Spring = Compost and Roses

I’ve been neglecting this blog lately. Something about this winter has made it difficult to motivate myself to write anything. I blame Facebook. Facebook can easily suck up any available time you have for other pursuits.

But today, I have something to say.

First I feel bad about missing an obligation. I was supposed to work on the church today as part of a Hands on Live Oak thing. But the sun woke me up early, and I got up to make coffee and enjoy the stillness of the morning and the singing of the birds (which turned out to be the Aerogrow garden). Then I decided to do some work around the house instead of going to church.

James Earl Jones believed that you have to have some connection to the earth to be healthy. He had a shallow pit in one of his flowerbeds where he would lay and meditate. My connection is in the garden where I think more in terms of tending the soil than the plants. If the soil is healthy, whatever you plant there will be, too.

So my first project was to work the compost pile. It yielded about a half-yard of delicious, rich blackness. I also found that one of our variegated ginger plants had survived the winter intact. I’m hoping that the others come back from the roots. They are supposed to be cold hardy in this region. We’ll see.

Then Suna and I went to Home Depot to buy some plants. We got some coleuses and three rose bushes to replace the two that died last year:

• Apricot nectar (yellow floribunda)
• Iceberg (white floribunda)
• Double delight (red and yellow hybrid tea rose)

This is the first time I have tried the Biozome roses, which are advertised to be “easier on the environment” because they need less fertilizer. We also bought some wild bird seed formulated for our region and a new feeder and birdseed for small birds.

Back at the casa, I turned turned the compost into the shade bed and area where we lost the two rose bushes last year. Then I stuck all the plants into the dirt.

So while I didn’t do what I was supposed to do today, I feel good about what I did accomplish.