OK, I'm tired. I'm officially tired. I planted only 7 roses today, but I also finished building my gate for the second rose area. I also made out alike a fat rat (or a fat Toni, whichever comes first ). I went to a different Home Depot this morning after taking the dogs to the dogpark so they could get REALLY tired and, of course, perused the roses that that Home Depot had. For some reason, every Home Depot gets a different selection of roses and, sometimes, plants. Anyways, the HD I went to this morning had a bigger selection of roses, but a LOT were mismarked. So I ended up with, not 1, not 2, but *5* Sterling Silvers. 2 were NOID, 1 was marked Intrigue, 1 was marked Medallion (!), and the last was actually marked Sterling Silver. W007!!11! I also picked up a 3gal Our Lady de Guadalupe. Boy, by the time we got home, the car was SMELLY!!! LOVIN' IT!!!!!!! But my arms & cheekbones are burned and my hair is disgusting. I need to finish watering the planted roses (I planted the other 4 from Burlington, 1 from GVR, & the 4 from Palatine. One of the roses from GVR had some root rot on it, but I was able to trim with TONS of root still left. I just need to find a great spot for the Midnight Blue. I have to get that one in the ground as well today.) As it is, I know it's going to be a hydrocodone night. I've got the world's worst back spasms.... :( :(

Oh, I love that picture. Happy plants and happy animals. What could be better?

you do see all 3 dogs there, right? Waffles is a little black mutt that's on the right side of the picture.. you can see her in the pink blooms.

I missed Waffles completely. She was camouflaged. That's adorable.

LOL! Looks like the rear of the car was saggin' by the time you got home! What a good day!

Thursday I went home early and started planting tomato plants. Planted about thirty and then changed clothes and went to get my hair cut. The beauty shop girl picked a couple of tomato leaves out of my hair (didn't even think about combing it before I went to get it cut) and exclaimed "What is this!"

"Why those are tomato leaves young lady..........next time I hope to be able to pay you in tomatos!"

She thinks I'm nuts, but I tip well so what the heck!

Well, I did get Midnight Blue in a great spot.. she's up front where my Cinco de Mayo was. That, Acadia Sunrise, Hot Tamale, Ebb Tide, and George Burns were 100% dead dead dead. NO green whatsoever. So I put Midnight Blue in Cinco's spot and Blue Bayou where George Burns was. I know I lost New Year as well, so I'll end up putting probably Ch-Ching! in that spot.. something bright & fun. No, I have Golden Masterpiece next to that.. damn. Can't put Firefighter there, I have Dolly Parton next to that spot too. Ooh, I know, Circus. I'll put Circus in that spot and it's across the way from Joseph's Coat, so that'll be a nice blend of different colors. DH wanted to know where I was going to put all of these "purple-y" roses (Sterling Silver) and I told him that in the new area where the pond is going will have all the Sterling Silvers in a row. I am waiting to see if Gingersnap will actually give me a leaf.. I have about 2" of green on 1 small thin cane and it has a single leaf "pimple" on it. If it gives me a leaf, I won't dig it out. No leaves, it's outta there. I'm also believing that I'll have to yank out Paradise Found... it was the first to start producing leaves and I think the last cold snap did it in. *sigh* My fault there, I jumped the gun on that rose. I can put Firefighter in that spot.. that rose smells SOOOOOOO good!! Or Perfume Delight, or Double Delight.

Cripes all mighty, I'm in debt up to my eyeballs with my Home Depot card! LOL!

I was on the totally opposite side of town on the west side of Denver yesterday (Saturday) and ended up eating a kinda heavy dinner. So, DH & I went to Home Depot to walk it off. Great excuse to shop, huh. Anyways, of course I park on the Garden side and, what do I spy? Roses that are set out and practically untouched by shoppers hands! Yay for me!

So another 7 Sterling Silvers, a Lagerfeld (can tell the difference, but barely), a magnificent Perfect Moment, a Cherish (smells WONDERFUL), a weirdo rose that, in the same bucket, is labeled "Intrigue" but has a rose that I swear is Wild Blue Yonder on one side and another rose I swear is another Cherish (I put the two buckets side by side and that's what I came up with). Each of these were the $9.98 price! Plus, in the $22.99 buckets (5gal) was a very very handsome Cinco de Mayo that was just oozing with buds but not in full bloom. OMG, talk about smelling up the car! Wow! Plus, the lady didn't ring me up right.. she rang up all 12 buckets as the $9.98 even though the $22 was right in front of her. I didn't hide it, I promise!

So, I spent almost all of today pulling weeds, readying my "pond area", and burying more roses! I ended up putting in the ground today:

Ch-Ching!
Gingersnap
3 Sterling Silvers
Cinco de Mayo
Daddy's Little Girl
Ruby Ruby
Julia Child
Ebb Tide
Perfume Delight
Double Delight

That's on top of the ones I put in yesterday afternoon. So, this weekend, I've put in over 20 roses. And have about another, oh.. 6? more to go in pots. Plus, with some of the trimmings I took off the bushes after I plopped 'em in the ground, I put that "Take Root" hormone stuff & shoved 'em in small pots. If they take, awesome! If not, well, it's not like I didn't try. Oh, and I also put in some perennials in my front flower bed (2 blue delphiniums, 2 red salvias, 2 Basket of Golds), 5 very dried daylilies (let's see if they take hold), weeded a section about 25'x14' with evil long-assed roots on each weed (wild clover), installed new weedblock fiber and poured 10 bags of mulch down... I just need a great spot to put the Cherish (nice pink rose.. I think that's going to be my only really pink other than Memorial Day) and Peace.

and it's supposed to snow 1-3" tonight.

GAH!!!

Oh, Toni. I'm so excited for you. You're going to have the most magnificent show going on in your garden this year.

Lord all mighty, I'm gonna be so busy this weekend.

I'm on the mailing list for Home Depot. I do a lot of home improvement stuff myself as it's cheaper that way & I'm broke. Plus, I'm addicted to their garden center. I've found that their stuff is just as good as one of my LGS, and have a better warranty, which is pretty sad. Anyways, I also know that Thursdays is plant-day at HD and they get their shipment of plants that day. And, since I get the fliers a day before they come public, I know what's gonna be on sale and what's not.

So, instead of the 2gal roses being $9.97, they're $8.88.

I loaded up on 10 of them. Oops. I got 6 RedGolds, 1 Ambassador, 2 Sterling Silvers, and 1 Sunsprite (I *think* it's sunsprite). Plus, they have the big 5gal pots for $22.96, so I ended up getting 5 Blue Girls.

oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear.

So, I figured that what I'll do is I have a section in my yard that's been under construction bricks now for almost a year and 75% of those bricks are finally gone, with the rest going away this weekend. So that frees up an area about 5x15. That's PLENTY of space to put in a million more roses, doncha think? And I've been wanting Ambassador every since I saw one massive bloom on a rose tree last year.. wow! However, for some reason, none of the LGS carry that one. Weird.

So here's my new Sienna filled with roses. Again.

What a beautiful sight! Your garden is going to be amazing this year.

I was thinking, which is pretty scary and I should NOT be doing it, but with the 5 BGs, do a BG, then a Mr. Lincoln, BG, Mr. L, BG.. etc, all in a nice tall hedge as they all get pretty big for that area. Striking & smelly, doncha think? And, surprisingly, DH wasn't mad! (Of course, I just bought his school books for summer school, and 1 book alone was almost $200...)

Yup, compared to textbooks roses are pretty cheap!

He-hee....its that time of year!

well, I think I got the last of the different roses.. I have to stop buying them there as I still have roses coming in from RU and I don't want to be out of space! I picked up 4 more Sterling Silver (correctly labeled, this time!) and 4 "Perfume Tiger". Pretty roses, nice smell! Yay!

Gosh, Toni! I think I need to take you shopping with me. Tyler would take weeks to recover!

I keep harassing the DH about us selling the house and moving to Tyler, TX, just so I could grow roses. But, there's not much call for his work there in town, so he poo-poo'd that idea. I then told him that land's pretty cheap and we could get a nice house on some acreage, but then he countered w/the price of electricity in the summer (he loves his A/C too much). Oh well. :D

I think my message did not send.

Toni, We moved from the Chicago area to NE Texas. Our electric bills are wayyyyyyy lower here than in Chicago. Of course you could argue that the heating bills would be much lower and that would counteract the AC bills.

Friends of ours just had their daughter & son-in-law move from Dallas here to Denver metro. Their average electric bill was like $500/month. During the hottest, most miserable months, my electric doesn't go above $275. And my heat this winter.. the highest was $65. So, we can't really say that it offsets.

Trust me, I've *TRIED* to convince him to move out of this frickin' hell hole. I hate this place. But at least we're not up-side-down on our house!

Wow, we don't have electric bill of more than $200 - $250. Our house isn't tiny and I bake (electric oven as opposed to gas up in Chicago). Gas was really high up in Chicago too. I don't even see an electric bill that high here at the shop (large building), and we have three phase here. Dallas must be expessive compared to us yokels out in the boonies!

You know, I've heard so many people say they love CO. One of my son's friends went to college in Boulder and hated it. She graduated and is in med school now but she still can't seem to let go of how much she hated CO. I don't know what the deal is but I guess you have company!

Maybe some day you can experience the joys of Texas!

It's the attitude. It goes with the altitude. The higher up you go, the more snobbish and "I'm SO much better than you.. I ride my bicycle & don't share the road or follow road rules". Mountains are boring after a while (try living in them for 4 years.. house was at 7014ft, graduated high school at 8,992 feet), NO WATER anywhere other than man-made lakes. Can't fish in the local streams/river.. no fish. Other lakes you have to wait until their 1) defrosted completely & 2) stocked. Short growing season, with a ridiculously high water bill every month (in the middle of the dead of winter, my water bill is always around $70/month.. don't know how much this summer is going to be)... weather patterns that change almost hourly, they don't know how to plow snowy roads (or they just refuse to plow them, so everything turns into icy ruts), extremely low taxes.. but at the same time, very few public amenities (for instance, in Colorado Springs, CO's 2nd largest city, they put the police helicopter on eBay for money, they are no longer taking care of public parks, every 3rd street light has been shut off to save money because no one is willing to pay taxes! And I mean NO ONE. Don't want to pay your property taxes? That's ok, just turn your private home into a place of worship & get off the taxable payroll instantly. Rumor mill has it that 1 in 10 houses is a "place of worship" so they don't have to pay property taxes), blah blah blah.

Enough whining. I can't wait to see how the front yard blooms up this summer!