Early Spring

Last year spring came in February. The year before it came in March. This year spring is already here in January! It's 70* again and some of the roses are already leafing out! We also had spring-like weather for most of last November. Not that I'm complaining, but the shortened winter temperatures mean less rain for us and less snow pack in the Sierras so we are looking at water rationing. I'll have to let the lawns die and use water from showers to water some plants etc. Last week we had about 48 hrs of drizzle which watered the garden but didn't do much to fill the reservoirs or put snow on the mountains for later use.

Last year I put in a new rose bed. Well, I didn't put it in, my garden helper did. This bed is up against a 30 year old hedge and just on the other side of the hedge is a 50 year old sycamore tree. Both have tremendous root systems that would invade the rose bed and compete for water and nutrients so I decided to try putting the roses in these tubs. The tubs have large holes drilled in the sides, front and bottom, but not in the back. I'm hoping the rose roots will grow out the holes and into the deeper soil and hopefully the tree and hedge roots will not invade the tubs. I'm thinking about planting other plants in tubs around the garden because we have so many big trees in the yard and they suck up most of the water leaving the smaller plants gasping for more. I also will be putting more decorative pots around the garden so the trees can't get to the water used to water the plants in them.

Here is the bed today. I haven't finished under planting it. So far I've planted two geraniums, a variegated silene (s. dioica 'Valley High'), nigella, Vanilla Berry nasturtiums seeds and a plumbego. I also want to plant several lavender flowered erigeron (Santa Barbara Daisy). The lavender erigeron is hard to find though. I like the white flowered erigeron too but the lavender is such a good complement to the apricot and peachy pink roses.