Rose Garden

I beg your pardon
I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine
There's gotta be a little rain some time
When you take you gotta give so live and let live
Or let go oh-whoa-whoa-whoa
I beg your pardon
I never promised you a rose garden.

Joe South apparently trying to say - that in his relationship everything was not perfect, but one should see the good in it and so cope more easily with the poorer aspects.

Always think of Angelique when using songs in Blip and so this is for her. I have missed her real 30th and Blip 300th birthdays recently. Ihope Angelique and all the other "regular" Blipers will bear with me a bit longer .... as the song goes!

Today was Rose Garden day. For about 4 years I have been dreaming, planning and trying to get an area of the garden for roses. So far all my attempts have failed - disputes with the management, weather, health, soil, chickens....

Then last weekend started clearing a neglected area and suddenly had the idea to turn it in to a rose garden and the idea got unconditional management approval !
Site is pretty good, getting sun almost all day. Soil perhaps a touch heavy but not likely to dry out too quickly and rain water supply close at hand.

As luck had it our local supermarket was offering bare rooted roses for 99 cents! So early morning shop and by evening nearly 30 planted. For the price I don't expect wonders - probably the climbers/ramblers will be bushes, the Hybrid Teas, ramblers and pink will turn out yellow. One of the fellow shoppers this morning complained that happened to her last year. Alone the given names makes one suspicious - "Queen of England"? . Did at first attempt to plan the planting. The climbers/ramblers were easy along the fence on two sides but when I later discovered a rambler I had put aside for another spot in the garden had disappeared, I gave up and threw plants at holes. Now it's wait & see! If half survive and provide a bit of colour by the first week of August, I will be happy. Can then hand it over to my daughter Kate who will be over then - she's a landscape gardening professional - she sent over her travel timetable today - apart from needing time for the roses, can't wait to see her and the Gang.

Now the garden is about up to scratch for 2011. Still got 2 years to catch up on, so Blip remains in the background for a bit longer.

In other news: DrB dropped by. He had been updated by his colleagues on Flash's visit to the greenkeepers workshops on Tuesday. Had a good laugh and a chat. Good to see him as always.

Weather again weird - put it down to the desert dust. Apparently the UK complaining of the dust AND the pollution from mainland Europe. Makes a change, as it's the other way around for 363 days a year. I remember in the 80's the complaints from here about the acid rain from Britain killing off the forests. Situation improved dramatically over last 30 years and there hasn't been any talk of it for a very long time. Could be the bark beetle, which has been rampaging for years now and is having the time of it's life with this weather, has become the bogeyman.

As all will have guessed, the Blip is again stolen from Angie. Not sure but think it is a treecreeper whose bill has been shortened by spending too much time on the ground pecking at stones instead of bark beetles.