tsubasahome

I'm convinced now that we had a Hard Freeze Warning back in November when we lost power for 3 days, because last night the temperature was in the upper teens and we had no such warning. I put the winter protection on Aptos two days ago, and I wound up having to cut the leaves off.

I got up this morning to find all my winter protection mulch frozen solid, yet the part of Moondance that sticks out of the homemade rose collar still has fresh green leaves. 0_o What gives? Uh...it got too tall, okay? This is the first year I've attempted to overwinter roses, but they're supposed to drop their leaves at some point, aren't they? I piled up a ton of mulch around the base, since it's the only grafted rose we own, but it just doesn't want to go to sleep!

I finished my last holiday scarf and wove the ends in. I'm about halfway through the first chapter of Ao no Kiseki. Nothing like a "serious" battle between rivals that ends with one punching another in the crotch... It totally looked like that was what happened! Then again, isn't Falcom kind of notorious for wonky direction?

It's a nice, warm day, so the potted roses are spending the day outside. Nothing wants to go dormant, not even the roses planted in our yard.

Right now I have three roses in pots, a Sunny Kordana mini rose, Prairie Harvest, and Silver Shadows. Prairie Harvest will eventually go in the ground but I got it in the last week of October, so I figured it would be better to overwinter it in our unheated foyer. I'm planning on keeping Silver Shadows in a pot permanently, since its cold-hardiness is questionable(and our foyer reaches temperatures in the mid-thirties during a "normal" winter, which I'm hoping will keep the buggies at bay. I have to say, I've heard all sorts of bad things about Silver Shadows(though it has the highest RIR rating of all the lavender hybrid teas...7.2, which is kind of sad), but mine has grown 4 inches and popped a flower bud in the month I've had it! I don't get it...Northland Rosarium refers to it as bushy and vigorous, apparently Chamblee's has recommended to to people who go to their nursery in person...but a lot of rose-growers on message boards say it's a weak grower. I guess the heat of summer will be the best time to evaluate it...but right now it seems bushy and vigorous.

Julia Child was pretty battered by the pre-Halloween storm, but seems to have recovered from its stint with black spot. Simon Estes seems really tough, as does Aptos. Prairie Sunrise is puny but has sparkling green leaves growing out the base that weren't there before(and it's not a grafted rose). Crested Moss seemed to want to go dormant before all the other roses, but it's very much alive...all the canes turned purple and there's a new bud at the top...

Also, what is it with rabbits and Gallicas? They won't touch the other roses, but almost completely defoliated James Mason.

Now that all my peonies are in the ground, I start to think of the rare ones that have alway caught my eye...and having done more research, I wonder if I should just give up on them.

I admit, I fell in love with Prairie Moon at first sight...it kind of looks like a ghost plant, with its pale yellow flowers. But I've heard that it's problematic. It grows too slowly, blooms the wrong shape and wrong color...but other people have said they love it and it's their favorite. Which is the truth? Is there some kind of climate-related difficulty that makes it hard to grow? It isn't as expensive as the other rare peonies...but I don't know if I want to wait 5 years for a plant that gives me trouble.

Goldilocks, the rare yellow bomb-shaped peony, apparently is raggy and looks like Cheddar Charm for most of its young life.

Golden Wheel, aka Oriental Gold, apparently is a complete nightmare and has died on practically everybody who planted it. Peonies die...? Not even my poor beat-up Coral Charm died.

Summer Glow, which isn't really yellow, is hella expensive for an herbaceous peony...it's allegedly a strong plant, but a slow grower. Is it really a strong plant? I don't know if it's worth risking the money.

I've love to try growing Paeonia mlokosewitschii but I can't find a source for plants OR seed. I also can't justify paying through the nose for a plant that might not thrive/bloom even with careful culture. I can justify paying that for an intersectional...because I know it will do well.

I just got my last Adelman package--Salmon Dream. Salmon Dream, like Lorelei, is one of the more expensive peonies, and in high demand...I was afraid that if I didn't order it this year, it might not be offered next year.

10 eyes. Seriously. Along with three big fat ones which I suppose will become flowers?

I guess they really want to give you your money's worth with these $45 peonies!

My second Adelman package arrived today, and Lorelei is now quietly sleeping in its bed...

Since Lorelei is a rare peony and cost twice as much as Minnie Shaylor, I honestly wasn't sure what kind of division I'd get. I know there are some peonies that are expensive because their eyes/roots grow in a tangled manner that makes it hard to get a nice division, or because they're slow to propagate, so I wondered if Lorelei would be smaller than Minnie Shaylor. After all, 3-5 eyes is the industry standard, and there are some places that do even smaller divisions than that(I'm still fuming over the 1 eye division White Flower Farm gave me of Coral Charm years back...I haven't seen a single flower on that thing), but Lorelei had six eyes and three storage roots, just like Minnie Shaylor. The eyes themselves were actually bigger.

I'm dying to see what Lorelei looks like in bloom. I hope it won't be too long! Almost all the corals are some white peony(usually Minnie Shaylor)crossed with p. peregrina, but Lorelei is a medium pink bomb-shaped peony called Belleville crossed with a red peony called Good Cheer. I don't think Good Cheer is a lactiflora...I'm trying to look it up but my browser keeps crashing. ^^;;;

EDIT: It looks like Good Cheer is p.officinalis(aka "Memorial Day Peony") crossed with p.peregrina. So Lorelei is 1/3 p.peregrina, as opposed to 1/2 like the other corals. I think p.officinalis is where they got the weird red hue found in Buckeye Belle?

That rare Saunders hybrid peony Lavender is fascinating. Everybody says it's hard to grow and has a smaller range of conditions it can be grown in, but nobody will say what those conditions are. ^^;;; Its wild peony parent is a native of northern Morocco, and it grows in cedar forests...so maybe part to full shade and acid soil only?

I wanted to blog a picture of Iris, my rerooted Romantic Girly III Chiika, but it seems like Flickr is down. Again.

Speaking of irises, we got our package from Schreiner's Iris Gardens today. I have to say I'm very impressed with what they sent. The rhizomes were all a good size, clearly labeled with their own cute little picture tags, and they had a very in-depth booklet about iris culture enclosed. Also, not only did they give me the bonus I asked for, Vicar, but they also enclosed a second iris called Double Click. So the irises I ordered this year were:

Happenstance(pink)
Coral Sunset(coral)
Cranberry Ice(cranberry)
Edith Wolford(yellow and purple bicolor)
Armageddon(pink and dark purple bicolor)
Alizes(white with blue-violet edging)
Vicar(red-violet)
Double Click(violet/light purple mix)

Next year, Winter Waltz will be mine!

I took a look outside today and the skunks didn't do any damage to my garden(s). And they didn't spray anything. I hope they continue to behave themselves. I need to weed the side gardens really badly. ^^;;;;

Thanks to this nasty weather that is not going to end until at least Saturday, both of my Chinese tree peonies have peony measles... =_=;;;; The fungicide hasn't arrived in the mail yet. I don't think they'll die(they better not!), but the thought of losing this year's growth is really upsetting me. If they die, I don't know what I'll do... ;_;

Bartzella, however, looks as fresh as a daisy! Anybody who said that intersectional peonies are just a fad and a ripoff needs to have a look at my yard! Practically everything has some degree of funk, but Bartzella is as pristine and green as ever!

I'm trying to console myself by dipping into my PSP backlog and playing Tengai Makyou: the 4th Apocalypse. The battle system is nothing to write home about(and I'm not too fond of all of my party members sharing MP), but story-wise, this is the most messed-up game I've ever played. There is literally something in there to offend every ethnic group and subculture. I just finished fighting this character who basically looks like an evil version of Miss Piggy, and before the battle she sings this song about the virtues of being really, really fat. And she's voiced by the (late) actress who played Rita Repulsa(not her dubbed voice) in the Japanese version of Power Rangers. There are bad Native American stereotypes, bad Chinese stereotypes, constant talk about the evil white man and a 15 year old pop tart in her skivvies doing a bunch of high kicks in front of small children while singing a song where she invites them to "lick her candy". (Her name is Candy, by the way). This is probably the most un-PC game I've ever played and I'm surprised it got an A rating...it would never see the light of day in the USA...::laughs:: Well, it's a lot more fun than the loli crap that comes out these days.

I also tried to watch the musical Camelot but quit about 40 minutes in because it was too awful. I don't know how Richard Harris lived with himself after that one.

I:

1. Deadheaded Paula Fay. Damn...those red peonies really can't hold up to the sun.
2. Spent about an hour pruning a forsythia bush to an attractive shape, like Don King's head. It had a lot of dead branches on the underside. Unfortunately, as I was finishing up the job, I somehow took a big chunk out of my right thumb. I don't think it's serious but it stings really bad. =_=
3. Paced around like an idiot.

My last three herbaceous peonies will be Scarlett O'Hara, Buckeye Belle, and Coral Sunset. I ordered Scarlett O' Hara from Cricket Hill Garden, since I was so happy with the size and vigor of the Philomele and Moonstone divisions they sent me last year, and I ordered Buckeye Belle and Coral Sunset from Hollingsworth Nursery. I've heard a lot of good things about Hollingsworth Nursery, and the owner has actually hybridized a fair amount of herbaceous/intersectional peonies himself. I was at a bit of a loss about where to put Buckeye Belle because of its unusual color, but at the same time, I had to have it because of its unusual color. It's the only red peony I've ever seen that's a brown-toned red as opposed to a blue-toned red like the other red peonies. I figure that if I plant it next to the tree peonies, it won't matter because Buckeye Belle will bloom after them. That weird black-red color is seen much more frequently in tree peonies...I wonder if it's some kind of distant cross with another kind of peony(much like the standard herbaceous peony was crossed with a wild red peony to get the coral color).

Lauren and I started watching the DVD of the 1939 version of Goodbye Mr. Chips last night, but it got too late to finish. One thing I noticed about it compared to the Peter O'Toole remake is that the 1939 version is actually funny. Also, you can sit through it and not feel like you've been camped out in front of the TV for a week.

::laughs:: There's that one song from the remake(sung rather ineptly by Peter O'Toole) that Lauren says sounds like he's reciting the names of all the colors of Lucky Charms. Ouch.

Maaaaan...I wonder how sore I'm going to be tomorrow. I was surprisingly not sore today.

My work in the garden for today:

1. I pulled out the nasty clump of orange daylilies from the side of the house. First I had to cut down all the foliage, then hack at the mess with a rake until it loosened up enough for me to pull it out in clumps. This took about an hour.

2. I pulled out the nasty clump of orange daylilies from the other side of the house, and ripped up a bunch of oregano and strawberries. This took about a half an hour.

3. I helped Lauren plant cosmos and sunflowers in the dug-out areas. This took around 20 minutes.

4. I deadheaded the yellow lilac and my tree peonies, making sure not to cross-contaminate. This took about 5 minutes.

5. I fertilized the yellow lilac, my two tree peonies, and the first clump of Japanese irises we planted. This took about 15 minutes.

I wish I had more time to get some writing done. I've only written about 10 pages of Chapter 14. I told myself that once I finish rerooting Lauren's Himeno, I won't touch another doll until Chapter 14 is done.