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Climatic Events
April 5 to 8 had another bout of freezing temperatures and snowfall. The snow is good; it acts as an insulator for plants.
One flower bed, where I had cut down all the dead growth from last year did not get much snow on it, whereas the bed next
to it, which I hadn't cut yet, had a lot of snow land there. It seems even early April is too soon to do some garden chores.
Many of my plants have started leafing out, including one species roses. When the frost is past, I'll take a look to see
what damage has been done.
April 16 shows frost damage on everything; the lilacs, the crabapples, and the blackberries. There are even some brown
edges on my iris. I gave everything a good soaking, even the bed for the roses. I haven't seen any new burrows, but no doubt
the voles are still there, waiting. A friend borrowed our trap and has yet to return it. I wonder what kind of bait would
work to attract them. Planting daffodils will also take care of them; narcissus is poisonous to eat.
The wind has been fierce for April; it is drying out the soil and making conditions tough to work outside. Out in the
field, very little is coming up. Some grass and weeds are beginning to show. It seemed like we had a lot of moisture this
winter, but apparently not enough. I wanted to seed the field with grass but there may not be enough moisture to make it work
this spring. The western wheatgrass along the road is spreading its rhizomes into the field slowly. I might dig up some patches
and spread them around to help the process.
April 23 to 24 saw another long, slow soaking rain/snow, just like last month. This is good; however, once a month isn't
going to cut it for roses. One should never depend on precipitation for landscape plants. However, rain is more acidic than
groundwater; rain during lightning storms has extra nitrogen in it as well.
The last weekend of April warmed up considerably. I watered all the plants and the bed for the roses. This has been a
mild spring, comparatively. The blackberry bushes are in a state of shock from the last freeze and only one is showing signs
of life from last year's canes. They had both begun to bud out when the freeze hit and all the buds were killed. It looks
like most of the canes are dead as well. I won't remove anything just yet.
I'm putting up fences to contain a colt I'm training. Most of the fence is metal T-posts, but the corners and the gates
have to have solid posts for support. While digging the first hole for a wooden post, the layers of the soil are coming into
view. There is a medium brown upper layer over a light grayish brown layer with a lot of clay. The further I dig, the harder
it is to break up the ground. Plus, some areas have a great many rocks, although few are very large. The soil shows little
or no organic matter below the surface.
May 3 was exciting with a big thunderstorm blowing through and a short but intense rainstorm. I hear it hailed in Cheyenne,
but that didn't happen at my place in Hillsdale. May 5 was a rainy day, occasionally heavy and thunderstorms from time to
time.
The Roses
The setegera and the virginiana were both still in bud stage for the leaves when it froze, so those weren't damaged. The
spinossisima had opened its leaf buds and they turned brown. We'll see what recovery it can muster.
By April 22, the spinossisima is leafing out; the edges are brown but not bad. The leaf buds on the setigera and the virginiana
are swelling but not yet open.
April 26 with its warmth shows leaf buds opening on the setegera and all of the virginianas with red new leaves. Some
cane damage is apparent, but the plants are all small; pruning is minimal this year.
May 3 shows leaves opening everywhere on my plants. Even the Canadian red pine shows signs of opening its candles.
More Roses
I found another rose called Knockout. There are a couple of these planted at the Botanic Garden, so I thought I'd try
those as well. I'm getting three: the red, the pink and the blush Knockout rose from a supplier in Missouri, www.botanyshop.com.
These are low growing shrubs with repeat blooming and may be just the thing next to the garden path. I'll include them in
the bed which has the setegera and spinossima species roses growing in it. They'll be on the south side of those roses as
well as south of the picket fence.
The Botany Shop advertised starter plants of the Knockout roses, which were small and inexpensive. They were sold out
of them, so I chose plants in a quart container instead. Often, in this harsh and unforgiving climate of ours, smaller plants
tend to settle in better than planting large ones. They're able to root in and adapt to their setting easier than big specimens.
Of course, it also means it could be a couple of years before you get many flowers. This is not a problem for me, as I will
pick off all the flowers the first year, anyway. The roses from Oregon will be coming with bands of soil on the roots which
indicate a small plant as well. I'm not sure what the size of the roses from Canada will be; only that they're bare-root.
With Mother's Day coming up, the miniature roses are on sale, so I decided to give some of those a try. I have three;
a yellow, a pink and a red. These will go along the edge of the native bed on the south side.
Planting Schedule
The second weekend in May I will be digging the planting holes for the new roses. They are all to arrive the week after
Mother's Day. Weather permitting; I will put them in the ground as soon as they get here. If it is snowing (or going to),
I will store them in the basement, which has two full size glass sliding doors as well as a window for light. All of my seed
trays are there and the seedlings are sprouting happily.
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