Why I Oughta...

It was just six-or-so weeks ago that I planted three small, bareroot Disneyland Roses in our front porch beds .  I wasn't expecting much out of these in their first season.  When they arrived, they were, indeed, bareroot.  But, they were also pretty bare in terms of foliage.  Two of the Floribunda roses that arrived via UPS showed some tiny, yellow flowers.  I applied some rooting compound, buried them deep - per the instructions I found - and hoped for the best. I was assuming that I'd see mostly foliage growth this first year.  Something like 60% below-ground growth (roots) and 40% above-ground growth (leaves).  But, to my surprise, I'm seeing blooms.  See below for a look at one of the new Disneyland Roses.    I've stuck to a feeding schedule - once per month - with a granular rose food.  And, this soil was amended pretty heavily last Fall with a mix of 10 bags of composted manure and 4 bags of mushroom compost .  Along wit...

Back at the end of April, I planted eight (or, so I said in that post) bareroot Bressingham Blue hostas that Nat picked up from Costco. I planted them on the border of the newly created curved bed on the north side of the backyard.  At the time, I wasn't sure what the success rate would be for these bare root hosts, but with a little bit of time behind us now, it seems like the first few months have yielded seven hostas that have come up.  One of them - the second from the left along the border - is SUPER tiny...just barely above the ground.  But, it *is* indeed there.  The other ones have popped out of the ground a little bit and are small, like 4-5" plants.  You can see the seven hostas (well...six plus one you can't really see in the photo) below: The reason that I'm questioning the success rate (it might be 100%) is that I can't find the root structure of the last one that would likely be to the right of these.  It just isn't there.   I'm g...