Journal Notes..Ignore This...Extremely Long and Detailed

Sorry, I haven't been around a while.  As this insanely long project nears the end, I have gained momentum.  This post is really long and detailed, which is why I wrote to ignore it.  For those of you who do not normally follow it, I have been working on a massive rose garden for almost 8 months and I have about a week and a half left.  What I have left is to bury a trench, irrigate the last zone, weed, screen, mulch and irrigate a corner section and finally fix the pool fountain.  Sounds like a lot but in the scheme of things, it's just a little considering what has already been done.  I have roughly 100 roses and 150 other ornamentals in this bed.  I am hoping it will be magnificent.

In this section, I worked on the side bed.  It was irrigated with a sprinkler which I was feeding weeds.  This picture is a huge improvement as I hand pulled them.

This is what it looked like before.  Even with it edged with bricks and stone, it still is hard to mow.

In the bed, I have climbers (except for one that looks like blue girl).  I, also, have gardenias in this bed.

I wanted to run drip irrigation versus the sprinkler.  It's more efficient and I don't have to move the sprinkler to mow.

The hose was, also, cumbersome to work around and weeds had grown over it.

The sprinkler would hit the wall and water the plants.  It is on a battery powered water timer.

The main rose garden is on an electrical irrigation system.

The spigot runs three zones.  

I, also, need to run the fourth zone of the electrical system.  There are six total on this system.

I ran 100 feet from the manifold.  Thus, far I have only irrigated roses, but I left enough length to irrigate other things such as hydrangeas.  The rain has been frequent in our area but it seems to want to miss us constantly.

This section has two zones.  They look like a weird skeleton but watch the roses flourish now.  The heat has been intense.  I miss July.

I have learned that you should NOT run irrigation tubing through grass.  So it is screen along the way.  I had intented on leaving this open but necessity dictates other wise.  NOTE TO SELF.  The irrigation pipe to the back spigot runs between Gold Medal and Fragrant Cloud.

What an awesome thing sitting on the back porch and being able to touch a button and water.  I haven't learned how to program yet.

Back to the side bed, the weeds got massive and so I screened where I am going to run the irrigation pipe.

Screen doesn't stop weeds but it does slow them down.

Going to run the pipe from the timer to the last gardenia.

The spigot has a dual head.  I recommend this because sometimes you just want access to water without unhooking.

Now I ran the 1/2 tubing.

I need to lay more bricks versus the stones I had there for a couple of reasons.  It keeps the mulch from eroding away, it looks nice and it's straighter than stones which makes it hard to mow.

I sod stapled the main tub in place.

The I used 1/4 tubing with an emitter the rose.  I sod staple the tube in place.

There is such a difference when things are automatically irrigated.  This was a distressed rose bush I bought from dollar general.  Those that got regularly irrigated have done quite well.  This Joseph's Coat rose is beautiful.

I, also, repaired one of the emitters in the front hydra bed.  The one down at the bottom was not connected and as a result is half the size of the other hydras.

This is the battery powered water timer.  They are a bit pricey but worth it in my opinion.  It's easier to program than the electrical one.

Once the tubing was in place, I put in the bricks.

I replaced the stones with more bricks.

I then laid down mulch.

These are potted plants that were moved or what not.  The Mystic Haze dahlia is doing much better here than in the rose bed.  It looked dead but now it's coming back.  The blue girl was struggling and I'm not sure she is going to make it.  We'll see.

Even with bricks and screen weeds still seem to be a problem.  This was very meticulously done but the weeds are coming in.  To the point of being scary to go to the spigot.

So I proceeded to hand pull.  The bigger the weeds, the more dirt it takes with.

The coleus needed to be pinched again.  There is roses in hydrangeas in this section and zinnia but the butterflies and hummingbirds have been fantastic.

I can't remember when but I wired these golden showers to climb the pillar.  This rose is extremely fast growing.  I need to rewire these two.

I went through about 5 wheelbarrows worth of weeds.

Finally I can get to the spigot without being spooked.

The weed like to go through the holes in the screen but still better.  Until clean up that is.

The wire runs up to the back porch.  The weeds on the edge are strong.  When I cut all the weeds down they were tree like.

The sprinkler I removed from the side bed I ran to the pumpkin patch.  I want to weed kill around the edges before they get long.

They are starting to bloom but I don't want to use this spot again.  There is some kind of oil like substance that I don't know where it's coming from.

One of my lady banks seem to be doing okay.

The other one looks dead however.

Back of the rose garden from the pumpkin patch.

My azaleas looked distressed but I am not sure why.

This bottlebrush opted to bloom.  The other one has not.  Wonder if it's because of the seed pods.  To late to cut them because there is new growth on the other side of the pods.  Wonder if I can just pick them off.

The red hibiscus looks dead that I planted but when I break a branch, it looks green.  The orange ones are faring very well however.

Going to wire the climbers up the pillar...

You see how tall they have gotten.

I have a spinkler in this section but it will be the last zone on the electric timer.  I am going to put drip here instead.

Wired the roses

Got rid of the weeds and pinched the coleus.

Pruned the zinnia but they keep coming.

There is a valve on this wall in case the water heater over flows.  I am using it to wire Joseph's coat.

Last year, Walmart had tons of plants and roses this time of year for next to nothing.  It was very bare this year.  I went to Home Depot, where they didn't have much of a selection nor a right down.  Determined not to go empty handed I bought one Fragrant Cloud and two knockouts.  I put back a Meiland but now I wish I had bought it.

I am putting Fragrant cloud next to Gold Medal.  The two knockouts are behind it.

I wanted to fill in the gap.

Planted them.

Going to screen off the area.

Laid screen down.  The heat is intense and it refuses to rain here.  It's more frustrating that it rains everywhere else.

Ran more screen up to the manifold.

The trench is excessively weedy if not scary.

I then ran zone 3 to this section.  It irrigates approximately 7 bushes.  Probably will run more on the line but right now I wanted the roses irrigated first.  Plus other plants do not have the same water requirements.

I used pine straw and magnolia leaves as filler and topped with mulch.

I didn't mulch this area until the trench is filled in but all roses in the back rose garden are now irrigated, yeah!

The trench was very weedy and dry and it was hard to fill.  I sprayed weed killer on it.  Hopefully that an rain will help.  It rained today so far but still very little.  Hopefully, we will get more in the next few days.