Yesterday and today have been gorgeous and glorious! We've spent as much time as possible outside, making the most of it. Yesterday, while the kids were napping, I neglected the house for 20 min and went outside on our deck with a book and soaked up some sun. It made me remember those summer days when I was a teenager and would go to the pool, lay out and read all afternoon....ah, the good-ol' days.
Today however, I decided to do alittle "yard work." Now, for those of you who have grown up doing actual yard work, you'll probably just chuckle at my feeble attempts. But, I have to start somewhere, right? In the past, my yard work consisted of mowing the lawn and sweeping up afterward. Last spring and summer I was either too pregnant to bend over or Christian was too busy nursing for me to get out.
So, I got out my handy little clippers and proceeded to trim the edges where the mower misses (around the flowerbeds, gutters, house, etc...). Then, I noticed that my rose bushes (that my mother planted last summer) needed to be pruned. Keep in mind I've never pruned anything before. But, I figured as long as I stuck to cutting whatever was brown and dead-looking, and leaving the green stuff, I'd be okay. (For those of you who do garden, did I do it right???) I hope so. In any case, I was pretty proud of myself and I think I'll go buy some flowers to plant next! By the way, is there anything I should do first before starting to plant them???
1 comment:
There is a specific way to prune your roses to maximize the amount of blooms you get. It is easier to show than to tell, but I will try. You should always cut your roses back in the fall. Even in the spring when something looks dead it is hard to know if it is until the life is all the way back into the plant. You should cut out the dead wood after you are sure, usually after the first blooms appear. During the summer when a rose blooms and dies you need to clip it. If you look at the stem ther are clusters of leaves. There are some with 3 leaves and some with 5 leaves, and those odd ball ones that happen at times, but we will focus on the 5 leaf clusters. You want to trim the stem and dead rose off right above the five leaf cluster. By doing this you force the plant to change its focus of energy on the dead flower to the connection at the leaf cluster. This will force more shoots and more rose buds, which produces a beautiful rose bush ALL summer long. Hope that makes sense. If not you can call me. :) Before you plant you need to make sure your soil is preped, you have plants for the correct sunlight in certain places in your yard, and that you take into consideration the height and width in growth of the plant. I prefer perrenials too. I do not like to do more work than is necessary. I pick perennials so that I don't have to replant every year. Annuals are pretty and they tend to have more color, but if you look at the perennials you can find just as much color. It might cost a LITTLE more, but not too much and it is worth it. Sorry, this is my passion so I blabbed too much, sorry!
Post a Comment