FarmI wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
FarmI wrote:
So, who is doing what in their gardens?

I haven't been doing much. Her Indoors has been ill

Will send good thoughts for her speedy recovery - no fun having to nurse and
do all chores by oneself.

and between looking
after her and the boggy conditions over the last few months it has been
very hard. But both are now on the mend so I have been getting the weeds
off the brassicas etc. slowly.

"boggy"???? You lucky sod! We've had less than half our post climate
change/drought rainfall.

We have joined WWOOF and had a young Swedish couple to stay in April who
were very pleasant and hard working, I will now try to get some more
WWOOFers to help with the stoop work. The pasture looks great for July
and the horses are all fat and sassy. The chestnut arab pulled the hook
out of the gate of the electric fence the other day and let them all into
the orchard. Serves me right I should turn it on more often. This is
better than two years ago when on the frostiest morning of the winter I
got a phone call from a neighbour at about 6AM which began "did you know
all your horses are running up and down the road ...."

Typical of an Arab - too smart by halves.

I haven't touched our roses yet, I usually leave it until August.

I do too but in this case, I just couldnt' stand the look of the bed for one
moment longer and I couldn't get into it without savaging the roses.

Which reminds me, I have 2 x "Black Boy" climbing roses that I must plant in
the next few days.


News of other peoples' roses is exciting! We planted fourteen (!) this
year and look forward to a wholly rosy spring! Might have to wait a year
for that, but it's worth it, IMHO. Speaking of climbing roses, I bought
a Queen Elizabeth about three years ago and especially chose a bush
plant, since I had nowhere I really wanted to put a climber. As luck
would have it, the plant I bought was mis-labelled and turned out to be
an extremely vigorous climber. We've had bushels of flowers from this
bush, which started flowering in its first year and doesn't seem to have
stopped yet! Hooray! People driving by pull up to look at our lovely
pink rose rambling across the front verandah (miners cottage). As if
that weren't enough, my daughter asked for a Mr Lincoln and the same
thing happened. The plant turned out to be a mis-labelled climber. At
the moment we have no flowers, but the long canes are behaving in
exactly the same way as the first rose. We look forward to Great Things
from Mr Lincoln!

Other than that (this pair is at the front of the house), our raised bed
contains fourteen favourites, including Double Delight, Woburn Abbey,
Lady X, Pascali etc etc. I've warned my husband that if the bed is a
roaring success, we'll be needing another one very soon. Varieties I'm
looking out for include St Patrick (yellow), Catherine McCauley (pale
pink), John F. Kennedy (white) and City of Newcastle (red).

Before I shuddup on the subject of roses, it occurred to me to ask
whether others have had much success with miniature varieties? I've been
growing roses since I was about twelve years old ('way back in the dark
ages), but I've never yet been able to keep a miniature alive past a
single season. They just seem to shrivel up and kark it, dying back and
back until there's nothing left.

???

--
Trish Brown {|:-}

Newcastle, NSW, Australia