Here's a darling little salt glazed bowl by my late friend and glaze teacher Vivika Heino.
Our daughter and husband left this morning and Jim and I have been busy all day getting the house back in order and getting back into our nice, relaxed, quiet routine.
My friend McKenzie Smith called. He's doing a workshop this month at Penland and we're hoping we can touch base before he heads back to Florida.
I spent some time this morning transplanting a large amount of snapdragons and brought them and others upstairs and into the kitchen greenhouse window.
The rest of the day has been spent dealing with this dying laptop. I've managed to get on for minutes at a time to download important document and other files to my new, stand alone hard drive and I have most things copied now. My son-in-law the computer whiz thinks my hard drive is badly damaged and this laptop is old enough and used so much that a new one is in the offing. I just wish Window 7 was out already because I don't want to use the latest Windows operating system. Maybe I can pick up an inexpensive, small laptop with XP and then get a better one after Windows 7 comes out at the end of the year.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to have to get on line and see if I can find some useful laptop reviews.
My email is very backed up and I haven't even had time to check out my favorite blogs. :-(
In the next few days I need to take more photos of my pottery collection to share on the blog - so much to do and so little time!
Till later,
June
I'ts so hard to find a good lap top these days LOL. I did'nt know windows 7 is coming out this year, HMMMM i better catch up on my computer ads often. Yea these roses caught my eye and i had to have them . And a new bud of daffidils are coming up as well i might go to walmart and buy some daisies and more roses. I love roses! Do you ever get Gurney's catalog in the mail? They have all kinds of floral goodies and veggies as well.
ReplyDeleteJune, you said something is eating your rose roots. Gophers (as well as deer) love roses. I have fought gophers here and several other locations where I have lived for years. Gophers will eat the roots down to nubs on almost everything. I have put all the plants I have purchased (even trees) into an aviary wire basket which I form from the wire. It must be aviary wire which is 1/2 inch not chicken wire which is 1 inch. I even have aviary wire under my raised vegetable bins. I also roll it out under my perennial and herb beds and then top fill with dirt and then plant plugs. I get the aviary wire in a 50 ft roll 3 ft wide. Hardware cloth is too thick, expensive and cumbersome to use. I had my local Ace Hardware order it for me. I cut off a section about 4 ft long with a scissors (a scissors will actually cut the wire between the twisted sections - just be sure to wear gloves and hold down the wire with something so it doesn't roll up and hit you in the face. I then form the wire into a basket shape with four darts on opposite sides. I dig my planting hole, put the wire into the hole with some of the wire extending above the hole. I put the rootball into the hole and then backfill with dirt. Any wire that extends above the level of ground I fold down on the ground in an opposite direction from the plant. After a while the roots grow beyond the basket underground and the basket will eventually deterioriates, but it gives the plant a chance to get established before this happens. I have used this method for years and recommend it to everyone and they all swear by it. The aviary wire is a cost up front, but not compared to the loss of an established plant, not to mention getting a new one, digging a new hole and waiting for it to grow. Hope this helps.
ReplyDeleteI get Gurney's but the past year or so I haven't been thrilled with some of the quality of Gurney's and other mail orders. Shipping has gotten so high that I'm finding I can drive to Asheville to the larger nurseries and although they cost more, I get a bigger healthier plant and don't have to pay for shipping.
ReplyDeleteThanks Linda for the wire suggestion. I have used chicken wire (2 piece crossed over to make holes smaller) and it has protected the bulbs. A friend also gave me the suggestion of sprinkling a lot of cayenne pepper on and around the bulbs when planting.
I haven't seen any sign of gophers in the garden although there's a huge one that lives near the creek and comes out for apples in the meadow late summer.
I have seen a very small hole coming into the base of the climbing rose and it looks the size of a mole hole; but I didn't think they could do that kind of damage. It is a puzzlement!