At least until the newness wears off of my new camera, and until it becomes a familiar tool, you will continue to find photos added to this blog. (If you cry, "Uncle!", I'll stop--maybe.) Because the bi-color purple irises hadn't hit their stride when the Mostly Irises piece and the Mostly Iris photo album were posted, here is a close-up of another Wal-Mart iris (purple+lilac) that is along the fence (behind the roses).
In the newly-added First Roses (Plus) photo album is a photo of a group of purple+white irises that have crept over from the neighbor's plantings. At the left of that photo can be seen the heart-shaped leaves of the southeast-most redbud tree--one of four that are planted there (to provide a screen between the neighbor's and our bathroom windows). The background plants are the neighbor's foundation planting of flowering quince--that would take over the world if he didn't cut the bushes back to the ground every year or two.
Had it not been for Maria's comment on her roses looking a bit bedraggled, it probably wouldn't have occurred to me to check out our roses. (Thanks, Maria!) Thursday, I checked them out--and there were buds/blooms on all but one of our 7 tea rose bushes (that's excluding the dwarf roses that are shown to be already blooming in the previously-posted photo of the front foundation planting.) Here is a bud on one of the peace roses (this bush produced an 8-inch-across blossom during its second season at our previous house!) on Thursday, and a blossom on the other peace rose as it appeared on Saturday. Mr Lincoln's bloom looks particularly bedraggled because it is the most exposed of the roses and has been subjected to much wind and some rain. Thursday, while pruning out the winter kill, I noted that Mr Lincoln had lost most of its major canes (as did all but a couple of the bushes).
Because I knew nothing about varieties of tea roses when I bought our first three bushes (1996-1998?), I leaned toward varieties that I knew my mother liked. In addition to the Peace rose, one of Mom's favorites was Double Delight. Here is the bud on Thursday and the blossom on Saturday. Winding up the roses is the Fragrant Lace--purchased because it was advertised to have a great fragrance. (I know, the blossom is hidden by the foliage. Sorry!)
All of the roses, except for the 2nd Peace, were transplanted from our previous home. Originally, I had decided not to try the transplant and bought the 2nd Peace and a White Lightning (which I didn't care for and took out) as a start to planting a rose garden, for Hunky Husband, at this house. It was two years before HH sold our previous house--time enough for me to change my mind and bring the roses that I'd planted for him to this house (HH is a rose lover).
Now to the (Plus) of the First Roses (Plus). I know, I know, the display photo is not of a rose. Typepad gives two options: post the photos in the order in which they were taken or post the photos in the reverse order. I could change the time signatures on the files to force Typepad to put the photos in the order that I want--but--that sounds like work!
We've been dining high-on-the-hog for the last several days. We're having wonderful cooked greens (mostly chards and poke--the turnip and spinach leaves are too small and the mustard leaves are too old). Greens are really groovy with me, but I don't keep track of what's what--I just pick and eat them! We're also having wonderful fresh strawberries. (Thanks, Bogie, for inspiring me to plant them!) I picked a couple of quarts of strawberries on Thursday, and a like-amount yesterday. HH loves to have them smashed up and sweetened. If I get ambitious, today, I'll make a sponge cake and buy some vanilla ice cream.
Strawberry shortcake is among HH's favorites. (I remember sending it to work with him in 1959! That was when he carried a lunch pail. The sponge cake was made in a jelly roll pan so that it was thin, then cut to fit into a plastic pie-wedge container. The strawberries were in a small jar. The ice cream was frozen over-night in a small thermos. The ice cream was of "just right" consistency by the time HH's lunch period came.) You can see the healthy foliage on these strawberry plants, but I had just picked the berries so only one is peeping out in the photo.
Here are some of the gooseberries, and some of the peaches. It appears that the peaches were not destroyed by the cold snap that we had while they were abloom. How they ever got pollinated in that cold is beyond me, but I'm glad that some little buggers did their job!
BTW: I really, really, really went all out in preventive measures, yesterday, but I just couldn't help myself. I had another go at the poison ivy--harvesting at least as much as the total from my last two forays. The pants got pitched and I was really, really careful in removing the plastic coverings from my arms and latex gloves from my hands. The rest of my clothes were immediately thrown into the washing machine (the shirt was turned inside out--and all put inside a mesh bag so that HH wouldn't touch them!)
Oh, stop. You're going to make her think you care or something. (She hasn't seen this yet so I still have a few hours to live.)
Posted by: Wichi Dude | May 28, 2005 at 12:16 PM
Thanks for the well wishes! I had a really great day.
As always, we had the garage door open when I heard a man's voice in the garage. It didn't sound like Chew and I was still trying to figure it out when Bogie appeared in the kitchen. I yelped and she jumped! We had a few minutes to visit before they had to leave for the airport.
A few hours later CK and Chew came by. We all went to dinner and chatted about the last week and a half.
All in all a non-productive, very relaxing day!
Posted by: Dudette | May 30, 2005 at 10:03 AM
We were surprised that WD and Dudette were there, but were happy that we could make an un-announced birthday visit to her!
Amazingly, we were the ones to get the presents as she was just taking banana bread out of the oven and sent some home with us - delicious!
Posted by: bogie | May 30, 2005 at 04:09 PM