Wednesday Wandering

Seven Sisters Roses

This is an heirloom rambler that gets a bit unruly. I think it is an heirloom in more ways than one. I got a cutting of this from my husband's aunt Essie many years ago. And she got it from her mother Celesta. My husband remembers the rose growing in his grandmothers yard. 

It outgrew the trellis I had it on and about five years ago a big limb of a mulberry tree fell over the fence into my cottage garden. We couldn't cut the branch back because the tree is still live and the branch that fell is supporting some other big branches so...it fell right where I needed it - at the base of the Seven Sisters. So I trained it up the mulberry branch. 

Those big leaves you see trying to take over the roses is a wild Dutchman's Pipe. I need to cut that out of there. My Dutchman's Pipe vine is over on a different trellis and I want it to stay where it belongs.

I would really like to take a bunch of cuttings and make a wall around my veggie garden. Dreams....

Seven Sisters

I used to have a lot of nice heirloom shrub roses - mostly David Austin roses. Then for several years in a row the rabbits and deer devoured the canes nearly to the ground and the roses have been struggling. I've been babying them along and trying to protect them from deer and rabbits in a variety of different ways. Then when they would have a few blooms the Japanese Beetles came along to devour them and it was a constant battle with them.   This year some of the roses may be on the road to recovery. I think this one is Winchester Cathedral and it has had several arching canes full of roses, thank goodness. 

Can't remember the name of this one. It does smell divine. 

The first lily to bloom this year -- a dwarf Asiatic Lily in the fairy garden. I have three clumps of it now. I bought one on clearance one year at Walmart. 

You can see how short they are in comparison to the Hosta in the background. 

I started some annual salvia and planted it in the cutting garden. I am not sure what kind of critter pulls up my markers but not matter what kind of marker or where I put plants in the garden the markers always get pulled up. Then I fix them and the next day they are pulled up and so on...Usually I just end up leaving them lying on the ground near the plants but sometimes the markers disappear completely only to end up near a different plant.  I think it is a raccoon but not sure. 

I planted loose leaf lettuce for cutting earlier in the year but then I usually always start butterhead lettuce for heads. They are slower to bolt. 

I love Butterhead lettuce - sweet!

I started a native wildflower garden last year and this year I hope to see a lot of blooming perennials iI started from seed. The yellow are Oxeye Sunflowers. 

The Butterfly Weed got hit by a borer. Both of my plants had some dead stems and I found borer holes in the stems but did not see the borer so I could get rid of it. 

And these cute little flowers are Indian Physic (American Ipecac or Bowman's root). 

It is always so exciting to see all the things I started from seed reach maturity. 

This time of year most of my planting is done and weeding starts and never finishes. 

And so it grows...