I thought May was supposed to be warmer & less windy.   NOT in my yard.  I have had to retie so many climbers (& I have to admit some of the long canes I have just hacked back).  Today I'll be able to continue spring cleanup activities.

Even though I've been thwarted by the wind & rain, my roses haven't been.  I have so many roses starting to bloom and because of all this rain & cooler weather it appears that I may have a bloom cycle without those nasty thrips & mites.  We'll see.....

We've been fortunate to have a bluebird family in one of our birdhouses this spring & I've been enjoying watching the parents.  Today, was the first day that the babies pitched a fit & demanded food when I walked by, much to the chagrin of the parents.  I normally walk by the house as though it is invisible but today I couldn't resist peeking in.  I stand way back & stand on my tippy toes to see those little hungry mouths.  So cool.

Interestingly, I found a baby bird (don't know which kind) in one of our fountains.  I can't imagine how it got there.  It was definitely too young to fly & there are no branches over the fountain for it to tumble out into it.  Could a hawk have picked it up & dropped it?  Did it die first & then the parents were housecleaning?  Weird.

Oh yes & then my sad robin story.  One of my climbers broke its tie & the cane 1/2 fell down.   As I was perusing the damage I saw a mother robin sitting on her 1 remaining egg.  On the ground it appeared she had lost 2 or 3 eggs.  Her nest was at a precarious angle and of course I thought propping the cane back up would make her happy.   I so carefully pushed the cane back up & got it tied without the remaining egg falling out & without disturbing the nest whatsoever.  She watched me from another tree (of course squawking at me).   I left & didn't bother her at all, but she never came back.

Time to go do some work!

The Rose Show program will be printed this week.  Please read the dedication :)  I also uploaded it to the web site,  but caution for users with a slow connection.  It is a booklet & takes abit to download.

The ARF Calendar on our web site has been updated.

I've managed to cultivate in the first round of Mills Magic on all the roses.  I've noticed that the aphids and rose slugs are already after them, which means the thrips & the mites are right behind.  I've managed to get one spraying in, but should already do another as blackspot had already reared its ugly head, yup always alittle behind.

My daughters new garden actually received some mulch yesterday, that hopefully means that more mulch is on the way!

We put lawn patch out yesterday & realized that we needed to fix 4 heads on the sprinkler system.  (You can't grow new lawn without water)  After we got that down & were checking the lines realized that we have 2 more broken.  We don't understand it as it was supposedly an easy winter????

I've already got some roses blooming.  I noticed my climber - Shot Silk, my polyanthas - Leonie Lamesch & Lady Ann Kidwell & my rugosa - Wildberry Breeze are already starting to bloom.

My oldest daughter is in a play 3 days this week - I can't wait as I haven't seen it at all yet.  I'll definitely be taking pictures.

enuf blogging...back to work.