Just wanted to say hello, and tell you that I am enjoying your blog. I garden and live in Milton, and love visiting the Rotary Gardens when I can. I also keep a garden blog.
Can you tell us when the roses start blooming at the garden? A few of mine are making flower buds now, and should be blooming in a few weeks. I'd like to make sure I get down to see your display of roses when they're peaking.
Glad you're enjoying the blog. I usually am falling asleep from "gardening exhaustion" when I type it up each night.
In regards to your question, our old-fashioned and species roses will start up in the next weeek, perhaps early June. Our Easy Elegance shrub rose collection peaks in late June/early July. We did have a lot of winter dieback and have been coaxing some of these along. June is pretty safe, or email me a reminder and I'll try to give you a "heads up". Take care and happy gardening! MD
Thank you! I'll keep popping in to see. Hopefully I'll get out there soon to see what's blooming.
Jamie
May 22, 2008 at 9:42 AM
[Image] It's tough this time of year out in the gardens. Although we still have time to enjoy the blooms of the mountain silverbell (Halesia monticola) from the Appalachian mountains. It does well in part shade. No doubt that we have lots of plants to put in the ground, although we've put a pretty good dent in the perennials already. However, in going thru any portion of the gardens, we run in to weeds. Weeds everywhere. The factors affecting their timely removal include time, the # of hands removing weeds, proper identification (to avoid pulling stuff that should be there) and of course, priorities. We try to do a little planting each day and some weeding. Everybody planted today. Jerry and Larry planted trees, Jenny planted irises and Janice planted some hot peppers. We had some kids from Craig H.S. come and plant most of our hot pepper collection. Whenever we plant, we ALWAYS allow enough time to water these new plants sufficiently. We always make time for watering and unfortunately, have to wear those proverbial "blinders" every day as we pass things that we should be doing...but aren't as important as what we need to do. By mid-July, we're in pretty good shape. However, we have 6 solid weeks of planting ahead of us! [Image] Note the nice bulbs to the left. This is a substantial planting of 'Hocus Pocus' tulips and 'Purple Sensation' Allium (ornamental onion) along our terrace garden border. These are both bulbs planted in October. When we had our huge collection of tulips (500 varieties) in 2001, I'll never forget 'Hocus Pocus' as the tallest tulip at a good 36" in height. Here it's showing it's true form and looks great. Notice the cool double grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum 'Fantasy Creation') below that has a nice blue with added visual texture. This should be a neat addition to the border but will also send up late summer foliage. However, this will be obscured by surrounding seasonal plants. Busy week ahead with volunteer dinner, work day and pl [Image]ant sale. Like they say, "What doesn't kill you....."
posted by Mark Dwyer, Director of Horticulture, Rotary Botanical Gardens at 6:11 PM on May 20, 2008
"Weeding or Planting: What's the Priority?"
3 Comments -
Just wanted to say hello, and tell you that I am enjoying your blog. I garden and live in Milton, and love visiting the Rotary Gardens when I can. I also keep a garden blog.
Can you tell us when the roses start blooming at the garden? A few of mine are making flower buds now, and should be blooming in a few weeks. I'd like to make sure I get down to see your display of roses when they're peaking.
Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.
Jamie
May 21, 2008 at 3:53 PM
Hi Jamie,
Glad you're enjoying the blog. I usually am falling asleep from "gardening exhaustion" when I type it up each night.
In regards to your question, our old-fashioned and species roses will start up in the next weeek, perhaps early June. Our Easy Elegance shrub rose collection peaks in late June/early July. We did have a lot of winter dieback and have been coaxing some of these along. June is pretty safe, or email me a reminder and I'll try to give you a "heads up". Take care and happy gardening!
MD
May 21, 2008 at 9:44 PM
Thank you! I'll keep popping in to see. Hopefully I'll get out there soon to see what's blooming.
Jamie
May 22, 2008 at 9:42 AM