Allegra wrote:
"Cass" wrote:
Well love, I believe in rebar with all of my heart. I just yesterday discussed
with BH an idea I got to secure a couple of climbers to the back fence.
Said fence is a pain in the butt and it abuts to the state park, so there is
little you can do without having to get involved into the never ending
bureaucracy that that would entail. So, I suggested that we place 2x4s
about 6 feet apart in front of the fence, buried in quickcrete. Then
run lengths of rebar arched atop the posts burying them about 6-inch
into the posts.
How do you do that? Drill rebar-sized holed in the 2 x 4 and run the
rebar through it? What stops the rebar from thanging out of the hole in
a high wind and whip-sawing anyone nearby?
Once that is done, go behind the fence and secure it
to the posts with big, and I do mean big lug bolts. I plan on painting
the whole thing flat black and leave the rebar alone. Once it oxidizes it
looks just like another cane. Been there, done that. And let me tell you
that any soft pink rose as New Dawn or Celestial, even St. Swithun
can look out of this world against a black background. How do I know?
The new part of the fence towards the front is now black and the color
of the greenery around it is nothing short of breathtaking. veddy British
although the British are into a vibrant blue these days, enough of it around
for me not to use it.
You saw the picture of the fabulous blue at St. Albans?
http://home.earthlink.net/%7Eberndoo...s/WarmWelcome.
jpg
Painted trellises, especially in the French mode, are truly wonderful -
but high maintenance here close to the ocean. Black is very cool,
fades. I love it as an trim color. In fact, the trim on my house is
diplomat grey, which has faded in 2 years. O, I could see trellises of
dove grey and diplomat grey. That's just not the layout of my garden,
which is open and hilly, rock wall, natural wood. One day, when I build
Grandy's cottage...For now, I've found that Rustoleum green mixed with
Rustoleum black to tone it down for the landscape works well.
Didn't I hear that it is almost impossible to grow? Puh (French, doncha
know), I should talk, with Mme. Driout. Who, for the second, looks
pretty good, probably because she hasn't bloomed yet. She can surprise
me, for all I will see of her. She is so sheltered that she's almost in
the neighbors' back yard.
Nigress is a pain unless you keep her in a pot. Little sister to the other one
that doesn't know how to behave outside the pot, EdeB. I shouldn't complain
since the bad boy is budding again. But with the colder weather we are
having I sincerely doubt I will see any of the gorgeous blooms again this
year. Nigress hated the ground. She was a pampered diva from moment
go. In the days when bringing roses from Europe wasn't a problem a fly
attendant (we used to call them stewardess in those days) friend of mine
brought a couple from Germany, one for her mother and one for me.
Her mother's died almost instantly, and mine linger in the ground, sulking
all the time.
Rose real estate being what it is even then, I decided I love the two
or three blooms she maliciously put out for me to forget all about SP
her, and got a big pot and just planted there. Like your Mme. Driout
she could have been a block away from my garden and an eerie
repetition of what EdeB did in that same garden, she bloomed her
little - I do mean little - head off that summer. So I become a nurse
maid for the next 10 years.
I need another diva? Prince Eugene is doing his thing this year. I'm
suitably impressed. Tons and tons of buds, good flowers (I hope you saw
my post). I wonder that Vintage never sells this rose. Mine lives in a
pot and has no plans to move soon.
Finally we had a serious problem in the county with wilting,
everything was falling like leaves in Autumn and one by one some of
the most delicate roses disappeared. I don't know if you remember the
problem with Oleanders they had in Florida. Well it was sort of like
that. Nothing and no one was able to stop it, and from voodoo dolls
to Clorox I think we tried it all without any success. As
mysteriously as it appeared, it disappeared. But the scar was deep. I
was lucky, I only lost about 40 roses. Some friends were left with
nothing but a scarred soil. In those days there was nothing to help
fight, and of course it was devastating.
I've got some kind of garden contagion this year. Very odd, obviously
some microbial contagion because it enters pruning cuts. I don't think
it's dirty pruners because only certain roses get it, and not just, or
even primarily disease prone roses. sigh At the moment, I'm just
cutting it off.
Word of caution: she also may be related to Mme. Driout. If you take a
look at her in bloom, you are history, toast, finita, kaput. So if you want
to keep your sanity walk around her and pretend to be looking somewhere
else. That rose is perverse. Some times I think they all are.... I will root you
a couple of cuttings. Why should I suffer alone?
LOL. I love it. Like a need more roses, much less divas. I'm losing my
patience with divas when there are so many healthy and beautiful roses
to grow. I went to Vintage Gardens where I had apparently permanently
lodged my credit card. I came home with more roses, a Baby Faurax
lookalike, Raymond Privat, bigger (yea!), and Mme Lambard. Then just
cuz I'm an evil enabler, I bought two fabulous Suan Louise's because I
want others to grow this hard-to-find rose. Her buds are about perfect:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cbernstei...il2Bouquet.jpg
English Garden (forever useful in bouquets, that buff, the perfect
blender and filler, quite good tea scent), Bridesmaid the blush pink (I
think-a mislabeled rose), Niles Cochet in the front. Niles Cochet has
the most perfect foliage of any rose, or maybe ties with Sophie's
Perpetual.
--
-=-
Cass
Zone 9 San Francisco Bay Area
http://home.attbi.com/~cassbernstein/index.html