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The Garden is Thriving

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Yes I’m still neglecting my garden, but it truly is thriving despite the lack of care. I’ve been so ill the last few days I haven’t been able to do much more than look out the window at all the buds developing on the roses and other flowers.

Luckily I’m married. My husband has been watering the garden every few days, and other than the pruning that I so desperately need to do on half my roses, the watering seems to be all that needs to be done.

Everything is covered in buds or is blooming. Two of my clematis, well two that I’ve noticed so far, possibly there’s more, are blooming! I ate my first homegrown strawberry of the season a little while ago too.

We’re expecting rain later today, and tomorrow. Possibly thunderstorms. I’m sure the garden will be overgrown soon if I don’t get out there and start trimming.






Thin leafed poor blooming azaleas?

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How did your Azaleas, and Rhododendrons do this year? Did they bloom well? Is the foliage lush and full?

If you azaleas didn’t seem to do as well this year as they have in the past, or if the leaf coverage is rather thin you might want to be proactive and take some measure to help them get healthy so they’ll bloom well next season.

Apply azalea fertilizer in the spring. You might want to give your plants one light dose before they begin to bloom, perhaps just as they come out of dormancy, and another dose shortly after they’ve finished blooming. Fertilizing will encourage better growth and the plant should get fuller looking.

Lightly pruning blooming branches and bringing the flowers indoors or lightly prune immediately after the blooming season ends.

You’ll be cutting off some of the new growth, but when pruning takes place near the beginning of the season it actually encourages new growth. By pruning, fertilizing and watering regularly throughout the season your azaleas should be stronger the following year.

You might even want to thin some of the older branches after the blooms fade in order to shape the tree for the following year. It make take a few years to prune your azalea into a nice shape that shows off it’s fullness as you do not want to prune too much off at once.

I’m neglecting my garden

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The last time I was in the garden doing any work was more than a week ago. I tidied up the front garden beds and really meant to get to the backyard to finish the half that I had left to trim, prune and fix up, but I just haven’t got back there to do it.

Last weekend, not this one, last weekend we even went to a garden center and I bought some Tomato plants, cucumbers and a lot of other veggies as well as a few annuals to plant. Have I do anything with them other than water them three times? Nope!

I’ve just not been feeling well enough to get out there and get the work done.

It’s a shame really. The plants are surviving without me, but I know if I got out there and trimmed the dead wood off the rose, and pruned them into shape it would help stimulate them and make then grow a whole lot more. Also … I’d rather work with them now to shape them before they grow too much as it will be harder job and uh … more dangerous to my skin as they get bigger and fuller.

since I have more than 60 roses it’s quite interesting to take a look at my hands and arms after I’ve been working with them. I wear gloves but the thorns sometimes punch right through the gloves. I’ll come in after an hour or two of pruning and I’ll have scratches from the roses all the way up to my shoulders, or well … pretty close!

Is gardening a dangerous activity in your yard too?

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