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Transplanting Rose Bushes

Last Autumn, I dug up about six rose bushes from the hillside out front and transplanted them to a more reasonable area down in the front yard. I am now mowing the hillside and having those rose bushes with their sharp thorns is really a thorn in my side (haha). I get snagged all the time and I don’t enjoy it much.

Initially, I didn’t know if they were going to take, meaning survive. Well, this Spring I noticed a bunch of new growth on some of the branches, but mainly from towards the bottom of the bush. I pruned out all the dead branches and the rose bushes are beginning to look pretty good. This is surprising because I wouldn’t say I did a great job of transplanting these things. I almost just ripped them out of the ground and plopped them in a dug out hole.

If you have not had the pleasure of seeing what the roots of a rose bush look like, let me tell you that they are pretty substantial. Rose bushes grow quite a bit under the ground and I have seen roots longer than six feet. I am not saying that I have seen this in a previous life, I’m saying that I saw this yesterday. Right at the base of the bush, if it is a few years old, you’ll find a gnarly root with a bunch of finer ones all tangled up.

If I had it to do over (which I actually did today), I would first cut the rose bush down to about a foot tall and then transplant it. This way, the plant is easier to work with and I won’t get my hopes smashed as I watch all the nice green growth wilt away.

As I said above, I transplanted six more Rose bushes over the past few days and I did it just the way I said I would, by cutting it down first and then transplanting it. Rose bushes are good at growing very, very fast under the right conditions.

Before I started writing this post, I did a little online research on “How to transplant a Rose bush.” You would be surprised at what I found. On one website, there was about two pages of instructions. They wrote all about the classic, “dig the whole twice as wide…compost…fertilizer” blah blah blah. I read this type of stuff all over the place and really don’t know who writes it. I get the feeling that the faster and dirtier the transplant job, the better things grow. I’m talkin’ pickup truck and chain style. The minute you stop and spend all sorts of time and money transplanting bushes and shrubs, they die.

Here is my advice when transplanting a Rose bush from my own experience:

1. Cut the bush down to 12 inches
2. Dig around the bush to remove as much soil as you can
3. Push the shovel under the Rose bush as much as you can and rock it back and forth to loosen up the plant
4. When it’s nice and loose, grab the roots and pull until you rip it out

To transplant:

1. Dig a hole
2. Plop the bush in the whole and cover with dirt
3. Water a few times a day for about a week

One word of warning for when you are trying to get the Rose bush out of its originating spot – You are going to sweat, get dirty and if anyone is driving by, laughed at.

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Gardening, Bug Repellents, Greenhouses, Organic Farm And Tea Tree Oil

10 Ways Gardening Can Help You Through A Recession

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250,000 Tiny Greenhouses, Each Containing One Head Of Lettuce

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Tea Tree Oil: An Amazing And Versitile Substance

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Are Lawn Weeds Annuals Or Perennials?

It appears they are both.

If you haven’t noticed, lawn weeds are starting to hit hard. It’s been hot for the past few days and this is prime season for all those ugly critters to take hold in your lawn. I actually just went out yesterday to get a few bottles of Ortho Weed-B-Gone, along with the hand sprayer that hooks up to a garden hose. I sprayed the front yard today and am going to wait to see what that looks like. I’ll let you know.

Since I had the guys at Scotts Lawn Service put down some pre-emergent herbicide, I am sitting here wondering why the lawn is starting to have weeds grow in it. There are some spots with crabgrass, but other weeds are growing as well. The whole thing got me thinking about which lawn weeds are annuals and which ones are perennials.

I found a nice description of the most common lawn weeds over at this website. I’ll put the weeds in a list for you:

Perennial Lawn Weeds

- Dandelion
- Ground ivy
- Clover
- Plantain
- Nutsedge

Annual Lawn Weeds

- Crabgrass
- Annual bluegrass
- Knotweed

I think we pretty much have all of these weeds, so my work is cut out for me.

I know that a lot hinges on how nice and full lawn grass grows. We have a few bare spots that need reseeding, but I can’t do that until Autumn. I am getting a little impatient, but seeding now (with the pre-emergent still active) is a waste of time. Also, seeding in the Summer doesn’t really work out too well. Come September, I am going to de-thatch and aerate the heck out of this place and reseed the whole thing.

Little by little. That’s what they say about lawns and lawn care…little by little and you’ll win the battle.

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Bird Gardens, Hanging Basket, Living Walls, Mosquitoes and Square Foot Gardening

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10 Incredible Living Walls

The idea of a living wall conjures up all sorts of images, but in reality it is nothing more than a wall completely covered in vegetation. This form of urban gardening is often designed as an art form to decorate buildings in cities and has been hailed as one way to make cities more enjoyable, healthier and ultimately greener places.

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The Trailer’s Maiden Voyage

It was so sunny and warm this morning. I was putzing around doing a few things here and there, when I decided that I really should pull the trailer out, put it back together and go get some mulch.

You should have seen my face when I walked over to the guy in the machine. I had already parked in front of the big mulch pile a few minutes earlier, ran across the street to pay and I was on my way back. He looked at me, then looked at the trailer and then back at me. It was like he did a double-take. I had a huge grin and shouted, “Hey, look what I got!!!” This was the same guy who makes the mulch deliveries. He yelled out, “Good for you. You’re going to save a heck of a lot of money this way.” He’s on my side when it comes to delivery fees.

I did the math and I know this trailer will hold three yards of mulch if we put a little extra on top. I guess the fella operating the machine was in a good mood, because that’s what he gave me…a full three yards.

I was wondering how the sides were going to hold up. As I stood there watching him fill the trailer with mulch, I was expecting the sides to explode in the parking lot. If that happened, I suppose I would have just hung my head in shame and walked away. Good thing everything held up just fine; even better than fine. The walls were rock solid. Nothing more needs to be done to the trailer. Well, I wouldn’t mind one of those twisty jacks to hold the hitch off the ground when I unhook it from the car.

After he was finished filling the trailer up, I pulled the tarp over the material and strapped it down.

I was in for a little shock when I pulled out of the parking lot. I was so used to driving like nothing was even attached to the back of the vehicle when the trailer was empty. It was so light. When the trailer is full, it’s a different story. I am not sure how much a yard of mulch weighs, but I am guessing three yards is a pretty good weight. Let’s just say that I’ll be getting two yards from now on, because I think I may have been pushing it. Whenever I am towing anything, I have terrible visions of it rolling past me on the road. Everything drove just fine though and we made it back in one piece.

Since the weight on the front of the full trailer is pretty substantial, I wasn’t able to just lift the hitch off the car and rest it on the ground like I am able to do when it’s empty. I had to get a little creative. I walked in the back yard, grabbed two bricks and put them behind the wheels. Then, I grabbed my car jack and jacked the hitch off the car. After that was done, I drove the car away, backed the lawnmower up in its spot and lowered the trailer back down.

After stopping to let the lawnmower and trailer pose for a photo, I drove everything down to the backyard and started shoveling. Oh what fun that it. I am thinking that maybe once per week is good for this kind of entertainment. I need about six more yards before this little backyard project is complete.

Oh, by the way, those two boards standing up in the back corners are old 4″x4″s that I had laying around. I used them to seal off the corners where there was a gap in the sides. That stopped the mulch from falling out onto the road.

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Dethatching A Lawn

I know I am probably beating a dead horse here, but I wanted to post a few photos of today’s lawn dethatching.

Yesterday, I showed you some photos of dethatching the front lawn. Today, I am going to show you some photos of the back yard getting dethatched. I know, very exciting.

Actually, I dethatched the entire front area along the road as well as behind the house. That took a lot to do. This dethatcher works wonders. I pulled up so much dead grass, I couldn’t believe it. I am slowly learning about all the goodies the real guys use to make lawns look good. When I was riding the tractor, towing the dethatcher, the lawn looked like it was being rototilled because there was so much of a mess behind me. Believe it or not, this dethatcher really doesn’t mess with the good grass. That grass is really rooted in there. It just pulls up all the dead weeds and everything else that shouldn’t be there.

Here are some photos of dethatching the back yard.

Sorry, I forgot to get the before shots.

If you look closely, you can see all the dead material on top of the grass. One time around the back yard basically filled up both rear bags on the mower. It’s crazy how much stuff came up. Take a look at the last photo. That area was totally covered with dead crabgrass, not it’s all cleaned up and ready for this season.

Come September, I am going to dethatch the lawn once more and then I’m going to aerate the heck out of it. After that, I am going to put down seed where it’s needed. Boy, they weren’t kidding when they said it takes a few years to get a nice lawn.

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Brinly 40 Inch Tow-Behind Dethatcher

I have been beating myself up over this one for a few days.

I have gone back and forth, looking on the internet, trying to determine if I need to have the lawn dethatched. I know, I know…as my father would say, “Just mow the lawn and get on with your life.” Well, unfortunately, I am someone who has been sucked into the art of lawn care and really seem to enjoy it.

Some websites that I browsed said that dethatching really isn’t necessary because the thatch layer should naturally break down if the lawn is in good health. Another website said that dethatching is good, but only in the autumn because you don’t want to disturb the newly sprouting grass. The last website said that you should dethatch in the spring, autumn and everything in between. Go you.

I had a few things to do today, one of them being to start tackling the “after winter” lawn. There are ugly patches all over the place from chopped up leaves and dead crabgrass. There are also twigs like you wouldn’t believe.

This morning, I grabbed a rake from the garage and walked out to the front lawn and started raking. I did an area about fifty feet long by ten feet wide and raked up a good amount of dead grass. Then, I ran my hand through my hair, sniffled a little bit and took a look around at the rest of the lawn. I quickly said, “H*ll no. I ain’t doing all that.” Please pardon me. That’s the street talk in me. I decided that getting an inexpensive dethatcher is the way to go. After all, I do have a nice new John Deere ride-on mower with a rear bagger. I should really use it.

A dethatcher is really only a big rake. I mean, you could dethatch your whole lawn with a hand rake if you wanted to. That’s actually what people used to do in the old days, like ten years ago. Remember when you were a kid and one of your parents yelled at you to get outside and rake the lawn? Yeah, they meant with a rake, not a 40 inch tow behind dethatcher. After a few years of some kid raking the yard by hand, he or she got the bright idea of inventing a better tool.

I picked up a “Brinly 40 Inch Tow-Behind Dethatcher” from Home Depot in Glastonbury this afternoon. It was the cheapest one that had. I would have preferred buying the John Deere front mounted dethatcher because I could d-thatch and bag at the same time, but that unit and mount cost about $400. This old man isn’t paying $400 to rake the lawn. I’ll get the $79 jobber.

I put the dethatcher together when we got back. It took about 45 minutes to finish it up…just enough time to give it a dry run around the front lawn. For this little trial, I didn’t put a weight on the unit; I simply towed it around to see how it worked.

I have to say, it did a pretty good job. The dethatcher scraped along the ground and loosened up all the layered thatch (of which there is more than you realize). While towing it around, I was able to easily see the areas I already covered. When I was finished dethatching, I re-installed the rear bagger and sucked up all the dead grass clippings, dead crab grass and twigs and dumped all that waste into the woods. I got almost four full bags. Not bad for one simple dry run around the front lawn.

Here, take a look at the photos.

PS – If you want to see what a lawn looks like before dethatching, click here.

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Green Velvet Boxwood

There are two lessons I have learned about shrubs that I would like to share with you.

1. Only plant Boxwood.
2. Only plant in the spring.

There you have it. Now, let me tell you what the heck I am talking about.

I know I have probably said this before and have trouble following my own advice, but I really mean it this time. I am only going to plant Boxwood from now on. No matter how “deer resistant” you think a shrub is, it probably isn’t. Everybody says that Holly is deer resistant. Guess what? It isn’t. Deer like to nibble on the ends of the branches. It drives me up a wall. I had to go out today to pick up some of that deer netting to put over the Holly bushes. As far as I know, Boxwood is the only shrub that’s deer resistant (well, besides Juniper), and I am going on personal experience here. I have never had a deer nibble on any boxwood shrub I have ever planted. Everything else…yeah.

The next lesson has to do with when to plant your shrubs. I have planted in both spring and fall, but spring planting works out much better, in my opinion. See, if you plant in the spring, the plant has time to grow and mature its sensitive little twigs that were over-fertilized by the nursery. All that new growth has time during the growing season to harden up. If you plant in the autumn, all that new growth dies. Period. It just does. Those nights in mid-January that offer us those wonderfully chilly sub-zero temperatures do a wonder on new shrubs. I have about six Boxwood shrubs sitting outside in the dirt right now with dead top halves. It’s pretty funny to look at. Top half brown, bottom half green. The good thing is that I expect these plants to take off this year and will most likely grown right through the dead areas.

Okay, since Home Depot had Boxwood shrubs in stock and it’s spring, I decided to grab a few today. Actually, I grabbed eight of them. I am going to plant three of them in that new mulch area next to the driveway and five of them in a row almost under the porch in the back yard. They are going to look really cool when they grow larger.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, the Green Velvet Boxwood is “a hybrid of Korean Boxwood (for hardiness and compactness) and Common Boxwood (for excellent leaf color in both summer and winter).” You can read the rest of the description here.

Here is what I bought today.

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Another Year, Another Pile Of Mulch

Okay, today is no doubt the nicest day of the year so far. It’s mid 60s and sunny. I can’t complain about that.

Yesterday, I had 15 yards of mulch delivered from the place down in East Hampton. I got it for $22 per yard, plus $8 for delivery (per yard). That’s $30 per yard for the cheapest stuff they had. Considering I paid $120 to have yesterday’s mulch delivered, I am considering getting a sweet little trailer. After all, I did have a trailer hitch installed on the new vehicle for a reason. What a treat it would be to drive down there and pick up mulch for $22 per yard. Either way, I got the 15 yards and still need about 5 more. I’ll have to think about this a little before I order the rest. I have a severe allergy to throwing money out the window for delivery.

The task was to mulch the small garden in the front, the stone wall garden in the front and the side garden that I just expanded. I didn’t think I was going to have enough for anything else.

It took about a half day to get those three areas done. When I was finished with them, I had about 4 yards of mulch left over. I decided to spread some around at the end of the driveway. When it rains, the runoff from the driveway erodes the ground there. It isn’t the prettiest thing. I figured that mulch was the answer. Also, I decided that I could tackle some of the back garden as well. I would say that I got about a third of that finished.

Hey look, I even took some before and after photos for you.

Talk about weed control.

What I am trying to accomplish here is a nice base. I think that light yearly applications of mulch will keep the soil nice and black and the weeds down. If that happens, I will be happy.

Now, I need to order 5 more yards of mulch to finish up the back and then it’s off to get flower bulbs, plants and shrubs…and a hammock.

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A Huge Flower Garden In The Back Yard

Remember when I told you I was transplanting the Daffodil bulbs from the area along the stone wall in the back yard to the area near the driveway? I told you I was doing this because the area was just too large for a garden and I would rather simply plant grass there instead.

Well, as it turns out, we are going to have a garden in the back after all.

Laura and I have been wrestling over the idea of a new flower/veggie garden for some time. I came up with a few ideas, but the look on Laura’s face told me to keep thinking. The problem with setting up a real fenced-in vegetable garden is spacing. We have a few good areas to do this, but trying to have a combination vegetable and flower garden is getting rather difficult.

Yesterday, we decided to limit the new garden to flowers and shrubs. For the veggies, we’ll think of something else. Laura has been talking about different varieties of bulbs and some sort of a garden trellis that we can grow vines all over. For these types of ideas, the only place available is the area along the rock wall in the back yard. I guess I am going to be ordering 30 yards of mulch, instead of 15. Gee, that’s going to make for some real fun after that delivery.

I spent some time yesterday edging the area for the mulch. I will probably make the order next week. Here are some pics of what I did yesterday…

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