Roses

My 16 Red Fairy roses along the front wall are starting to bloom and this year they are finally weeping over the wall the way I had hoped they would. Now I just have to keep them from losing all their leaves by the end of the month as they have the past 2 years -- the leaves at the centers of each plant were all yellow and dropped at the lightest touch and had little black spots -- so I guess that would be black spot. I was going to remove all the foliage as was recommended -- but the pounding rain yesterday knocked them all off. I guess I will get a little rake and remove them. There is also a recipe in the Trowel & Error book for roses with black spot that's worth a try -- 2 tsp baking soda, 2 qts water & 1/2 tsp of liquid soap or Murphy's Oil Soap. The book also says that dissolving uncoated asprin in water and using it as a foliar spray works on fungus infections like black spot and rust.

On a semi-related topic I have noticed that taking pictures for this blog has done wonders for my garden. I went out to take the pics of the veg garden yesterday -- looked around and spent 2 hours weeding. I took the picture of the front walk, looked at it and went out and pulled all (well nearly all) the weeds in the cracks in the front walk and steps and took the picture again!