Tree Service was here

It is hard to believe, but we have sixteen tall Queen Palms, two giant Washingtonias (another variety of palms) and four clumps of big strelitzia nicolai 'Giant Bird of Paradise' and eight phoenix roebelenii 'Pygmy Date Palms' in our small suburban garden. I love these evergreen tropical plants and really like them as a green background to my predominantly rose garden - Think what the yews are for the English folks my tropical plants are for me here in Southern California. The palms and strelitzias are growing fast though and therefore have to be cleaned up from time to time. Ours were more than due! Considering the number of plants that need to be taken care of it is a painfully expensive job, but we had to bite the bullet, it simply had to be done.

Ideally you should clean up Queen Palms and Washingtonias and the like once a year to have them always looking at their best, but because of the costs, we only have done it every second year up to now. Since the first clean-up, to reduce costs, I take care of all 'Pygmy Date Palms' myself (or sometimes I ask the gardener to cut back yellow fronds), which is possible since these palms are not getting that tall, you just have to stay on top of them to keep them looking nice. I also cut back all yellow leaves of the strelizia nicolais as far high up as I can reach, but the Queen Palms and especially the Washingtonias are so tall that someone has to climb up their trunks to remove the old palm fronds. For that job you certainly need a professional to come in and do it for you. And so last month I called a tree service.

This is how the front yard looked before the tree service crew came in. It is pretty obvious that the tall 'Queen Palms' are in need of a good hair cut. With a little bit of a heavy heart I decided to get rid of the 'Pygmy Date Palms' in the foreground on the left side of this photo.

Here is a picture that shows these 'Pygmy Date Palms' from the side. The one to the left is growing more and more into the sidewalk. These palms have very long thorns attached to their fronds and I was always concerned that they would poke a child, a dog or even worse a baby in a stroller. The one to the right is growing directly into our decorative wall. This variety of palms becomes approximately 10 - 15 ' tall, so things will only get more problematic, and even though I liked the nice green that they provided to the front yard, they had to go.

At times the yard looked like a war zone! You wonder how the garden will survive it! But it came through it surprisingly well, even the roses only showed very little damage from fallen palm fronds. Of course, it helped that they barely had started to leave out.

Can you believe that all the green material stored on top of the truck came from my garden only? 

The front yard after they were done. It looks a little bare, but the palms will grow back quickly and fill in again.

Unfortunately I didn't take "before" photos of the backyard. Here is a guy dangling very high with a saw in the 'Queen Palms'. I was getting already dizzy, when I just looked at him.

This used to be a group of four 'Queen Palms', but they were planted too close together. The fronds of the three big palms were always in each others way and never looked really nice or as elegant as 'Queen Palms' are supposed to look. So after much inner debate I decided to take one out. You can see the rest of the trunk in the middle between the small Queen Palm in the center of the group and the tall one to the very left.

The fronds of the palms and the strelitzias look big when they are on the plants, but how big they really are you only realize when they have been cut down and fallen to the ground. Carried out of the yard by this crew member you get a better idea if you compare the size of the fronds to the size of his body.

This was the most scary part for me. These Washingtonia Palms are so tall already and it looks quite dangerous watching the guy working on them that high up there.

Here he is almost done with the first Washingtonia Palm. I was glad when the pruning of the palms was over and he was back on the ground safely.

This photo was taken after the crew left. I think they did a great job.

The strelitzia nicolais look very good, too. Some of their biggest trunks were removed and now they let more light through.

I have hired Troy Muncrief, ASAP Tree Service, to do this job for me. I was working with him and his crew for the second time and have to say I was pretty happy with them. They were on time, reliable, professional, thorough, friendly, and cleaned-up well after they finished. Besides all that what I truly appreciate is that Troy really listens to what you want to get done, so there were no unwanted surprises afterwards. If you are looking for a good tree service in the San Diego area I would highly recommend him. Here is his contact information: (858) 487 1244 or (760) 480 1670.

Happy spring to everyone!

See you in the garden!

Christina

February Roses

February was the month where I had the least rose blooms ever since I am gardening in San Diego and honestly, I am glad that I got a few flowers at all. The reason for this is that I pruned all my roses planted in the ground in January and they are not able to produce new blooms by February. I also pruned a lot of the roses that are growing in containers in the same month, so they couldn't make new blooms either. That leaves it up to the roses in containers that are not pruned, yet. Due to time constraints I wasn't able to fertilize those and especially because they are growing in pots the reality seem to be, that if they don't get fed they don't have the energy to make new blooms.

What I am learning from this is, that if I want to have roses flowering throughout the year, I have to change my pruning strategy aka the pruning timing. This year my intention is that I will try to start pruning in the beginning of December and finish by the end of January and be more diligent with the fertilizing. It will be interesting to observe if I can coax more roses into blooming next February.

So there are good explanations why I had so few blooms last month, but one thing is really disappointing to me. I have a three year old Tea Rose, 'Georgetown Tea' planted in the ground and Tea Roses are supposed to flower year round here in my climate and that was the main reason why I planted this particular rose in the first place. But 'Georgetown Tea' doesn't have one bloom on it right now, not one. In contrast to all the others, this rose I watered and fertilized throughout the winter season, but that didn't convince it to bloom. Maybe I didn't water and fertilize it enough. It is also planted in between a group of four Queen Anne Palms and it might be too shady for the rose in the winter time to be able to flower. Anyway, for now I have decided that just for experimental reasons I will increase the watering and the regularity in fertilizing of 'Georgetown Tea' and see what happens.

Following are the very few brave roses that dared to bloom in February in our garden:



'Charles Rennie Mackintosh' surprised positively by giving me three flowers.

This rose is still growing only in a two gallon container together with plenty of oxalis (if you are not familiar with it, it is a really obnoxious weed here in my area). 

It wasn't fertilized or cared for in any special way and still managed to be one of my most beautiful roses in February. It certainly deserves more loving attention this year.

'Alexander Hill Gray', a very light yellow Tea Rose, was gifting me with one flower and very sickly foliage. 

The same bud of 'Alexander Hill Gray' a few days later. In this photo the rose looks somehow surreal to me. The color of the canes is really that red, contrasting very strongly with the pale yellow blooms.

Same rose flower again a few days later. The bloom was opening painfully slow, but at least it was opening and not balling and lasted a long time on the little shrub. I always think that 'Alexander Hill Gray' is a particular elegant rose.

This was the very last spray of  'Marie Pavie's' winter flush. Right now she is making good use of the fertilizer and compost that I threw at her feet and producing tons of new leaves and I assume, new flowers are soon to follow.

'Nimbus' was suffering badly from powdery mildew and even black spot last month as you can see when you look at his leaves, but that didn't prevent him from developing one of its gorgeous colored flowers. The shadings of pale pink, mauve, and tan are so subtle, they are very hard to capture with the camera properly, but at least this image gives you an impression.

Here is the same bloom, photographed from above. I like the tussled informal look that the rose flower is taking on in the winter time. I guess, it is mostly due to the low light conditions, which make it hard for the rose to open in a more organized way.

Certainly not a great photo, but I had to show it to you anyway, because I am very excited about this one. The rose that it pictured is 'Old Fashioned Girl', a miniature rose, which is the first rose that is planted into the ground that is producing a spring flower spray this year. So this is my very first "real rose bloom" in 2013! All the other rose flowers that I showed you in this post are coming from roses growing in containers with the exception of 'Marie Pavie', which was still on her winter flush.

'Old Fashioned Girl' is positioned in front of a South-West facing off white wall, which reflects a lot of heat and light and I think that does the trick so that the rose is able to flower this early. Also since it is a miniature rose I didn't prune or deleave it, so there was nothing to set back the onset of the buds this year. Interestingly though, there is a 'Pink Pet' rose growing very close to this rose, also not pruned or deleaved, which is usually a very easy going rose, but it hasn't even set buds, yet. There is always some mystery to growing roses, which you can't explain!

I am very curious to find out what will happen this March in my rose garden. Will I have more roses blooming already or will the spring flush only start in April? I hope you stay tuned and find out together with me.

See you in the garden!

Christina

January Roses

Last month I believe I had the least rose blooms ever since we live in this place. There were two reasons for that. One was the weather and the other one was me. We had plenty of gray, dreary days with lots of rain, for Southern California circumstances of course, and it was unusually cold. Both factors are not really supportive of rose flower production. In addition to that I didn't fertilize the roses in the containers properly and when these roses don't get fed they don't bloom. It is that simple! Also usually I try to time the pruning of the roses in containers in a way that when I am done with the last the first one starts to bloom already again. This year I didn't pay attention to that and I can tell you, I regret it. I miss having more roses blooming in containers in the winter time, which makes living in Southern California so special for a Rosarian. Next year hopefully I will do better again.

Anyway, here are the rose blooms that I got in January.

I liked this shot of 'Marie Pavie' best out of all featured in this post. Her dainty flowers are heavy with rain drops, but she still manages to look light and elegant.

Another photo of  'Marie Pavie' growing through the fronds of a pigmy date palm. This rose literally blooms year round in my garden, is very healthy, and always looks beautiful if you deadhead the blooms. Otherwise the flower petals become brown when old and still cling to the rose, which can give it a 'dirty look'.




'Georgetown Tea'. I am always touched by the elegance of the Tea roses. This bloom had trouble opening with the low winter light and she is shaded by some palm trees on top of that. In this photo, I feel you can almost feel her struggle to unfold this lovely flower.




Last photo of a bloom of  'Madame Alfred Carriere' before the pruning. As you can see in the background her leaves are not the healthiest and prettiest anymore, but her flowers are still gorgeous.

'Vi's Violet' is one of my most beautiful miniature roses and she was doing her best to please last month.

 Above is another shot of 'Vi's Violet'.

'Pope John Paul II' here also photographed right after a rain shower.

Above you can see the same bloom a day later. This rose holds up very well to rain for a white rose. The bloom does hardly show any blemishes from the water. 

 Last bloom of 'Grandmother's Hat' for this season, back lit by the morning light.

The blooms of 'Irresistible', another miniature rose, also hold up very well in rain. If you touch them they feel almost a little bit like plastic, which I don't like so much, but this firm petal substance certainly has its advantage in rainy weather.




To my surprise 'Charles Rennie Mackintosh' continued going strong in January. He still resites in a containter, but I have a feeling, that it could also be a quite floriferous rose, once it is in the ground. This photo was taken when the rose was fully hit by the winter sun.




'Charles Rennie Mackintosh' again, but this photo was taken in the morning on a gray overcast day. I love the almost lilac color of the bloom! This is a rose bred by David Austin and like many of his roses, it has the ability to change its color quite a bit depending on the weather conditions. Some people might be not so fond of that, but I like it quite a bit. Each flower holds kind of a surprise how it will look when fully open. In my small garden I like these changes and unpredictability, since it can get a bit boring to see the same rose over and over again.




The last rose in this installment is 'Old Fashinoned Girl', a miniature that has won over my heart and seems to get better and better, since she is planted in the ground not too long ago. She just finished her last flush and she has produced already one new basal cane on which I detected today the first new buds. Yeah!

Quite a few gardens are buried under snow at this time of the year, or it is still very cold, so that many of you only can dream of roses right now, my dear readers. I hope, that especially for those of you where this is true, you enjoyed seeing some roses on my blog.

See you in the garden!

Christina