Still eating the shit sandwich.
Jun. 15th, 2023 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickProgress continues, laying one sheet of paper at a time on top of the stack. If it makes the process more fun for you, you can imagine that they're dolla dolla billz yo. But even so it takes a while for the stack to get much taller.
I'm doing my best to be consistent in use of leg and expectations for forward, so it's mindful sheets of paper or bites of the shit sandwich, but that only makes it a bit tedious. Bird is not overly enthused about the project but he's a good boy and is doing the things. *sigh* I'd post more updates but they are not exciting and largely consist of "Did the thing again, which maybe sucked a little less today. Still grinding away on it."
In other news, June is busting out all over and I've got stuff in bloom.
We have Chuck. Chuck, more properly Charles de Mills, is a gallica rose. He's antique if you're into that, or possibly vintage, and he is... robustly healthy and something of an aggressive grower. I've had Chuck in the yard for ages, at least since 2009. I have never sprayed him, pruning is limited to "hack off the visibly dead bits in early June if I remember", and I have a defined perimeter that I police to limit sprawl. Also I dump a feed sack of barn floor manure on him about once a year which he seems to like. The color in this picture is fairly accurate and I adore the purple-y red of this rose. He is unscented, but a treat for the eyes in return for exceptionally minimal effort. Two thumbs up, am recommending.
We have the not-really-named pink rose. It's from 315 N. Richard Street (Dad's dead wife's apartment building) and it smells like baby powder. It also doesn't get a whole lot of care. Honestly if a rose cannot survive under the Chuck regimen, it dies in my yard and I refuse to feel bad about this. There is no space for poor doers 'round here.
We have NOT got Ispahan this year because I dug him up and moved him last year and he's currently about two feet tall because of dieback and then deer. I improved his fencing once the deer problem became apparent and have been watering him. Right now, he looks (in the last two weeks) to be making headway now that the deer are not gnawing off every inch of growth. Ispahan had to be moved because he was ten feet tall and had seriously outgrown his space. I expect great things from him in his new location with his fancy rebar trellis arrangement but it may be a couple of years until he really hits his stride. For now, he gets fencing and watering and Extra Horse Poop.
Fantin Latour died this spring because I got tired of looking at how damn sad he was with his failure-to-thrive. I just can't deal with like four years of sad failure. Sorry, Fantin Latour.
We have the mock orange, which is... can you prune these? Is that a thing? (When I say "prune" I do not mean like some sort of tidy arrangement with handheld pruners. I mean "loppers" or perhaps "chainsaw".) It's two people tall, maybe two and a half people, and it's not... shapely. Blooms profusely and smells great plus also carpets the lawn with small white flower petals. Lots to like, but perhaps in a more... tidy bush. I'll take a stab at pruning after it finishes flowering. I don't expect lethality to result from most anything I could do. It's pretty robust.
And we have the tail end of my Itoh intersectional peony, in Yellow. It's probably the same yellow Itoh peony as everyone else has but I paid ninety dollars for it at the Devon horse show because it was brand new on market at the time and also because sometimes I have the dumbs. It is appallingly robust and healthy and has brought me nothing but joy since I purchased it. Smells nice. Also the deer don't eat it. Ninety dollars well spent, says I.
I'm doing my best to be consistent in use of leg and expectations for forward, so it's mindful sheets of paper or bites of the shit sandwich, but that only makes it a bit tedious. Bird is not overly enthused about the project but he's a good boy and is doing the things. *sigh* I'd post more updates but they are not exciting and largely consist of "Did the thing again, which maybe sucked a little less today. Still grinding away on it."
In other news, June is busting out all over and I've got stuff in bloom.
We have Chuck. Chuck, more properly Charles de Mills, is a gallica rose. He's antique if you're into that, or possibly vintage, and he is... robustly healthy and something of an aggressive grower. I've had Chuck in the yard for ages, at least since 2009. I have never sprayed him, pruning is limited to "hack off the visibly dead bits in early June if I remember", and I have a defined perimeter that I police to limit sprawl. Also I dump a feed sack of barn floor manure on him about once a year which he seems to like. The color in this picture is fairly accurate and I adore the purple-y red of this rose. He is unscented, but a treat for the eyes in return for exceptionally minimal effort. Two thumbs up, am recommending.
We have the not-really-named pink rose. It's from 315 N. Richard Street (Dad's dead wife's apartment building) and it smells like baby powder. It also doesn't get a whole lot of care. Honestly if a rose cannot survive under the Chuck regimen, it dies in my yard and I refuse to feel bad about this. There is no space for poor doers 'round here.
We have NOT got Ispahan this year because I dug him up and moved him last year and he's currently about two feet tall because of dieback and then deer. I improved his fencing once the deer problem became apparent and have been watering him. Right now, he looks (in the last two weeks) to be making headway now that the deer are not gnawing off every inch of growth. Ispahan had to be moved because he was ten feet tall and had seriously outgrown his space. I expect great things from him in his new location with his fancy rebar trellis arrangement but it may be a couple of years until he really hits his stride. For now, he gets fencing and watering and Extra Horse Poop.
Fantin Latour died this spring because I got tired of looking at how damn sad he was with his failure-to-thrive. I just can't deal with like four years of sad failure. Sorry, Fantin Latour.
We have the mock orange, which is... can you prune these? Is that a thing? (When I say "prune" I do not mean like some sort of tidy arrangement with handheld pruners. I mean "loppers" or perhaps "chainsaw".) It's two people tall, maybe two and a half people, and it's not... shapely. Blooms profusely and smells great plus also carpets the lawn with small white flower petals. Lots to like, but perhaps in a more... tidy bush. I'll take a stab at pruning after it finishes flowering. I don't expect lethality to result from most anything I could do. It's pretty robust.
And we have the tail end of my Itoh intersectional peony, in Yellow. It's probably the same yellow Itoh peony as everyone else has but I paid ninety dollars for it at the Devon horse show because it was brand new on market at the time and also because sometimes I have the dumbs. It is appallingly robust and healthy and has brought me nothing but joy since I purchased it. Smells nice. Also the deer don't eat it. Ninety dollars well spent, says I.
