Garden Grumpies!

Grrr. Wet clay soil. Grrr. Stupid overcast cold days. Grrr, need to plant and my back's not letting me get any work done. The roses have rust and something's eating my baby basil plants. The flower seed I planted to take over when the ranunculus finished didn't take. There's not a single spot of green poking up amidst the dying ranunculus.

It's just not a good week for gardening! Okay, grumping over.

Two weeks ago, I started tearing out the mess that was the bedroom window garden. We still don't know what half of what we tore out of there was. The bulbed thing growing in the corner had probably a hundred and sixty bulbs crammed into a two-foot space. Bulbs were growing down under the concrete lip of the raised bed, squashed so tightly they were almost disk shaped! We still don't know what it was. The sweet broom, which I'm allergic to, came out, as did the tangled and overgrown mat of lambs ear. I have a feeling that the lambs ear is going to be akin to the calla lily catatastrophe. It's never really going to go away.

But now the FUN part starts!

I purchased a beautiful rose at  Evergreen Nursery in San Leandro  this weekend. They're having a 25% off sale through the 23rd. I went looking for Hot Cocoa but fell in love with this Double Delight. It's  probably the most amazing smelling rose I've ever caught scent of! If I can just baby it into settling in, it's going to be spectacular. Of course, after I got it home and started researching, I learned it's very susceptible to black spot.  One day I'll learn that impulse is BAD! (But maybe not quite today...)

Hopefully by mid-summer, I'll be looking out the bedroom window into a glowing bed of red and white gladiolus flanking my sweet and stunning rose bush, with double winky columbine and baby snapdragons poking out here and there! Hey, I can dream, right?

The other good news is that the vegetable garden seems to be doing quite well, what's planted in at least. The peas are loving the cool weather, and the onions and garlic are peeking their tops through the soil. The squash are being a bit slower about things, but I think they're just waiting for sunshine.