I’m Digging Holes

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I’m digging holes and putting live things in them.

Okay, okay, I’m planting roses, but that sounded far more interesting.

Sorry, I thought I’d be done before now.

108 thoughts on “I’m Digging Holes”

  2. Why am I thinking about “If you’re in a hole, stop digging”? [Crazy Grin]

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    4. That’s one condition. There are also other conditions where you stop digging. But first you have to hit one.

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      1. Twice the size of the root ball is what they say for containered plants. At least 18 inches cubed for bare root. the more the better since the roots probably will never grow outside that hole, certainly doesn’t here in acid clay and shattered basalt, trap rock they call it. It’s like gardening in a slate quarry.

        Good luck, roses can be finicky.

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        1. I got bare root roses in March from Costco. Three of the 4 are thriving, the 4th hasn’t leafed out (need to pull it). Should take back even if they came in pairs. But, $9.99/two at Costco, and $9.99/one at Jerry’s, so … whatever.

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        2. My roses must be mutants. A cut stem got stuck in some muddy ground by the steps. Ran the lawn mower over it the oncet. Now I have to trim the bloody thing back every year, and it grows like anything (except English Ivy- that stuff is vile). Weeds have tried to choke them out when I’m away, but the roses always return bigger and thicker and thornier once they triumph over the weeds.

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          1. Some variety of Roses are hot house orchid fragile. Some are pioneer hardy and will root if stuck into almost anything and take all kinds of abuse.

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            1. RedQuarters doesn’t do grafted roses any more. They have to be own-root. Our winters are death on grafted roses because of the cold, dry winds. Happily, there are a lot more own-root roses than there were 40 years ago. “Tissue culture” was the polite term for “cloned.” Now they just say “own root” and done’ worry if it is a clone, a cutting start, or a seed.

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          2. One of my To Do list things is to bring cuttings of the wild roses, and the yellow (Harrison type, but older) roses from where my dad grew up.

            Those things thrive on abuse.

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              1. I don’t know the name of the Rose (will find out this summer if I go to extended family reunion) that is planted at the Charles Applegate House in Yoncolla Oregon. Rose is considered a Heirloom Variety. Cuttings are taken and started. Rose is sold as a source of funding to maintain the Historic Home. One is kept longer to provide a substantial start to auction at the annual meeting. When I’ve attended, it goes way more than I am willing to spend. Original Rose came from back east with Melinda Applegate on the Cow Train.

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            2. I’ll have to take a look at the Lesser Lilac Bush. It’s the one with a companion yellow rose, and the two bushes are probably a hundred years old. No idea on the age of the rose; it wasn’t until we had a wet spring a few years ago that I even noticed it was there. OTOH, this is one of the greenest Mays we’ve had since we moved here. (Pushing 19 years.) Not necessarily a good thing, though.

              Q: If April showers bring May flowers, what do May showers bring?
              A: Fire season fine fuels. Arggh!

              The other bushes are just starting to get leaves, and we’re seeing weeds that have been lying dormant for years. If memory serves, I last mowed the lower meadow in 2020, and the upper meadows (not large ones; we don’t have that much land :) ) since 2018 or ’19. Even the thistles are having a hard time.

              On the gripping hand, we’re still in “Extraordinary” drought, so any water that makes it to the aquifer is very welcome.

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      2. Eight? You’re going to rival the hanging gardens of Babylon. I’d love to see it.

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    2. And then hit the first rule of holes, the only known violation of the conservation of mass: even though you put something in the hole, there is less dirt to fill it in again after than you took out.

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  7. Roses make a nice memorial garden for your enemies.

    Leave a little room for the throne of skulls. You know, some place to sit while you pray for their souls.

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  8. Roses are awesome! If you live somewhere they don’t die as soon as you plant them, it’s even better (every rose I attempted at the other house died within a week of being put in the ground. I do not know exactly why, but I quit trying, and just had hanging baskets of shade-loving annuals, thereafter.)! I have six knockout roses we planted along the fence between the yard and pasture (with a few extra wild roses growing on the fence nearby), and six more drift roses in the front.

    One or two of my knockout roses on the back fence died back to the root and came back…completely different from what they were: different color, scent, and bloom-style. They’re still utterly beautiful.

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    2. Roses sold in some areas are grafts to different root stock. Trim down far enough get the original wild rose type and not the grafted one. I have one like that. Took it down too far for it’s second winter trim. My roses are thriving since neighbor was forced to trim back her climbing rose that strangled the volunteer pine … well okay, was forced to remove the dangerous dead pine, which resulted in trimming back to root stock of the climbing rose. It was impossible to deal with because of the entanglement with the pine. This time I am not being nice (before it was “if I can walk under it”, not any more). Climbing rose tops the fence, it gets lopped back. Beautiful rose, just a PIA.

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  12. Did you get your grapes planted? I was inspired to buy a couple of Alvarinho grape vines, and another three, so I have to get 5 grapes planted tomorrow. And a 4-in-1 cherry tree. Plus 20 asparagus roots. Sigh. My eyes are definitely bigger than my stomach when it comes to buying plants.

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      1. Leaves are a good sign :) One of my grapes (from Stark Bros) I’m pretty sure is dead, but I have to leave long enough to be sure.

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    2. You will thank yourself a thousand times over for all that asparagus. What you can’t eat you can barter away.

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  13. Oooh. A 4-in-1 cherry tree! Where did you get that? I would love one of those.

    I haven’t seen one where I am. But maybe I could order one.

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    2. Because of the links, my answer is delayed… You can look at onlineorchards.com or homedepot.com and search for “jubilee cherry tree”.

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  14. In gardening news from chez Jaglion Press, I decided to try growing the free blackberry plant I got in a large container. It has now survived its first week in my custody. Irises are blooming nicely in their second year here. My longest surviving garden pet, the ferocious attack rose (https://www.gardenia.net/plant/rose-ballerina) is greening up nicely but is still probably a couple of weeks away from blooming.

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      1. I would eat fresh raspberries every day of my life if I could. (Real ones, homegrown.) They taste like heaven.

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        1. Those are hard to get. I’ve been trying to find an 8 GB Pi 4B for months. No dice.

          I got one last year, before they became unobtainium, and it works great connected to my bedroom TV. I want 2 more, one for general use and one in reserve in case of a failure.

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    2. My Tea Roses already have flowers. They will have blooms from now through first frost if I keep them dead-headed and trimmed.

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    3. We don’t have an attack rose, but we did have a rose in Ithaca which we called the Frankenrose. Canes 10-12 feet tall, and an inch thick and as hard as iron. It was a William Baffin, Explorer type, so really cold resistant. We planted a couple of them here in NH, but so far they look pretty normal. Probably takes a few years to get to Frankenrose size. Had to use a chainsaw to prune it.

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        1. Or RedQuarters. Eglantine, AKA Sweet Briar, has canes that are closer to limbs (40 years old). Those have to be power-sawed. We tag team the plant: one runs the saw and the other uses poles and sticks to keep the attack-canes from snaring the sawyer.

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            1. Sounds like the neighbor’s climbing rose. It did throttle the pine tree. When the dead tree limbs broke under it, a good portion fell on our side of the fence. Took 6 utility trailer, piled double the height, tied down, to get rid of the mess.

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              1. Plant it in front of the white house or congress and wait? “US government trapped by rogue rose bush. Country to proclaim national holiday in honor of the plant.”

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  16. Interesting … I’m trimming used fence staves with a circular saw, and attaching them as trim pieces to the back fence! It will take another couple of days to finish the last adornments to the back fence, but it looks darned attractive, at this point.

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  17. I have a lovely rose, inherited from a neighbor who was re-doing her front flower bed. I can’t believe that she wanted to give it away, because it’s a perfectly lovely color – a pinkish gray. It’s growing like mad, after a rocky start, and putting out blooms like mad.

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  18. Great somethingorothers do somethingororher alike, more or less.

    I’m digging holes and making rows too.

    Actually I just finished cutting rows of 3/8 inch steel with a plasma cutter down at my rivershop and just came back up here to make holes in them with the drill press.

    No roses involved but the steel plates are part of a project, I’m cobbling together a 3 point mount for an old single bottom plow so I can attach it to my Kubota tractor.

    Hey, nobody promised me a rose garden but if this works out I’ll be able to mind my Peas and Qcumbers.

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    1. I hope you saw the comments on the dangers of melting automotive battery plates. (It’s in the 5/16 post, as replies to your comment.)

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      1. Yes, thanks for posting the risks. I replied that I’m comfortable salvaging lead from batteries but one needs be aware of risks, mitigate same, and make one’s own decisions. Thanks again!

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  19. If a rose dibble doesn’t exist, then it ought to.
    Roses are used as therapy for PTSD. They have patients sit in the rose garden and just breathe.

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  24. The cucumbers continue to be drama queens. One was knocked over/dug in by a cat. I got him replanted but he appears to be struggling.

    Two of the hot peppers, the Fresno and poblano, have either some leaf issue (yellowing at the edges on some) or got really dry. Pinched off the yellowing leaves and gave everyone a generous drink (others were wilting a little).

    The first catnap hasn’t shown yet…not sure the seeds are taking. Have catnip and cat grass to plant, but might wait until I get home on Memorial day instead of between now and leaving on Saturday.

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      1. Let’s see…. finicky…… and is grown and named for cats…. I think they call this “truth in advertising.”

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        1. THIS is why I didn’t plant catnip…..
          I already suspect younger son of washing his underpants in it, which explains the collection of strays at the back door….

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      3. blinks hard in cat Really? MomRed stuck one plant into the ground coughcough years ago and it tried to take over the place three years later. Our only problem is coming out in the morning and finding it flat from some cat rolling in it.

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        1. Maybe there’s different varieties? I know that sometimes it’s called “catmint”– looks like those are the purple brightly flowered cousins of catnip, and it has lower concentrations of the cat attracting stuff. Nepeta is the family name.

          I’ve only had plants that were basically feral– they get five, six foot tall each year, even with the kids harvesting them for the cats, and to chew on, and Just Because, and the flowers are white with pink veins, so ours is REAL catnip. Probably.

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  25. My second year climbers (Tangerine Skies) just given their first flower of the year; lots of buds. The first 10 or so of 90 glads have pushed their way up.

    And blackberry bushes? This is Oregon, you have to work strenuously to -not- have blackberries.

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    1. “This is Oregon, you have to work strenuously to -not- have blackberries.”

      –
      Truth. At least anywhere west of the Cascade Lava Flows … Unlike invasive Scotch Bloom, Blackberries haven’t colonized bare lava fields (at least as evidenced by the Hwy 126 and Hwy 242 corridors). Neighbor’s Raspberries are almost as bad.

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    1. There was no squabbling about which rose represented which child? “My rose is Olympiad!” “No, you’re Double Delight. I am Olympiad…”

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  27. I’ve developed a strain of thistle that drinks roundup and doesn’t need sunlight to grow. You can nominate me for the nobel prize at …. (ow!)

    (Seriously, I tried to kill them off by nailing down a garden tarp over the entire unused area of the garden. The thistles started pushing the tarp up like a tent. Finally 3 weeks into spring, they managed to drill through the tarp and launch up to 5 feet tall. Had to eliminate the tarp, plow everything under (again) and roundup (does nothing! again).

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    3. Try cutting them off at the base, and then immediately painting the cut stump heavily with the herbicide.

      Works for Brazilian Pepper if the herbicide is strong and used instantly after the cut.

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    4. Bleach.

      Probably illegal in many places. Eco-frowned on

      In a past life, I used it to permanently kill ivy.

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    5. What kind of mad rocket scientist doesn’t even mention tilling a bunch of charcoal into the soil, then irrigating with LOX?

      I imagine you still have all of your fingers, and aren’t even confined to an institution for reasons of public safety.

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  28. I haven’t been planting things outdoors, but I’m guardedly optimistic that my one orchid that I got for Mother’s Day 3 years ago may be starting some bloom spikes. It has another new leaf growing and I can see a couple of buds forming near the base of a couple of the older leaves.

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  29. I am vastly amused by a free app — Picture This. It persistently asks one to upgrade, and to post an evaluation, but so far it lets me go without doing either.

    It is a Plant Identification app. I find even my weeds have interesting names! I like “Hubricht’s bluestar”.

    I really like walking around my neighborhood, and I can answer ‘what the heck is -that-‘ when I see something interesting. It even recognizes mushrooms, with the automatic ‘don’t rely on this! buy mushrooms you can touch or eat through commercial channels!’ warning. It recognizes moss!

    I have ‘Chinese Fringe Flower’ plants; last week I saw tree-sized examples in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco – that will be interesting here in a few years.

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