Straw- By mixing the clay with lava rocks and corn, do you think it is sufficient to not create the flower pot effect? Sometimes we can only dig holes so big. Before I was just replacing soil in the hole, and now realize not mixing the clay back in was a bad idea. I have since started following your example of corn and lava rocks. I am considering planting radishes to rot in the ground. I have heard of it but forgot. Would the radish method work for clay? What about charcoal? I was reading something in the comments about charcoal.

Hi mgarden: Great questions. For that Le nia Rias rose, when I dug up it's all compact & rock-hard clay. So I used 2 garbage lids and put those chunks in. At the bottom of the hole I threw in gypsum to loosen the harden-clay, plus red-lava rocks to help with drainage. Then I added my native clay chunks, plus cracked corn. Then I mixed all up in a hole 18 inch wide by 18 deep. The only root that surpass such hole is Dr. Huey that can extend 4 feet away. Most own-roots take us less space than the 18 x 18 hole. Right after being dug up, Le Nia rose was perky, and a year later, it's still healthy.

I did the same to a tomato plant (minus red-lava rock). I dug that water-logged tomato up, broke up the soil with cracked-corn and gypsum, and planted it back in. That tomato is still perky.

Radish sounds great to break up clay. Charcoal has chemicals added, not a good idea. Wood ash is extremely alkaline & caustic, best for the compost pile.

There is some type of natural horticultural charcoal, but it looks expensive so that would not be practical.

Earthsong finally just got his first set of new leaflets recently and so far no red tips on them...This Earthsong rose bush is a real slacker so far though....lol

Prairie Harvest, Easy Does it, and Thomas Affleck are starting to really take off! :-) All showing signs of nice vigor!

Touch of class -- more orange than usual

Secret

Distant Drums

Hi Msgirl: How do you like the scents on those roses? I really like the orange color of Touch of Class. I should had grabbed Fragrant Cloud when it was at Menards for $8 per gallon. I need more orange, blue, and yellow in my garden.

Soil test results came today!

Next to house I need phosphorus for my roses, they have very little! It did show high calcium and 6.5 ph! I have been working on this area for over a year.

Next to house Where my hydrangeas are ph 7.5 high in calcium, low potassium, low phosphorus. just started working in this area

Another place where I wanted to put roses is low on phosphorus and potassium, and has a 5.7 ph, but high in calcium and zinc.

My yard is low in potassium, and phosphorus. I didn't dig very deep the ground was hard, maybe that is why the 5.4 and 5.7 in the yard samples. I wonder why the ph is so high right beside the house but low in the yard?

Everywhere shows low potassium except the 1 rose bed, which is barely normal. Calcium mag and zinc normal everwhere.

Now I need ideas on potassium, and phosphorus, that are not so expensive highest phosphorus is where the roses are, twice that of other areas.

Straw can answer your questions better than I momscottagegarden...

I'm guessing the PH is higher near your house because of there being more concrete...Calcium leeches out of concrete and they say that can raise soil PH... Might also explain why that area is high in Calcium???

What fertilizer do you normally use on your roses?

Jim
I believe there is construction waste by the house, brick foundation. We have found broken bricks and mortar, that was buried, also it is sticky, gummy there too. Mostly poor drainage, everywhere. I really wasn't able to dig in the yard, I will take one more sample in the yard just to be sure, but I believe it is fairly accurate. So I need to soften low ph and high ph soil. I assume low organic matter. I am considering the tillage radishes, but one of the comments said they stink.

I was thinking bone meal if I can find a big 50 pound bag. If I used lime for the ph, that would make the calcium super high? Kelp meal or green sand is fine for small areas, but not large areas. I can get a scoop of green sand mixed with mushroom compost for about $30 but that could only be used in a small area.

Yes, I am waiting on Straw, she seems to really know how to deal with difficult soil.

Distant Drums has such a distinctive fragrance, it would be my number one, Secret has a pretty smell and Touch of Class I remember for its bloom not its scent. I haven't had orange tint before so I am curious about how it will open up.

I need more white and yellow.

Momscottagegarden, so exciting to be playing in your own ground .... Your roses will take off, I'm also interested to know what the recommendations are.

Jim I am so tired today didn't see your question. I have been using small amounts of Mills Magic bi-weekly, seaweed or fish and seaweed weekly. Straw says sewage sludge in Mills encourages fungal growth. I will probably discontinue Mills when it runs out. I did sprinkle local composted rich soil where I planted the roses, which seems to have the best soil.
Oh rain! I got up at 5:30 to water everything. There was thunder then rain, but not enough. The little rain did not really wet the ground. I didn't water because of the rain. It is just too hot to do anything. I will at least go get some bone meal tomorrow.

Hopefully Straw sees your above posts soon and gives her opinion... Its the weekend...

I do not care much for Mills Magic myself...

A few years ago I actually got to talk to MILO creater of Dr Earth fertilizer by phone. He told me granular fertilizer do there best when applied down into the soil near the roots... so 2"-4" deep. (But that's tough to do sometimes without disturbing tiny feeder roots on already established plants.)

(The fertilizer needs to stay a bit moist so the soil microbes can break it down...)

So if a granular fertilizer is broadcast on top of mulch or just on top of soil it actually is not near as effective as it could be... Milo told me since I did not want to dig in the fertilizer to a depth that would be most effective I should then use Dr Earth All purpose pellets which could be broadcast on top of soil if needed and it still would be very effective...

(Now I did not tell you this because I want you to use that product but just to let you know whatever you do decide to use hopefully you can apply it so it will be most effective for you...)

Hi friends: Regarding cottagegarden's questions about soil-test-results, I post the answer in the thread http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3135984/natural-organic-not-man-made-chemical-soil-additives?n=11

Ma'o Organic Farm

Wow !! That's beautiful. Thank you.

Awesome pics msdorkgirl(11)!

Anyone ever have Earwigs on there roses? Deadheading these past few days I have been finding a fair amount of Earwigs insects inside our almost spent blooms...

Reading up on Earwigs it says they can be a good insect by eating Aphids or a bad insects when no food source is left. No insect food source is left for these guys as far as I can see so wonder what they are up to?

My wife picked out these single flowered Marigolds this year for out front... I have noticed they stink like 5 times more than the Marigolds I'm using...lol...So since they are doing such a great job keeping insects totally away from Thomas Affleck I'll probably make some changes next year...

I'm starting to be more convinced that the strong smell of Marigolds is confusing the sawfly and there just not laying new eggs on roses near where lots of Marigolds are planted...

It was not suppose to rain today but its raining so that makes it 15 days in a row...

Very healthy marigolds you have !! Mine are stunt in wet clay .. tons of rain here. I had to move my marigolds to a raised bed ... It's flooding in that low bed.

Our Pansy flowers are not liking the rain... First year we planted those and probably the last...lol... Yellowing leaves etc...

I was out checking our roses for Rose Slugs all seem clean except I found one giant 1/2" rose slug on my sisters rose bush... I had to laugh as my sisters rose only has like 10 new leaves on it and the rose slug was bigger than the leaves...lol

No Marigolds planted or sitting real close to my sisters rose bush like our other rose bushes...

Good morning y'all,

Sorry I am no help with observing the bugs, I do not like them, I just like to get rid of them.

Woke up and watered my maybe-not-going-to-last bareroot Austins, repotted 3gal to 7 gal, repotted dead Lasting Love, put mulch on top of three roses, pruned a little of blind shoots, About Face is now struggling with spider mites (argh) and took cuttings:

Random Lowes mini rose (yellow)

Distant Drums

Touch of Class (stem from the base of the plant so really nice long stem and huge rose)

Random White Rose

Secret

Neptune

I'm missing red, and a vibrant purple... that is my goal, for any given time I get a cutting, I get representative of all colors :)

Great looking blooms msdorkgirl!

Any certain red and purple roses in mind?

Msgirl: I love that bouquet, pretty like a Renaissance painting.

Forget to ask msgirl: how do each of those smell like? I love Touch of Class color and Neptune too.

Good, Bad, and the Ugly...lol

Live and Learn: I spent some time today just watching nature... I noticed the Marigolds my wife picked and we planted this year (single flowered orange) attract way more predator insects (good guys) to them then the type I planted around our backyard and sideyard.. Plus they stink so much more than the Marigolds I use... SO I will be changing next year for sure and using a single orange and a single yellow instead of the more double bloom Marigolds I have been using...

On the left is the Marigolds I use... The ones on the right are attracting way more good insects probably because the insects can get to the Stamen much easier...

Which leads me to the Earwig insects I saw crawling out of some of the D. Ko's spent blooms yesterday...

Today I cut off more spent blooms on that same rose bush and I threw them into a plastic trash bag... Low & behold I seen Rose Slugs crawling out of the spent blooms today then I watched them crawl out of the plastic bag itself.... So even though I do not see much leaf damage they are in the blooms of that certain bush...

Pic of a curled Rose Slug from an article:

http://bugoftheweek.com/blog/2013/1/15/rosie-defoliators-roseslug-sawfly-iendelomyia-aethiopsi-and-curled-rose-sawfly-iallantus-cinctusi

Pic of one of my wifes plants:

Another one of my wifes plants:

Thomas Affleck going to start blooming again soon...

Thank you, Jim, for the info. about single-petal marigolds attract more insects than the double & fuller marigolds. So glad that I bought the single-petal ones this year. Your wife's plant is neat. Your Thomas Affleck looks good .. very healthy leaves. Another all night & all day rain.. this got to be the wettest May & June.

Welcome Straw! I noticed a lot of smaller predator bee type insects on the single bloomed Marigolds today... Also some larger wasps and some very huge fat bumblebees... Serena taught me how to tell the difference between Bumbles and Carpenter Bees... Even our carpenter bees visit these flowers...

Actually today was the first day we DID NOT have rain in the past 16 days... We needed a good hot day to dry things up a bit... Well its only 85 degrees but that's hot to me...lol

The article I posted above on Curled Rose Slug the information is way off for our area as our Curled Rose Slugs are here from June thru November not May thru June as stated in that article... They also mention about them on the underside of leaves ours here like the top AND bottom side of leaves or inside rose blooms...

I tried to capture a pic of our flowers from ground-level just now...lol... Flowers are starting to spread and fill out more now... I did NOT plant as many flowers near the fence as it is hard to get back there and deadhead... etc...

Updated pic of our Cherry Tomato plant...

Hi Jim: Your knock-out looks good next to purple petunias. I'm a bit disappointed with my 1st bloom of Tchaikoski (from Roses Unlimited sale). Not much scent. I'm going to stick with my wish-list (Firefighter, Neptune, Young Lycidas, Lady Emma Hamilton) ... some of those were not available, so next year I'll order early. I'm into fragrance, so it pays to get the one that really lift me up with their scents.

I see your going to try firefighter again... Did you lose your first FF to winter Straw? I think RU let me order as early as December/ January this year...

Yes, I lost that to a cold & dry winter. It was next to a tree !! It really cheered up many neighbors with the bouquets of FF I gave. I'm going to make my order in December as Christmas present to myself.

Hi All
I am so tired, feel like I have been doing laundry non stop for days! I took a giant box of my daughter's clothes that no longer fit to a local place for donation. We have been spraying vinegar on grass/weeds by the mailbox. I can tell you it works! I fell so in love with the pic from Redneck Rosarian's blog with his roses by his mailbox, that I just have to attempt to copy and make my own version, that is why I am spraying the vinegar to kill the grass. While looking through old photos look what I found. This is from about 12 years ago. We had to move since the landlord wanted the house for a relative. Then they dug up all the roses, and flowers, about $350 worth and replaced with some green shrub. It took me this long to be able to plant roses and flowers again. We now have our own house, so I can plant what I want. Msgirl, I understand your wanting to use pots. That broke my heart. There are more pics, but I just can't find them. We were looking for other pictures when I found these too. No idea which one this is.

Oh, so pretty ... the plants looked healthy, I'm glad you can now plant in the ground. Much luck to you and for your roses :).

Thanks for sharing your pics momscottagegarden! If you find anymore please share.... :-)

Can't wait to see what you do around your mailbox!

Hi cottagegarden: Glad to hear from you. Great idea to spray vinegar to kill grass .. the soil will be fluffy too. I did that accidentally ... I meant to kill dandelions but ended up with a patch of brown grass. I love that pink rose you posted, I wonder what it is.

So spray vinegar on leaves or get down to the soil part and spray it? Dilute it? How do you apply (hand sprayer, etc)?

I have random grass on the ground around my pots (but not in them thank goodness) ... I would leave them except it's been raining and I don't like walking through that and getting feet wet. Do not have a weed whacker or grass cutter, and don't think I"m patient enough to use my regular scissors to cut them off.

Thanks for any help or suggestions!

Hi Msgirl: I use a small-top bottle and pour vinegar onto the dandelion, except I poured too much and it spread out & killed grass. When I checked on killing grass, thick black plastic is best (it solarizes & block out rain), next best is thick cardboard (from grocery stores), and last is newspaper. I also put alfalfa hay down to kill weeds.

We put it in a spray bottle, and have sprayed away. We have had to spray more than once. It does not work as good as chemicals, but I don't want chemicals. I saw some lawn care spraying weed killer in an abandoned lot while windy. All I could think of was where is this stuff going?

Hi cottagegarden: My hayfever always flare up when the village sprays mosquitos in the summer. I usually get "bed-ridden" sick when that happens. After hours googling, finally found a blog where the person stated that using high-nitrogen fertilizer is enough to encourage grass, plus suppress weeds. So I tested that: use high-nitrogen fertilizer, minus the weed-killer, and it worked well: not much dandelions this year, despite rain. I also poured 1 Tablespoon of vinegar right onto each dandelion clump .. and that worked VERY WELL. Lawn care is a breeze with the above approach. In contrast, my neighbor is paying $200 per year for lawn-care to spray chemicals to kill weeds.

Before this killing dandelions consumed more time than my 50+ roses even. I was digging each of them with a shovel, and that's hard work since their root was so long.

Eugene de Beauharnais the color is different, hard to capture with the camera, more burgundy.

That's gorgeous ... I love that color, and the swirls are fabulous. How do you like the scent? I want that rose but my zone 5a make it too small & bunnies will devour in seconds. I re-post this tip which I posted elsewhere: To prevent cracked corn from sprouting, put bagged cracked corn in your freezer for 1 week before using. Hubby bought me a large bag of cracked corn last fall, and it stored in my cold garage (below freezing) for 3 months. In the spring I used it, and zero corn sprouting. However, the new bag of cracked corn bought in spring: it sprouted corn-plants all over !!

Straw
I didn't get close enough to smell it yet. So far no sprouted cracked corn. The roses that were planted with cracked corn seem to be doing better. I have not fed or sprayed since it has been much too hot. Was cool last night but was just too tired. Maybe tonight since it did rain yesterday.

Great looking bloom momscottagegarden! That color is hard to capture on our camera also...

Ditto what everyone else has said, momscottagegarden.

If you could post for your fabulous pics in the other thread Jim started, that would make it so we don't have to scroll all the way down.

AND I hear you about the tiredness. I keep meaning to spray some fish stuff but have kept putting it off.

Someone please show me the other thread with all the beautiful pictures!
Straw-I believe the corn may have sprouted a little, I assumed it was just grass. It wasn't much, and was so easy to pull.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3168737/roses-and-stuff-2?n=38

:) ... on the top of the page you can click on 'organic rose gardening' and it will take you to the other topics.

Hi all
At the moment I am working on finding a couple of stray kittens homes. It is a bit hard when there are many other kittens out there looking for homes.

Good luck ... my neighbor had a hard time getting rid of her kittens (dropped off by a wild cat). So we have a few wild cats around .. it's amazing how they survive my zone 5a winter. We leave cat foods out & water for them.

If you get wild kittens away from their mom they can be tamed. We have these tame, inside, and waiting to be spayed an neutered by next week. Animal Rescue will display them at the store next week. If I didn't already have 4 cats I would keep this one myself. Even wild cats can become tame. I have the moma cat where I can pet her, just not pick her up yet. It takes time and patience.

Cute kitten momscottagegarden

It is a cute cat, momscottagegarden. I'm not really an animal person, but appreciate the cuteness of them. :)

Hi All, I'm not a gardener, but I want my wife's roses and efforts in our flower beds to be a success :) Unfortunately, she's not much of a gardener either, so we're seeking some help. I have two things I need help with and having read through this page I can tell there are some folks here that can help and might even be willing to! :)

1 - Something is eating our roses. I took a few pictures of these little 1/2" inch black caterpillars that I caught in the act. Tent worms? That's my guess after a little Googling. If so, is there a best way to get rid of them and recover from the damage?

2- I want to cover a 6' stone wall with some sort of ivy or perennial flowering vine that will run and be low maintenance. We put the wall in a few years ago and our best efforts to set in a good foundation are still showing gaps in the upper stones. I don't want to dig out the tree and bushes that are in the ground that the wall is holding in, I don't think the wall will ultimately fail (at least not in my lifetime) but I do want to hide the stone gaps. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!!!!

I also have a question on something I picked up from higher in the chain
. . . what's the magic with marigolds and getting rid of garden pests?

Thanks in Advance!