ROSE RAMBLER 01.12.2016 …
Hello Hello dear rose friends … on this first day of Summer, who would have thought December 2016 would come around so quickly? We’re surrounded by beautiful rose blooms in gardens around Australia – took us here in cold Clonbinane a little while to catch up with the rest of you but oh my, waiting is worthwhile for such glorious beauty and fragrance!
Here’s a pic of an unusual bee / fly which Tova and I saw sitting on my car the other day … take note of unusual things happening in your garden – enjoy all the differences, notice the bugs, listen to the birds, maybe hear frogs? Be sure to tune-in to quiet moments at one with nature in the busy lead-up to Christmas!
GRA’S GARBLE …
Now is an ideal time to check each dripper/shrubbler in the irrigation system – this is sooooo important! Once you’ve checked everything is clean and functional, place a layer of compost around the drip-line at the base of each rose, cover it with pea straw or lucerne mulch then water over with seaweed solution. Repeat this process in around 8 weeks.
Q. What is grey, big and beautiful? A. Cinderelephant!
Walking around the nursery yesterday, these varieties begged me to tell you about them:
Enjoy your flowers in vases throughout the house – when cutting flowers for indoors, follow these simple instructions – extract from ALL ABOUT ROSES by Diana.
“Rose blooms picked from healthy, well-watered plants should remain fresh in the vase for many days providing you take a bucket of water out to the garden with you so that the blooms are dunked within moments of being picked.When you cut a rose stem from the bush, air is immediately sucked into the stem and it’s this trapped air in the leaves and stems of the flowers which causes them to wilt, even after they are placed in water. This can be rectified by conditioning the flowers to enjoy their lasting qualities in a vase.
Once you’ve picked the flowers, fill the bucket to the brim and place it in a cool dark place for a few hours to stop evaporation. A household refrigerator temperature is too cold to store a bucket of cut rose blooms so the coolest place in the house is usually the bathroom or laundry.When you are ready to start arranging the flowers, add a sachet of Chrysal (flower preservative) to each two litres of water in the vase. At this point, the leaves should feel firm when you remove the lowest ones from the stems before placing them in the vase. There is no need to rush with arranging because you have conditioned the flowers and their stems will be filled with water rather than air.
If the roses are wilted, as may happen despite immediate dunking in water, you can restore them by using 3 tablespoons of sugar dissolved in hot water. Hot water contains less air than cold water. When you submerge the rose stem into hot water, it is absorbed all the way up the stem, driving out the air bubbles which caused it to wilt. Sugar also acts as food for the cut flowers.”
I’ll put more information in next week about cut flowers!
If you come to Clonbinane this Saturday 3rd December remember that we will be leaving here right on 4.00pm to drive down the Valley of a Thousand Hills to Strath Creek for the Twilight Market so we might perhaps see you there between 5-9pm – share a snag with us while we all enjoy an opportunity to do ‘unusual’ Christmas shopping and great country town hospitality in the park at Strath Creek!
See you soon at Clonbinane … Diana, Graham, Tova & Mooi
