Bare root roses

The weather is milder, the snow melting, crocuses and hyacinths are starting to come out of their winter rest…. Spring is well on it’s way ! 

Last week I received an order of bare root roses and seeds. I never placed an online order for plants so early in the year, but there was a good deal on roses and I couldn’t resist getting some beautiful historical roses – Ghislaine de Feligonde.

Bare root plants were also a new thing for me, and I have to admit I don’t have any experience with them so let’s see how it goes. The package arrived in the middle of a busy work week and even though I picked it up pretty quickly from the post office I did not have the chance to put the roses in water, so I left them in their original packing and plaved the  closed cardboard box in the coolest part of the house – the basement.

Today I unpacked them and placed the roots in a bucket of water where they will stay soaking for a good 24 hours  I also found in my storage some deep flower pots, a bag of soil and got everything ready for planting the roses temporarily indoor until the risk of frost is over; since this will take a month or more I will keep them in the cool, darker basement room in an attempt to prevent the plants from growing too fast.  The plan is to eventually bring the ‘wintering’ plants into the warmer rooms slowly but surely, and a little closer to the time I will take them outside. 

I read that there is no hurry to start plants indoor if you don’t have a green house or proper set up, as they end up sending long shoots to soak up the sun light, and these are often weak stems which break or get damaged easily. Better to be a bit patient and calculate your time according to your garden zone.

Pansies are pretty hardly little flowers, but if started too late will only bloom the second year. So I put some seeds to sprout and hopefully they will bloom this summer, but if not, then at least I can look forward to seeing them bloom in 2020.

These should be amazing !

Bare root roses in their wrapping

A little soil, still moist around the roots

A little soak in my mop bucket should give the roots the chance to rehydrate themselves before going into temporary flower pots.

For the curious ones, I ordered the roses from hageglede.no

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Disclaimer:  I am not affiliated or sponsored by Hageglede, but they do have a lovely assortment of plants/seeds and worth a visit.

First signs of spring, plans for my 2019 potager ( kitchen garden ), thoughts and reflections.

Third of March, and the first little bit of colour in the garden - a lone yellow crocus.

February is the shortest month of the year, and yet it seems the longest - Especially for eager gardeners  like myself who can hardly wait to get just simply get started. But, unless you have a heated green house, or place indoor for jumpstarting the season it is the month when you have to be patient and bide your time, as it is just a little too early to start planting. Nonetheless it is the perfect month for doing some research, reading, and putting together your plan for the spring.

I had a lot of ideas, however when I sat down with pen and paper and started to work out the details I realized I should keep it simple for this year and see how it goes from there.

You see I made a couple of mistakes in my eagerness and inexperience.

When we first moved into our present house back in 2011, I was so exited to finally have a garden I jumped right in and started to plant, and sow and place bulbs without thought or care – I even planted a cherry tree without doing any research beforehand. I went to the local plant shop, bought a tree, dug a hole, place the tree inside and watered it lovingly - - -  well, it’s still alive, but hasn’t really thrived ?

Then came the vegetable garden, I made some raised beds with planks salvaged from a collapsed shed, and bits-and-pieces I found under the veranda. I was a bit eager and didn’t really think it through, I was also careless and forgot to remove the top soil layer which in turn made weeding super hard as grass kept coming up, and on top of it  I placed the beds  a little too close together making it impossible to pass the lawnmower between. 

I will not even get started on my catastrophe of a compost, it was too big, got too full, and looked ----- !

Nature is nature, plants did grow, and flowers did bloom (some died too !). Then I got a little discouraged, and didn’t put effort into my garden, I just sort of let it ‘happen’. But this year I want to start again, and this time do it right from the start.

The first plan of action is to re-make the raised beds, longer, and with enough space to pass the lawnmower – Then I will try out a few new vegetables and keep track of what I am doing, and see how I can improve the coming years.

I feel privileged to be entrusted with the care of this little garden patch, and I want to use it as a creative outlet and a chance to re-connect with a with nature and my love of watching things grow. Turning 40 last year has brought a lot of thoughts in my mind, not negative thoughts per se, but small nudges to stop, pause, take a look at where I am, where I came from, and where I am going. In the Bible it talks about putting away childish things when you become a man, but it is not just a good advice for young people who are leaving the nest and getting started as adult members of society. It is something you need to do regularly at different intervals in your life, there are different seasons in the cycle of life and at each threshold it is a good time to stop and ponder a little, make some changes, let go of some things, and maybe go back to the basics, to your true interests and  re-discover your passions.

The longer I live, and the more I see others go through their seasons I can’t help but notice how people who are the most fulfilled and happiest in their older years are those who return to the dreams of their youth, it gets complicated in the middle, often we are too busy, to occupied with adult-ing, raising kids and paying bills that we forget what we truly enjoy. Maybe the secret to finding your life’s meaning is to go back to your childhood dreams, not necessarily the ones about being a pink ballerina dancer, or fearless firefighter, but the more subtle ones, the ones about being a musician, or artist, gardener or writer, inventor, or poet. Maybe we should take the time to look back and see who we wanted to be when we were still innocent children, and adapt that dream to our present life….

The kitchen garden plan for 2019

The way I had my vegetable boxes the past couple years.