How to transplant a rose

Nicole and I will be redesigning our garden this spring. One thing we're planning on doing is moving one of our tall climbing rose bushes between our two composters (thanks to Graham for the second one, courtesy of someone in Hamilton!). The idea is to use a climbing rose to go over the two composters and a smaller white rose to hide the one side of the composter from view out of our back window. In addition to hiding the black composters, the roses' proximity to the compost will likely mean healthy plants. I'm slightly concerned about airflow on the one between the composters, but we'll have to see. Instructions on moving roses can be found here. The synopsis?

• DO one rose bush at a time only.
• DO Be Organized
• DO have the new bed or location ready before digging the plant
• DO have all tools and equipment ready.
• DO have water at hand.
• DO work quickly.
• DO ask for help if you have many bushes to be moved.
• DO prune the plants by 1/3 to 2/3; remember, the bush will be shocked when dug up and will be unable to sustain its original amount of leaves.
• DO cover or hill up all transplanted roses for several days.
• DO NOT try to transplant more than one bush at a time.
• DO NOT transplant on a cold, windy, or hot day.
• DO NOT expose the roots for a long time to air, sun, wind or cold and certainly not to freezing rain.
• DO NOT leave newly transplanted bushes uncovered.
• DO NOT fertilize during transplanting (except bone meal).

And, a breakdown of rose terms.

Best looking garden centre website I've come across to date: Knippels. Very helpful, very knowledgeable. I emailed them last night seeking advice on what type of fruit tree to get to replace our snowball flower tree that died this summer (not sure why), and they recommended a five-in-one apple tree (in less than 12 hours: excellent service!). Apparently five different types of apples are grafted onto the stem.

We were looking for a small fruit tree, and were originally leaning towards a small cherry or prune tree. Those are still preferable, but if we can't find one, we'll go with the apple.

Okay, so...I've decided

The bird: Chantecler,

Will be housed in a miniature version of this: Dutch Barn

Must. Build. Something like this.

But with more beauty and less width.

Referring to berry production, but true overall

"The best management and cultural practices cannot compensate for soil problems that should have been corrected before planting."

-Here-


I spent a good part of Saturday preparing our east edge back beds for the winter. I removed the tomato plant, took the last zucchinis off the plant, removed the lily stems and dry foliage and composted them. I also worked in a garbage can full of leaves from our front yard locust tree into the back beds with the idea that if the leaves get worked into the soil, it would increase the organic matter, aerate the soil a bit, and encourage the bugs and microbials to start snacking so they could stay healthy in the fall. A couple of items to research though:


1. What type of material should not be composted, or, what type of diseases/parasites which might be present on dead plant material (particularly tomatoes and zucchinis) will survive the heat and chemical reactions of the composting process.

2. Whether or not locust leaves will adversely affect the soil for a mixed flower/vegetable garden.



I also discovered what slug eggs look like. They are remarkably less disgusting than that from which they come. They look very much like silica gel, actually. Still, I found the slugs and slaughtered them and left their progeny exposed for the birds to eat. Some sparrows came to finish the job a few minutes after I'd left. Sparrows are friends, slugs are enemies.

My plans for the garden in the spring

1. Add a fruit tree, probably a small plum of some sort, to replace the tree that perished this summer.
2. Significantly scale back and move our large rose bush at the back of the yard.
3. Get a chicken or two (and make a coop).
4. Get another 2x2 composter to create a one rotting, one using compost system.
5. Split all of our perrenials and a. give some away b. transplant the others
6. Create a 4x6 vegetable patch.
7. Learn all the proper names of the plants in our garden and post them on this blog with pictures.

Propogating Black Currants

The time to propagate the bushes is when the foliage has stopped growing and is beginning to turn brown or falling off. A good time is mid-October although a couple of weeks later is almost as good. Take cuttings from healthy bushes only - ignore bushes with any signs of disease.

Select a healthy looking stem of ripened (brown not green wood) and cut a 25cm (10in) length.
The cut should be made just below a bud. Pull off all the leaves from the stem being careful not to remove the stem. The result should look like the picture below.

Dig a trench about 15cm (6in) deep and incorporate a handful of bonemeal into the removed soil. Place the cuttings into the trench making sure that at least two buds will remain above the soil surface and that there are four or more buds below the surface. Space the cuttings 20cm (8in) apart.
Fill in around the cuttings with the removed soil, being careful not to damage the buds below or above the soil. Gently firm the soil down around the cutting with your foot. Water the soil well. It is a good idea to mulch around the cuttings with well-rotted compost to conserve water.Leave the cuttings in the ground until October next year then dig them up with as much of their root ball intact as possible. Transplant them to their final positions as if they were bought from a nursery

Source: Garden Action UK

Fruit in our garden

Black Currant.

Flowers in our garden

Loosestrife of some sort. Not the same invasive loosestrife found in ditches. Small clump.

Pink Echinacea. Dark leaf, blooms late summer.

Lily of some sort. Blooms fairly early

Lily of some sort. Blooms early summer

Yellow echinacea - late summer bloom

Bleeding hearts. Very early bloom

The point of this blog

1. To serve as a repository of our websearches/readings on gardening
2. To serve as a journal of our experiences, trials, triumphs and other subjectives of gardening.
3. To keep track of what we do from year to year.