What I did this weekend...

This weekend I spent most of the weekend running around getting supplies and researching what I was going to need to plant 4 peony roots I got for my wife for Valentine's day last week. We went to Wal-mart to get some nice looking pots for a great price. After pricing out four 15 inch pots at 20 bucks we realized that they were just to small and we really did not going to need anymore 15 inch pots. We started looking at what large pots we could recycle and repot plants that needed to be re potted. I then remembered I had at least four roses that needed to be re potted. We looked around for a little while and we came across the prefect pot. We found 21 inch slate colored pots for $10.52 each. We bought 4 of them! Of course we lost $40 now instead of the $20 in pots we had planned to spend on them and still have to spend another $40 in a few weeks.

During that same trip we bought 15 strawberry roots, one small Pineapple Sage, and a small pot of sweet basil to replace one of our basils that is dieing out.

Sunday afternoon before the rains started I went out to buy potting soil. I spent about $18 on potting soil and hummus for the roses. In total I bought about 300+ lbs of soil. My poor little Kia was riding low today!

This is what my roses look like now. They did not handle last summer very well, I lost 3 roses and 1 was almost killed by bag worms, that kept coming back for seconds and thirds. Most of these roses I have had since college days and never re potted them. So today came the day I had to re pot them in large 21 inch pots!

After mixing up my soil and prepping the plants I moved them to their new home. As you can tell, the pots I move them to is a lot larger than their previous home. In the future I would not put a rose in anything smaller than a 16 inch wide with a deep base. The roots were so tight I almost could not get them out of the pot. I then removed some suckers from some small trees that started growing in there that I did not notice until I started working on them. Once I got all the plants in the pots and they were seated firmly I then trimmed about half an inch of old growth and removed any black spot I could find.

As I was finishing up it started to rain. I then moved all four plants back to their spot. I could not find my dolley and had to move all that weight by hand. I now hurt in places I have never hurt before. By the time I got them all moved into place and my supplies and cuttings removed to their proper places.

Below is the completed re potting of my roses.

Drainage Wows

My wife and I moved into a rental property that our land lord just bought from a elderly gentleman that recently passed on. The man is what most would call a "weekend warrior do-it-yourself" handy man. Everything he worked on was either done half way right or all wrong.

When we first moved in I noticed, a bunch of sprinkler boxes(you know the big ugly green ones that house water valves) with a bunch of drilled holes on it. I also notice at the end of our yard up against the base of our rotting fence another sprinkler box raised up with chicken wire wrapped around it and holes drilled into the sides near the ground. I did not think much of it and thought it was a neat and cheap idea for a drainage system.

After a couple of months we had a small storm. I noticed that our screened in porch had standing water about 2 feet inside on the porch. I took a look at the drainage and saw the one of the down spouts was angled toward the house. I moved the spout and angled it toward the alley and went on about my business. Over the months we have had several bad storms and the water always came up on the porch but when it rained I was either asleep or at work. So I never how bad the drainage was or where it the problem was.

About 2 weeks ago I happened to be home when we had a light rain. I went outside and checked our drainage. I found that our gutters and drainage was homemade and not done correctly. Every joint and angle was not sealed correctly or the sealant was the wrong type. Some of the downspouts (I never noticed were uphill and would not drain until the gutters were spilling out and tearing up the flower beds. All the joints leake and those green sprinkler boxes did not even work right. The boxes were flooded and about 3 inches of standing water was up against the foundation.

After the flooding I went out a couple days later to check on the drains and to clean them out. I opened them up and they were still full of water. After looking for the drains I only found 1 actual drain in the boxes. It was just about the water level close to top of the box. I cleared it out and some of the water was removed. I checked on the box at the back of yard and found it the same way. It was to small and my shed was flooded.

When the ground was dry enough to do some digging. I removed all the dirt around the drain near the fence and made a small berm to block the water from flowing into the shed. I then cleared away some weeds and junk near the drains by the house. When fished, tested the system by putting the water hose into the gutters and started watching the show. Within about 5 minutes the drains fill up and started to flood my porch.

At that point I realized the old man did not build the system right and the land lord was going to have to re due the drainage system. The hard part is explaining this to the land lord and telling what needs to be done before the foundation is damage.

More to come on this story...

Pictures From my First Garden

I was digging through my picture achieves and I came across my pictures for my first garden that I neglected for at least ten years and is still blooming through spring and early summer.

Due to the age and the amount of time passed, I have lost the names of these roses. I have looked into finding out more about the roses in the garden but I have been unsuccessful. If anyone runs across these pictures an knows what these are please let me know what I have here.

Some day I plan to transplant these guys and move them to better home where I can take care of them.

As you can tell this flower bed is a bit dark. Although it is not Ideal, It does get about five to six hours of sunlight during the late afternoon until sunset.

After the first year or two I grew discouraged and ran out of time to work on the bed anymore. I stopped watering everyday and the 100+ degree weather in August nearly killed them every year.

Below you will find some close ups the Roses. If you see any you know or think you know. Please let me know. I need all the help I get.



As you can tell from the pictures one of the roses a crawling type. In the 10 years that it has been in the ground it has spread to different parts of the back of the yard. If the plant lived in ideal conditions it would spread and become a wild in the back yard.

Please feel free to commit.