Descending

Since the hops didn't work out, we've decided to plant roses in the large pots by the arbor. The nurseries are full of bare root varieties right now, and they sell out quickly, so we bought four "Strike it Rich" plants on Friday when we were in a Sebastopol nursery on another errand. Impulse buys often don't pass muster with Dana, our garden designer, and she felt they should all be different, so back we went today for three more, taking Dana with us to help us get it right.

On the way we went for a walk in the laguna with the dogs in time to see a couple of balloons come in for drift gently down to a landing, There was a ground fog, consisting mainly of frost rising into the sunny morning sky, which gave the whole thing an ethereal quality. From a distance, balloons are totally silent and quite lovely, although we all agreed that it was better to see than be seen when it comes to hot air balloons. Strike that one from the bucket list.

We now have seven bare root rose plants. We have Dana's permission to plant three matching ones in the ground, while the other four will go into the pots, once we decide on how to rearrange the pots. Since they look like very thorny twigs in their present state, we chose them all from pictures. I wonder if they will look anything like the pictures? There was heated debate over whether we could include a hybrid tea rose, but OilMan stood his ground on that subject. No hybrid tea roses. No floribunda roses. Only grandiflora roses. Dana went to check on the dogs in the car while OilMan and I hashed it out discussed it. Since OilMan and Dana do most of the work, and Dana had removed herself from the discussion, I bowed to John's demands wishes.