out of concern for the professional perspectives of my two sons who didn't want to leave at first but were convinced by the impossibility to find a decent job as IT engineer and economist. Since 2012 they are building promising careers and are happy, one in my native Germany, the other one on the French Riviera. In the same area and similar climate as Rome, at about 50 km away, I was able to buy a small house with a big garden. Before selling my Rome appartment, I saved at least 30 of my most beloved roses, but some beautiful lemon and olive trees as well as a magnificient Chorysia sadly had to be left behind. The roses are now happily growing and many still blooming in the soil of Provence and 30 new ones have just been planted. My sons took both some plants from their old home too. Maybe this means good hope and continuity for my new garden as well....See MoreMineral / nutrient deficiency & secret to health & antifungal trace e
Comments (50)Moved info. from another thread as to pH preference of different roses: Take YOUNG own-roots in a nursery setting, watered with alkaline tap water (pH over 7.5). Young own-roots are wimpy, haven't secret acid yet, thus need an acidic medium like pine fines (pH 4) or peat (pH 4) & perlite to make minerals soluble in water to feed their tiny roots. Folks who grow roses in cold zone get tons of acidic rain plus snow, and need to lime roses per many inches of rain, if that rose is grafted on aggressive root-stock that secret acid. Dr. Huey-rootstock can go through rock-hard clay better than my shovel through its ability to secret acid. The pH requirement of roses change .. when they are young own-roots are like alfalfa sprouts, they can't secret acid, thus need an acidic medium. But as they get older and roots become more solid and woody, such as 3rd year on, that solid wood secrets plenty of acid. I bought an organic, very acidic SOLUBLE fertilizer, got some on my skin and it burned. I used the dose as recommended, it has acidic soy bean, kelp, and sulfate of potash .. my galllon-size own root roses love it !! Leaves became dark-green, but that acidic solution fried the leaves of 4th-year own-root Sweet Promise (with shiny & glossy and dark-green foliage). Roses grafted on multiflora rootstock, or have multiflora parentage dislike alkaline soil (become pale), thus these roses need an acidic soil to have darker leaves. In contrast, roses grafted on Dr. Huey, or have French Meilland or China parentage are healthier with higher pH. Old Garden roses were bred in the Old days, without high-pH tap water & only acidic rain at pH 5.6, thus prefer acidic soil. Modern roses are bred with alkaline-tap-water, and the most vigorous and dark-green tend to prefer such medium that they were bred, with pH over 7.5 like alkaline tap water. Intrigue hybrid tea is an example, 100% healthy in a pot, grafted on Dr. Huey, tons of buds, with alkaline tap-water pH near 9 (baking soda pH is 8.3). That was for $5 at Walmart. I didn't buy it, since I already saw Intrigue in spring time at the rose park with tons of acidic rain: it was a blackspot fest, and stingy too. But in hot & dry summer, Intrigue bloomed great with alkaline tap water at the rose park. Intrigue has dark-green leaves. Same with Perfume Delight, BS-fest with acidic rain, also dark-green leaves. To have dark-green leaves, roots must secret enough acid to get iron and manganese for dark-color .. such dark-green leaves roses secret more acid to utilize the minerals to make their leaves deep green. As the pH drops, less calcium and potassium are available, thus leaves are more susceptible to fungal diseases unless alkaline minerals is given....See More
slumgullion in southern OR
6 years agoslumgullion in southern OR
6 years agoslumgullion in southern OR
6 years agoslumgullion in southern OR
6 years agolast modified: 6 years ago
slumgullion in southern OR
6 years ago
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