Hello Dear Rose Friends,
We hope all you ladies enjoyed cuddles and lots of spoiling last weekend for Mother’s Day … at least this year, you could catch up with family without massive Covid restrictions – we hope you survived, stayed safe and enjoyed all the loving!
This is the end of our flowering season after several decent frosts and our magnificent dahlia has also called it a year. It has given us the most spectacular display of bright red blooms for months and months. There are plenty of green tomatoes for anyone who wants to make pickles, etc.
Now we look forward to displays of Cosmos, Calendula, Daffodils, Tulips and other winter/spring flowering plants. Weeds are prolific with cape-weed taking precedence. We’ll spray our organic weedicide SLASHER on the next sunny day to spray weeds whilst they’re small rather than wait until they’re flowering and re-seeding for another year!
A giggle to make you smile...
Q: Why aren’t dogs good dancers?
A: Because they’ve got two left feet!
Roses in May
It’s that time of year when the roses are ready to have a break. Their one means of losing foliage to become hardened up for winter pruning, is to potentially incur yellow leaves with black spot so the foliage cannot photosynthesise. The foliage drops. The plant becomes bare. You prune it. It rests for winter. Before you know it, the bush is once again covered in healthy foliage, ready to flower in October.
Because it’s been such a wet season and drenching rain is still soaking across QLD and NSW, please just ignore your roses until it’s time to prune in winter. Do let your rose plants experience some cold weather before you prune!
Allowing your roses to rest is important. No more spraying, no more fertilizer. Pick the last blooms for indoors and enjoy the fragrance as you walk past any flowering rose because it will be a few months now before you enjoy that sensation again!
Autumn David Austin Roses
Here are three David Austin Roses which are still powering on with flowering and giving us such a magnificent display in our autumn garden. You too can enjoy beautiful DA flowers when you add this bundle of varieties to your winter rose order. Just $90 (including pack/post) SHOP NOW!
- Strawberry Hill
- Molineux
- Olivia Rose Austin
BUY THE AUTUMN ROSE BUNDLE NOW!
COMPOST WEEK
I missed telling you that it was “Compost Week” last week and now with all the falling autumn leaves, you couldn’t have a better opportunity to commence your compost heap. It’s really easy and you don’t need to spend a lot of $$$’s to create one. Let Mother Nature be your teacher.
She thinly layers all the goodness of everyday life using leaves, straw, animal manures, shredded paper and you can perhaps top it with a used piece of old carpet or cardboard box. Mother Nature would use more leaves.
Compost is absolutely important to use in your garden because it gives all the plants substance (strength) to endure weather extremes. Once you’ve got a heap happening, water it weekly (with a watering can to which Eco seaweed is added would be great!) and watch it reduce to humus, loaded with microbes and those truly beneficial garden workers, worms!
Here’s a picture of the best compost heap I ever built made of straw bales which finally collapsed into/onto the humus and was ‘recycled’ for use on gardens where the compost was placed … brilliant!