My meandering blog on Roses failed to mention the basic insanity of anyone with one and a half arms ordering so many Roses.

Yes, my mending arm is much better and stronger as I clip and rake and stir and bottle through my days- but still, it was perhaps a tad optimistic to plan so many new Rose beds with each Rose needing a hole the size of a bushel basket – Or perhaps the truth is that the Angels knew that staff Goddess Laura would be there to help.

When Laura joined me for the hole digging on Friday afternoon, I found myself working alongside a veritable dynamo- The morning before I had dug six holes and considered it a heroic effort- With Laura by my side, six more were done in about ten minutes. In the course of the afternoon, we got the twenty two holes that needed to be dug done and still had time to organize the compost and soil amendments for every hole.

Here Laura and MayMay are at the top of the shot. Note that Laura is working harder than MayMay.

After Laura went home, I was once more plunged into the department of utter confusion as the first Rose shipment arrived and was different than what I expected. In addition, an email from another company awaited me with the news that the company was going out of business and many of the Roses I thought were coming from this company would not be coming after all. I went to another company to try to replace these Roses and found some but not all. So I picked out some different ones to try.

Suddenly my pristine road map for planting this new bed was looking like this

And I decided I needed to start over with A NEW CHART- Note that I have put the word “final” in quotes as likelihood that this is how things will be planted is 0%.

In looking over what I believe to be coming, I also realized I needed to dig a third bed for the overspill. I am not sure what Ben will think we he finds out that his grape vines are now encircled on yet another side with Roses. Soon his spread of grapes will be like Sleeping Beauty’s castle and people will have to fight their way to his vines through a forest of Rose briars. I am sure he will love this.

Here is the “overspill” patch running along the west side of Ben’s grapes. The north side and part of the south already have Roses around it.

Don’t mention any of this to Ben……. or Will either as this bed now cuts into Will’s new badminton court. Oddly enough this original court got cut into by another perennial bed…….. I think the sportsmen of the family were hopeful my broken arm would slow me down in my process of devouring all the lawn they want to use for badminton, pitch and put golf, soccer and wiffleball.

I am afraid not gentlemen, but think how much more fun I have made the lawn mowing for you with the added twists and turns of these new beds!