For the past few years, I have gotten emails from Heirloom Roses about sales and their roses. Every time, I look but am able to talk myself out of buying anything. This year, I either have broken down or I just miss having roses too much. I have had good luck with the previous roses that I ordered from them, so that is not an issue. In fact, right now, they are running a sale on some of their remaining miniature roses. This sale goes until June 9, 2014. If you want to grow roses, but haven’t bought them yet, go look at them and see if there is anything you want.
So, I ordered two of them. I got a Karena Pepita and a Hi miniature rose. I plan on putting the Pepita in one of the bushel crates that are left. I feel too lazy to fill all of them now with the remaining seeds or the rest of what I wanted to do with the crates. This will make for a nice simple container. Yes, you can grow roses in containers. I have done it before in an apartment patio in the city. I got compliments and people thought I was doing so much work. But, it really is simple to do. Just make sure that you have a large enough container for the roses and that you water it and it has enough drainage. Oh yeah, and feed it properly. It will take a little more feed since there isn’t another source to get nutrients than the soil you use. So, pick a really good soil for it.
The Hi one is going to get planted in the ground by the cistern with all the rest of the plants. I want to see if I can get it to live out here without being in a container. The last time I did something like that, I was only 8. The roses lived until we moved out…. The only reason they aren’t alive now is that the next owners dug them out the very next spring! Those roses lived through the garage getting put on top of them by a storm. They even grew better after that.
Ok, now I have to tell the laugh of the previous ending paragraph line. There was a wind storm, not labelled a tornado, that blew the garage off of its foundation by a couple of feet. Inside, so much fell and was littered on the ground. The exception were a dozen blue glass Bell canning jars. All of them were still on their small, high shelf, lined up perfectly in a row like nothing at all happened. The other laugh about that was that we had to have the garage torn down and rebuilt. Well, the construction guys made a mistake on the lumber and the garage ended up being a better quality construction than the house! Both are still standing, though a different color now.
I have two more things that I really want to buy for the garden. I want some lavender to grow to harvest. I like the smell and taste when it is fresh and dried. I do cook and bake with lavender. I have even brewed tea and added lavender buds into it. That’s especially good with Earl Grey or a Smoky Russian Caravan tea. I haven’t found a good way to brew it with coffee yet. It gives a soapier taste to hot chocolate, but it lightens a really dark chocolate. So, that’s one. The other is a ghost pepper plant. The plan with that is to make my own hot pepper spray. I know, you need more than one. The place where I want to buy it is probably sold out also. Perhaps next year. I’m still going to figure out how to get pepper plants growing inside to start for this fall and over the winter. I can transplant the entire thing next year then outside. I still have some scotch bonnet peppers, paprika peppers, white ghost peppers, and korean chili peppers to do that way. Hopefully it ends up working out. It didn’t end well over the winter, though.
Any recent splurges you’ve done lately?
Fashionably Crazy Mom 