“White to Pink” – Summer 2013 – Choderwood – Chicks in the Hood – Pittsburgh, PA
“A Plant a Day till Spring” will highlight one plant a day, starting on the winter solstice (December 21, 2013)… And ending on the vernal equinox (March 20, 2014)… If all goes to plan I will be starting with old Snowdrop photos from 2013… And ending with new photos of Snowdrops in 2014…
We have made it to the halfway point… Only 45 more days to go… So far this winter has been crazy… We have seen temperatures reach twenty-year lows… Lots of snow… And of course… It’s in the mid 40s today… And Punxsutawney Phil just saw his shadow… Six more weeks of winter… Because a groundhog (my garden enemy) said so… Let that groundhog come near my veggie patch… I don’t care how famous he is… He will be compost…
Today I chose the Rose… I am a fan… I realized something while gathering these photos… For a guy who listens to heavy metal… I have way too many “pink” flowers in my garden… I’m going to have to work on that this year… Anyway,,,
My grandmother had a few roses in her front garden… I remember because they looked like a bunch of thorny sticks most of the year… But occasionally… Those sticks would put out a massive flower… We also had Roses at the house I grew up in… We have a split rail fence that runs along part of the street… A long time ago… Each post had a Rose growing next to it… If I remember right… The Willow tree that fell in our yard took out the Roses… Maybe my mom or dad will chime in on this…
Roses are something I actually have a lot of practice with… The community I live in is very old… Many… Many people have grown old here… Through the years a whole bunch of Roses have been planted throughout my community… I regularly find “old-world” roses growing in the front and backyards of abandoned houses… I was looking for my photos of a massive “Moss Rose” I found last Summer… It had taken over an entire backyard… I will be transplanting parts of it this Summer… The house is on the demo-list and from experience… Nothing survives the demolition crew… They will even cut the trees down…
Roses require regular pruning… No one wants to do this… Because people are afraid of the thorns… Most roses I come in contact with are severely neglected… The first thing I typically do is cut that thing down to 20 – 24″ sticks… You have to get it under control… Rose bushes are bred to bloom profusely… They will never accomplish this if they are busy supporting massive amounts of stems and leaves…
Roses are Potassium hogs… That is why the old-timers threw their banana peals under them… I still do this… Except I bury them under a shallow amount of compost… A bloom-boosting fertilizer will also work… But why waste money at the store on something you can’t eat… When you can buy something both you and your plant can eat…
plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello
If you want some science – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose
These “Plant a Day Till Spring” posts are simply intended to kill time until spring when I start writing more… My source (where applicable) is Wikipedia.org… The photography is all my own… And I am adding my own information…
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