Yesterday I showed you my bag. Well, here’s what the contents look like unwrapped on the lawn:
The top three are the L.D Braithwaites from the nursery near my parents, and the two bunches below are New Dawn and Rhapsody in Blue from a more mainstream garden centre.
Now, the cheap roses DO look healthy and I’m sure they will be fine, but in the picture above you can see quite clearly on the right bunch that the roots have been cut, whereas the more expensive nursery roses have smaller roots, but they have not been cut.
Today I managed to plant the New Dawns and the L.D. Braithwaites. The New Dawns were a right pain to plant, since they will be growing up trees and obviosuly had to be planted at the foot of these two trees. Now, first of all I had to remove more of the lawn – which seems a recurring theme in my gardening career – and then I had to dig planting holes between the tangled roots of the trees… It was not simple!
For the L.D. Braithwaites the process was simpler, but perhaps no less arduous; they were destined for the Sunny Border, where I’d already stripped off the lawn, but clearly since these were expensive plants they deserved special attention, so I dug a 1½ft deep triangular hole, almost a square meter in area. Essentially this means I dug out the best part of a ton of dense soil and pure clay…
I then mixed the top soil with four barrows of compost, positioned the roses and finally filled the hole. My back was aching, my hands were chafed andI generally felt worn-out, but at least I had the lush, exuberant view of a rose patch to enjoy:
Oh, right; I have a couple of twigs sticking out of the bare soil… But there is promise in these little twigs, and I trust them to make my effort worth-while. Or at least not entirely in vain…
(Also, please note what an un-butch photographer I am… The shadow in the lower right-hand corner is of course me, my phone and a rather daintily curved pinky finger. But it’s dark outside now, so I can’t re-take the shot, and I definitely can’t be bothered to save this post and then publish it tomorrow when I have a non-pinky shot.)
Planting roses is hard work! I’m sure they will reward you soon
I just checked on them this morning… They’re still not blooming! Okay, so I will have to be a bit more patient, I guess… I do think, though, that come summer they will be a very nice addition to the garden,
haha – I didn’t even notice your shadow until you mentioned it! I was looking at your fine roses – yes, I can imagine them in full bloom. I hope they do well for you. When you get the first bloom you will forget all about your aching back.
I only noticed the shadow after I had uploaded the image and inserted it into the post…
And my back has already stopped aching after a night’s rest, though of course this will pass once I start digging again, but it does give me hope that I will be fine again on Monday. After all, this is just a heavy spot of excercise, and I’m sure it actually does my body good as well as my garden.
The pinky makes the photo that much more special! I hope all of your hard work will prove to have been worthwhile in the end.
I’m sure it can never be a bad thing that I’ve managed to incorporate a good portion of compost in the soil, and I can’t see why the roses shouldn’t be happy in their new home.
I can’t wait to see your roses bloom. I bet they bloom a bit sometime this year. The soil looks so rich and dark..they will love it!
I do cross my fingers for at least a small flush of roses this year, but they will come when they feel like it, I suspect.
And the soil feels much nicer with the added compost; it’s still heavy with a good proportion of clay, but that should be perfect for roses.
You have done a lot of work! Your Sunny Border is starting to look pretty ambitious, too. My landlord in Pennsylvania once asked me if I had any suggestions for rejuvenating the very weedy lawn in the back yard. My suggestion: dig it up and turn it into a flower bed!
I’m definitely not a lawn-person – except for a spot of grass large enough for a game of croquet and an al-fresco lunch for twenty friends if and when necessary…
The Sunny Border IS rather ambitious, I guess, and rather more thought-through than the Ambitious Border. (I’ve learned from my mistakes last year, so I guess large sections of the Ambitious Border will be re-done to give me the same sort of well-worked soil to plant in.)