Red Roses+video

This is a video of an unamed red rose that came with the house. There is a grapevine growing through it & if you look carefully you'll see-toward the end-tiny grape flower buds. The rose, for all its crimson beauty, doesn't have a scent.

Look Up in the Sky

I tend to see forests more than trees, & I'm more interested in what is in the sky rather than what it says on paper.

I just used astronomy software & so:
the sun moved into the sign of the Ram/Aries on April 18th. Mercury is also in Aries.
Mars & Venus are currently both in the sign of Pisces, & Uranus is there too.
Jupiter is in Capricorn & Neptune is too.
Saturn is in Leo.
Pluto is in Sagittarius.
The moon is in Aquarius.
Sirius has risen, though you can't see it during the day, it's there; rose today at 12:52p & will set at 11:05p.

Mercury & the sun in the same sign is supposed to help self-expression, you speak your sun easily. The Ram prefers to be the first to try something new, new phone maybe? Perhaps a new #.

Desire & ambition have become one in Pisces, & Uranus just adds its electrifying touch.

Jupiter in Capricorn-big on reality, huge changes coming, perhaps; with Neptune there, who knows what is real? Can Zeus overthrow his brother's hold?

Saturn is busy turning lead into gold in Leo; another way to say it: a gold watch. The ancient Romans said Saturn ruled during a Golden Age when men didn't have to even plant crops, total cornucopia time.
http://members.tripod.com/~Avalon100/Saturn.html
http://www.netglimse.com/holidays/saturnalia/god_saturn_of_saturnalia.shtml
The dates are Roman-Era, but it's totally fascinating that the Romans chained the feet of Saturn-there is more here than that. Was that their method of keeping Saturn near? His images were put on Ancient Rome's pipes & water systems.
http://www.theplumber.com/pom.html
..."The ancient Roman spas will always be associated with opulent luxury and a style of living that awed even its own go people. Seneca, the Roman Stoic philosopher, visited Herculaneum several times. These visits no doubt helped inspire these perceptive words: "We think ourselves poor and mean if our walls (of the baths) are not resplendent with large and costly mirrors; if our marbles (statues and busts) are not set off by mosaics of Numidian stone, or their borders are not faced over on all sides with difficult patterns, arranged in many colors like paintings; if our vaulted ceilings are not buried in glass; if our swimming pools are not lined with Thasian marble, once a rare and wonderful sight in any temple; and finally, if the water has not poured from silver spigots."...

Wow, what a description, & why is it my text color has changed of its own accord?


..."Horary astrology is the branch of astrology that deals with answering question by studying the astrological charts set for the exact time and place of asking a question."...http://www.astrologyweekly.com/weekly-horary/index.php

Purple Roses

This is a purply fuschia rose called Ebbtide. I bought it from a catalog, jacksonandperkins.com it is less a dark purple to me & leans more toward fuschia-purple, but I have it & it is doing fine in a south position with full sun. I think it gets paler in the triple-digit heat during the summer. It has more petals than my Double Delight but they are smaller. It continues the purple-rose habit of very few thorns, while the red roses continue their demand for blood sacrifice in exchange for their blooms.

I think about the faerytail Beauty & the Beast, when applying ointment & sometimes band-aids; red roses are so pretty & basically worth it.

Wisteria in Full Bloom

This is (hopefully) a video I took of the wisteria in total bloom; there were bumble bees hovering all around it, they LOVE wisteria & flowering tobacco. This is 'Chinese Wisteria', all flowers no leaves till after the bloom, Japanese wisteria I've only heard about, they say it blooms & leafs out at the same time. This is my hard-won wisteria, growing on a basket-ball pole, hoop & all.

Garden Irrigation, or How to Water Your Garden, duh!

I water deeply to make the roots of all the plants grow deeply into the Earth; it was Birds & Blooms or Victoria magazine-or perhaps Sunset magazine that pointed out if you water just a little the plants' roots stay near the surface of the soil & can get uprooted easily by a gust of wind.

I water the orange tree by putting a shower/soft spray head near the trunk & soak it for 20 min. The established roses get 5 min each. I have a row of 4 mini roses & they get a 12 min all-in-one soak.

The seedless grapes get 7-10 minutes. The winter honeysuckle gets 5 min, so does the 'breath of heaven' shrublet, it does resemble pink baby's breath, but with a resinous/piney scent.

Potted plants get filled to the top 3 or 4 times, to prevent "river channels" from fast-tracking thru the pot.

Faery Roses, Star Jasmine by the Porch

The pic furthest left is of the miniature purple rose, also sometimes referred to as "Faery Roses" in the 1920s, I think. That was the last time mini roses were in fashion. This is a climbing mini & it frames the window quite prettily.

The center pic is the Star Jasmine growing around the front porch, it spread quite a bit, it's now around both of the porch posts. It blooms after the wisteria, in my zone 9 garden, which is perfect-there isn't a competing, highly scented flower in the front yard.

The last pic is a close-up of orange-blossoms, which is on a tree in the back yard, it's a seedless sweet orange, it ripens near Thanksgiving & thru December, even into January sometimes. The blossoms have a powerful, sweet scent, the flower petals are thick & snap off in my hands. The petals are far different than any other flowers I've picked; a bowl with just 2 or 3 blooms is enough to scent a small room, also they make a nice garnish in tea, & in ice cubes. Orange blossoms used to be the fashionable flowers for wedding bouquets, though they bloom in April instead of June; perhaps in the Victorian-era brides had them imported.

Reine Victoria

All 3 pics Reine Victoria, this is the rose I see in those French paintings, petals packed into deep cups with maddeningly short 2" stems! But they are SO WORTH IT! Notice the arching cane in the 1st pic-it blooms all along the cane, I would say it's a semi-climber, a sprawler by vintage rose enthusiasts.

This is a Hybrid Perpetual, made by the Victorians who adored roses & wanted more of them. They do bloom thru the sumer, but their biggest moment is in spring, when hundreds are opening.

Wisteria

Wisteria was very fashionable in the 19th century, also I think of blooming wisteria around Lucy's french doors in Dracula, 1992 (I think).

Birds & Blooms magazine mentioned that it can take wisteria 15 years to finally bloom, that they are finicky vines, that they are strong enough to tear off roof shingles in an effort to catch hold of something.

But that fragrance makes it worth it! I probably mentioned it before, but I saw that wisteria was blooming in older neighborhoods & went to Capital Nursery on Freeport Blvd & 1 was there! Blooming even in a 2 gallon compostable pot! I had to get it, so it was stuffed into the back seat & I had to open the window because it was too long to fit.

This pic is from March 2009, I planted it next to a basketball pole in 1998. (I have NO idea why that I went Italic, sorry)?

Roses, Buds, & Leaves

The pic furthest left is of lilly leaves just beginning to sprout their leaves. I THINK they're Stargazer lillies, but I can't remember!

The second pic look closely where my thumb is because those are teeny, tiny grape blossoms in bud form. Their leaves are just beginning to sprout also. They are Flame table grapes(seedless), which is just an odd way of saying you eat them fresh I guess, as opposed to wine grapes.

The last is just a close-up of the 1842 rose, it is a mega-sprawler, I'm talking almost potato-vine sprawledge-BUT it has blooms ALL ALONG it's massive canes. Sadly for this reason ALL the roses are short stemmed, but they have beautiful fragrance & have a bizillion petals, quartering, quintupling -it puts Austin's English Roses to shame! Why? Austin roses are saucer-like, they may have 100 plus petals but most of them are tiny, not my 1842 rose.

Buds, Blooms, & Climbing Roses

The small white flowers are orange blossoms, they open during the month of April & smell very sweet with only a hint of orange. Hummingbirds LOVE them & so do paper wasps.

The round rosebud is a Hybrid Perpetual from 1842, they were specially bred to bloom more than the ancient roses did. These HPs were the forerunners of modern roses that definately bloom all summer long. The 1 in the pic DOES bloom from spring into summer & then lightly blooms intermittantly into autumn.

The last pic is of a miniature climbing rose & it's purple, doesn't get over 4 feet & spreads gently sideways; I say gently because of my other climbing mini "Hurdy Gurdy"-this red & white striped rose expands vastly sideways & up 8 feet plus & is very dense. The lavender climber is not densely leaved & I trim it to frame the window, or at least I am trying to.