Did anyone else besides me notice the strange resemblance that Portland had last week to Narnia, where it's always winter, but never Christmas? It just seemed to snow and snow and snow. Here at Rose Villa everyone turned out to help shovel snow. This is Louis with his mom in the background, and yes he did indeed do more then just throw that snowball. He helped his dad shovel snow off the sidewalks. Good lad.

At my house it was a measured 17 inches deep and I think it was that deep at Rose Villa as well.

If you look real close you can see the humming bird feeders. My wife put 'hats' of cardboard box lids over them to keep the snow off the feeding stations. She still had to keep bringing them inside to thaw out every few hours. In the 'snowy' photo the hats have cones of snow on them.

The last time it snowed as bad as this was way back in the early 1980's. Back when I had just started working here as the grounds boss. Now I am happy to say it was the new grounds boss, Bob who had to spend hours and hours, day after day moving snow around. He spent at least 6 or 7 days on snow patrol and when I talked to him just yesterday he was tired and worn out, but to his credit still upbeat and cheerful. Of course that could have been because the snow had melted by then. Here's a photo of a beautiful birch tree with a small yellow snow plow in the back ground.

And finally, what's an article about snow without a photo of icicles? These were off the laundry building roof.

And that's it for now, the snow has melted away, the temperature is above freezing and it's raining. Just like it is supposed to be in Oregon.

The day that the snow came to Rose Villa

Boy oh boy winter roared into the Portland area this last weekend! We had 4" of snow and then the temperature dropped to the low 20's. This photo is of the Grounds boss, Bob and you can tell he had a really great time riding around on the snow plow.

Oh I know this may not be much of a winter storm for many people, my own sister back in Plymouth Mass. is suffering through far worse, but in this neck of the woods 4 inches of snow shuts the city down, the kids get a day or two off from school and all the tire shops make a fortune selling studded snow tires. The weathermen are calling this the worse winter weather since early 1990's. The grounds crew here at Rose Villa has worked two days now clearing sidewalks and streets and laying down ice melter and sand.

It has been a long time since we have experienced seriously cold temperatures here on this hillside just south of Portland. At least 18 years by my count and perhaps even longer. I am concerned that we have been lulled into a false sense of security as far as plants being able to live through the winter. The last time it was below freezing for any extended time, back in the early 90's, I remember we lost a good many Sasanqua Camellias and pyracantas and many other plants that got burned by the wind chill. So it will very interesting to see what gets damaged by this cold spell.
This is our old friend Marmalade Mist from the last post. You can see it's crown is buried by the snow. Back in the old days we would cover the roses with composted chicken manure, but we haven't done that in a long time so seeing what the cold does to our rose gardens kinda makes me nervous. We could have some serious damage but then our rose gardens are definitely a survival of the fittest kind of thing so this will weed out the weak roses that may have pretty blooms, but just don't have that winter hardiness that so many others have.








This photo is an example of what can happen when you let your inner child come out; note the cookies for eyes. They said the cookies were for the birds. Hopefully after this photo op they were headed inside for something hot and spicy.

Here's the photos from the last post, the one on the left is a flowering quince, Chaenomeles speciosa and the one on the right is a strawberry tree, Arbutus unedo.

I'm headed into the Christmas party now, eat cookies, drink punch and sing carols. It's just starting to snow again, I sure hope it's coming down hard when we launch into 'White Christmas'.

When nature holds it's breath

(Doesn't everyone have a boxwood trimmed like a rooster in their back yard?)

Almost all the leaves have fallen off the trees, the grounds crew has raked, blown, picked up and otherwise disposed of the leaves, the lawns are so wet they are beginning to squish when you walk on them, which you better not do unless you are wearing waterproof boots, and when I go out in the morning to get the paper out of the paper box there is that slight chill in the air that promises old man winter is gathering his forces and is on his way.

This is that brief time of year between the seasons when nature just seems to be holding it's breath.

Which means it's time to trim roses. That's right, I trim roses right after the 1st of December. Just down to a point midway between my knees and hips. I wouldn't trim the roses at all except that it keeps the winter wind, ice and snow from breaking the canes down right to the crown of the plant. And along with trimming the roses this is a great time to clean up any old leaves, weeds and what not from under and around the roses. Bugs and disease organisms love to overwinter under dead leaves, so if you remove the old leaves you will be going a long way toward controlling pests next spring.

This is an example of how short I trim, although the ground still needs a bit of clean up. The story behind this particular rose is that my dear sister, who lives in Plymouth MA. used to have a catboat named Marmalade. Thus when I ran across a rose named Marmalade Mist I couldn't resist bringing it into the Rose Villa rose garden. And it has proved to be a remarkable rose. Blooms freely all season long, and very nearly disease free. Pink blooms.

I should also mention that if your roses live in an area other then the hillside here at Rose Villa it may be a good idea to mound up mulch of some type over the crown of the plant. To a height of about 12 inches. This will protect the crown and the lower part of the canes from freezing cold. Many years ago at Rose Villa I used to use composted chicken manure. One half a bag per rose, and by spring time any 'heat' from the manure was gone and it could be pulled away from the rose and mixed into the soil as fertilizer. However, it's been a long time since there was any really dangerous cold weather here so I just let the roses tough it out.

My last word on 'winterizing' roses is about dormant spray. I don't use any. A thorough cleaning up now and again in spring takes care of most of the insects and disease organisms that are tying to make it through the winter by living under leaf clutter. Sure we have a few insects and bit of disease come springtime but it's an acceptable amount, easily delt with by some mild organic methiods of pest control. (More about this as the season progresses) Of course I also don't allow roses to live in our rose garden that have serious pest problems. The roses in the Rose Villa rose garden are tried and true survivors.

And that's about it for what I do during that brief time between the seasons when nature holds it's breath. I'll leave you with a few photos, any ideas what these are? Answers in the next post from Sedgewicks Garden.

This last photo is titled "Sedgewick and Friend". One of the grounds crew found this cute guy while hanging up christmas lights. After introducing him around to the people in the main building (and getting some great reactions) I put him back where he was found.

It's late November here at Rose Villa and just about the only deciduous trees left with leaves are the Sweet Gums and the Maples. I was reading a fascinating bit of plant lore the other day; it seems that green chlorophyll in the leaves dominates all the other colors, the reds, oranges and yellows that are also in the leaves. It's not till fall brings lower temperatures and shorter days that plant hormones start to restrict the flow of nutrients up into the leaves. Thus the chlorophyll dies off leaving all the colors we see in the fall. The same hormones create a corky brittle spot on the leaf stem where, come the winter winds, the leaf will break off and fall to earth. In Rose Villa's case to be picked up by the grounds crew.

Fall, the time in the plant world when all the growing, blooming, fruiting, reproducing and competing to live and prolong your species slows down and rests for the winter months. Or does it? This is a photo of the Ginkgo tree you can barely see in the 1st photo of the Sweet Gum tree. The Sweet Gum tree has thrown several roots over and partly around the Ginkgo tree. I've been watching this death struggle for several years now and you can see the one root is starting to strangle the Ginkgo.

Unfortunately the Ginkgo tree will be removed very shortly to make way for a market garden to supply the main kitchen so I will not be able to see the outcome,but my money would be on the Sweet Gum tree!

Here's the spot where the market garden will be built this winter and planted this upcoming spring. Can you see the Ginkgo tree and the leaves of the Sweet Gum? I'll be reporting on this adventure right along, hopefully we will have a compost operation going by spring. There are also plans in the works to start worm box composting with the main kitchen's veggie garbage. I'll keep posting updates on these projects as we go along.

Now I'll leave y'all with a pretty photo. This is a Camellia sasanqua, possibly a Cleopatra.