I got new Felco 6 pruners for Christmas! Oh it's so nice to have sharp pruners designed for small hands. It only took me a few hours to prune my 12 roses. It was really hard to resist putting the cuttings in perlite and peat to propagate them. The nursery said that combination is inert so less chance of micro-organisms like fungus killing rooted plants.
The black spot only affected the Peace hybrid and the regular Peace seems to have completely recovered, so maybe I'll get GREAT blossoms this year? I also took the tops off the scented geraniums and ALAS, cut the silver-grey lavender back in preparation for tearing it out -- it's DEAD. I even reduced the three Asian eggplants by two-thirds. Hard pruning is good for plants, right?
Didn't touch the Daphne at all, not even taking a single blossom to sweeten the indoor air. Even though it's blooming very nicely and fragrantly, only the tops of branches have leaves and they're still turning yellow and falling off. The nursery from whence I bought it said it needs more light and it dislikes reflected light. So I moved it to under a tree where it will get filtered light for most of the day. I hope that works!
Spent another $14 in E.B. Stone fertilizer. It worked so well last year that I'll use it again. The camellias certainly seemed to like it. Bloom size and number are quite satisfying. But I'll stick to Peter's xx-55-xx for the plumeria. One died but the others seemed to have wintered fine. Maybe the Passionfruit would have done OK ouside? I'll start some more cuttings in-door this summer so I'll have plenty if the big ones die next winter.
Anyone want Rose geranium? I have about 10, all rooting and busting out of their pots.
