omly

I took the opportunity of the beautiful day and the fact that I work from home on Tuesdays to take one of my stretch breaks outside in the yard.

Grabbing the pruning shears on my way out, I finally got around to pruning the roses in the yard. I had been waiting until full winter to prune them, as I really wanted to do some heavy pruning while they were dormant. The winter was so mild though, that I never really got the chance. All of them had significant growth. In many cases buds had already given way to young leaves.

I have 3 different types of roses in the yard. The front yard has some that came with the house. They seem to bloom on new growth and get very leggy. Last year I did not prune these remotely hard enough. I did spring prune them last year, but this year I did so a bit more aggressively. I would still really like to try winter pruning with these though.

There are also roses in the altar garden. This is a small compact rose. I am not sure what I want to do with this one, other than I trimmed it back to keep it from overgrowing the altar garden completely. I probably should consider pruning this one more, but I just don't really know what I want to do with it or even if I am going to leave it in the altar garden.

The third kind of roses are a climbing variety. It blooms on old growth, so I wanted to minimize the amount of pruning on these. The more canes I leave from next year the more area might potentially have blossoms. They have not been in place long enough to have to have become terribly large, so mostly I was pruning for shape. I removed canes that pointed directly away from the trellis they are growing on and thus directly into the yard. The canes do have some rigidity to them, but they get a lot of growth per year and so I only wanted canes that it looked like I could provide some support for.

I really like learning more about gardening, but roses are something that I don't historically have a lot of experience with. I don't suppose there is anyone out there on my friend list that happens to have a fair amount of experience with?

Things have been busy, but lots of good things have been going on at casa de omly.

We finished up my spring break with lots of work on the yard. We pruned the peach, pear, apple and damson plum trees. I think the damson plum trees need a bit more pruning, and we have not pruned the plum tree at all (waiting for leaves).

The corner raised bed that will become the altar garden is coming along well. The frame is built, and we put down marble chip around it. C started 2 of the nearby raised beds as well. We still need to order gravel and topsoil to fill them once we are done building.

The Friday of Spring Break, I went to see The Last Lions with Benn (sad! no more LJ). I was very amused that it is narrated by the voice of Scar in the Lion King. Hee! That was fun, and I got a chance to get a peek of his new apartment which is very snazzy and seemed like it would have amazing light in the day.

I have gotten 2 packages in the mail full of seeds, and Roger built me parabolic reflectors for the grow lights we bought to make them more focused (aka not in my eyes when sitting in the livingroom) and adjustable in height (so that I can easily lift them as the seedlings grow). I just need to find time to start the seedlings! I thought it was going to be today, but instead I cleaned and rearranged the living room.

Also exciting is the fact that the first of the plants have arrived, climbing blue roses for the trellis we bought the weekend at the end of Spring Break. Fortunately C was home to receive them so that they didn't have to sit out in the cold. We are expecting a bunch more packages as they will break up the plant orders to ship at the optimal time for each plant type.

This week and last I had an extra evening lab, as one of the other lab instructors has been away at a conference in Europe this week. I will be very glad to have my Wednesday evenings back! They are great kids though, and I enjoyed working with them.

So much grading to catch up on, but I am hopeful to make a bit of progress before next week. I would like to get a little ahead as the analysis of their screenings of potential antibiotics are going to take a bit extra work to go over carefully and grade.

Additionally I need to design and polish a lab practical for the end of the semester so that I can make sure we have everything on hand that we might need. Whew, not sure when that will happen exactly, but it should be soonish.

And last night, salvbard and I snuck away after dinner to go to the Foundry for poutine and drinks, which was a rare treat. (OMG the ginger smash was super yummy.) I have been super happy with everything I have had there, and the company was wonderful. It can be hard to find time when he is free, so I was very happy to have the opportunity.

Lots of crafting has been happening, though I need to take pictures for my craft blog still. I appear to be on a sock jag, but they just make me really happy. I should start the fingerless gloves for C soon though, as he has been fairly patient.

All that and lots more things, though this seems to have gotten a bit long winded so I will leave the others for another post.