Planting Bare Root Roses

I ordered a couple of bare root roses from the David Austin collection
These were the two varieties that I got, Munstead Wood and Princess Alexandra of Kent. There was another variety Olivia Rose that did not arrive with the order as I was a little delayed in putting in my request. However I settled for these two so that I could start building out my outdoor garden.

The roses arrived in the first half of January and I was truly excited to see them. They looked all shriveled up and dead and I was wondering if I had done the right thing in ordering these as a first time attempt. Anyway in for a penny, in for a pound as they say. Since the roses came in on a weekday evening, I did not have too much time to look at them that day.

The next evening, I came back a little early and decided to start work on these roses. I took a couple of buckets that we had in the garage and filled them up with tap water. I unpacked both the roses and spread their roots a little bit. Being roses, they had the prickly thorns all over their bark so had to handle them a little carefully. In hindsight, I should have used my gardening gloves. But no harm.

I was able to get both the roses into their respective buckets and ensured that the entire root ball was soaked in water. Now the instructions say that the roses need to be in water for a few hours and never overnight. However I didn't have the time to do this during the week and definitely didn't want to wait till the end of the week to start on this. So the roses stayed in the bucket not just overnight but for a couple of days. 

I felt a little guilty about doing so and was worried that I had doomed my bareroot roses, so the next day, I was able to leave a little early from my office and come back home before it became too dark. I then started on the process of transplanting these roses into a container. (We are not yet done with the backyard so cannot put these into the ground). I did have a large half barrel that we had got real cheap at an Orchard Supply moving sale and thought that that would be big enough to have these roses started for now. 

Added a good amount of chicken manure, potting soil and compost in equal measure to the half barrel. Then went in and placed both the roses into the mixture and proceeded to fill up the rest of the container with the same mixture. Lightly watered it and set it in a spot where it would get about 6-8 hours of sunlight every day. 

Now it was just a matter of wait and watch for me. This was the third week of January.

I did nothing to the rose plant for the next week or so as there was a light rain that used to fall overnight and I had been informed that you don't need to water the plant till spring starts. I was truly skeptical about this plant blooming this spring but what can you do?

I went out this last weekend to just check on the progress of the plant not truly expecting anything to have happened. But to my great surprise, I could see some red buds/shoots coming out from the main stems of both the roses!!! Yay!! Nature is truly great. See photos below. Still a little apprehensive about the growth but will keep you posted on how this goes.

Creating a Succulents collection

Now that we have moved into our new home in San Ramon, I finally am able to start indulging in one of my long dormant hobbies. Growing plants!

I have always been interested in growing plants since childhood. Back in India in our small flat I, along with my mother used to grow small plants on the window ledges. Space was always at a premium back then, but we had special window grills created which allowed you to place pots outside. We used that to the maximum extent by planting all types of plants. Roses, Shoeflower, Mint, Sontakka (a type of lily) etc. We even once tried to grow a lemon tree in the balcony but try as we might were never able to get it to flower or bear fruit.

Since moving out of India, I have had very little time or space to grow any plants. But now that we have moved to our own home and have some space available, I am going to try my hand at it again.

Due to the drought in California, succulents have become all the rage here. You see them in every garden section and other shops. Maintaining succulents is supposed to be one of the easiest things to do. Easier than letting paint dry they say!!!

I initially thought, I will buy a bunch of those and place them around the house and also in the backyard. However one day as I was browsing on the net, I came across some articles that mentioned that it was very easy to propagate succulents from existing plants. You could even take a leaf and convert it to a brand new plant with some TLC. That ignited a spark in me and started me on the path to not just buy a full grown plant but try and propagate as much as possible.
So I went ahead and started with a leaf from an existing succulent plant that I had got from Ikea the week earlier. I followed all the steps laid out in the guides on How to Propagate and am now waiting to see what comes out of that.

I also went ahead and order a bunch of succulents online from Amazon and have planted them in a small pot.

This is the pot with the main batch of succulents cuttings

Other cuttings have been placed in miscellaneous pots around the house. 

Now it's a case of wait and watch to see how many of these actually take root and start flourishing. Keeping my fingers crossed.