Death of a Rose Bush and Other Tiny Tales

kids size medium tshirt
now magnificent jewelry!

Oh my goodness, have the last 2 weeks been crazy!

I've had 2 band contests in 2 weeks, and even now that contest time is over, it seems like my "me time" still isn't clearing. I guess it's that time of year, and I did know what I was getting into when I chose this career.

I tried a new way of making my cool t-shirt necklace today with a $1 kids shirt from Hobby Lobby. Instead of cutting a bunch of singular rings like I did with my red necklace, I cut the shirt into t-shirt yarn, and then wrapped it around my bent knee, varying at what point on my leg I wrapped it so that I ended up with a variety of lengths.

These two experiments with the tree in the front yard look similar, but I like very different things 

about them. I like the focal point in the left, and I like how the blue of the sky pops through very 

subtly on the right picture. 

*********************************************************************************

My rose bush died.
I'm a really good gardner. I do everything exactly like my organic gurus tell me to. I amend the soil with a mixture of local compost and added garden soil. I use only the finest organic turkey poop :) fertilizer and products like Actinovate to stimulate healthy root growth. I break up the root clumps before I plant and always water the specimen about an hour before transplanting.

Being both careful and a cheapskate, I go through the same Central Texas Gardener approved process with every plant, and I usually have great success. When I bought my Olympiad rose bush during spring break, I followed the same protocol. It seemed happy; I saw some new growth in the form of tiny, red, baby leaflets over the course of a week or so.

As I've mentioned before, I regularly go through my gardens and inspect each plant, making mental documentation of growth, flowering, watering needs, dog holes... I then in turn respond to what I find in whatever way I believe will best help my plants to live a long, healthy, beautiful life. It was on our first crazy hot day a week or so ago that I first noticed it.

The base of my brand new rose bush was turning black. I've never seen anything like that before. Upon further inspection, I noticed that the tips of the branches that had been pruned while still in the greenhouse were also turning black. I scratched the discolored surface with my finger nail. The tissue was... squishy. I knew that probably wasn't a good sign.

The next day was even hotter. When I check on my rose bush what I found was shocking to say the least.

There was a puddle of wax at the base of the plant.
Wax.

I couldn't imagine where wax was coming from. As I looked at the branches, I could see some drip marks, just like you'd see on a candle. The plant had been coated in wax at some point. I can only imagine that this was done to prevent it from rotting during frequent, generic waterings in the greenhouse in which it was started or to prevent borers from burrowing into the tissue before it has a caring, attentive gardener tending to it at a permanent home.

Over the next several days, my poor rose bush from base to tip.... cooked... in the sun. I can't really find a better way to describe what has happening to it, and I had no luck on the internet trying to diagnosis its malady. The once green stems withered into a hard, black, crispy shadow of a plant. Each day a little more wax worked it's way down toward the mulch with which I had lovingly protected the soil. When I finally pulled the plant out of the ground last week it looked much like burned bacon.

Perhaps I'm way off base, but I have to assume that the precautions taken to protect this young rose bush when it was at a fragile point in its life added to its demise. I can't imagine that a wax coating hot enough to melt is positive for a tender, transplanted addition. The very barrier separating the young plant from all the potential evils of the yard smothered and baked it. My attempt at bringing new life into my gardens withered with the branches.

It's like the weed and feed we applied to our yard when we first moved in. It killed a lot of weeds. It pumped up our pathetic excuse for grass. But it also severely damaged the one tree in our yard. It's going on 3 years of gently coaxing it back to health.

Interesting how one form of life imitates another.



And I lost the receipt from the nameless big box home store, so I couldn't even get my money back! However, the NEW pink rose bush I got from my favorite organic garden store is doing well - no wax so far!

Anger is a gateway drug to scarves.

my new baby Olympiad rose bush

It's been a busy few days. This whole year has been  a period of discovering things about our legal and social climate that I think most Americans would be sad to know is true.

The process of phone calls actually began about a week ago, and I don't foresee the end anytime soon. I'm locked out of a lot of our accounts because I was not listed as the primary account holder... even though my name IS on the account. Even things that common sense should guide, like my husband not needing health insurance, are being held up in a sea of paperwork that I need a probate lawyer before handling. 

I actually cussed out loud at Roger yesterday. Anyone who has been around me for any length of time knows that I have a well-honed sailor's vocabulary  that has matured and gained ever-increasing freedom over the past 7 or 8 years. Whether or not Roger was out there listening to me use new and exciting combinations of words as I got off the phone with our bank, someone got an earful yesterday around noon, even if it was just the doglets. 

In between finding new people, organizations, and institutions toward which I can now harbor great hatred, I did manage to crochet a new scarf!  I got the pattern from Crochet Mama's page on the right.

It actually only took me about 3 hours to start and finish. I'm thinking about making a cloche hat to go with it since I bought one too many skeins of Vanna's Choice in Taupe Mist. :) I, of course, am standing in front of one of our much larger projects - the fireplace Dad and I built back in July of 2009. 

On Monday I took my first load of clothes to Goodwill. It was a pretty small load and only clothes that I never liked. I'm not quite sure what you do with things like undershirts and socks in cases like this. It seems wasteful to throw them all away, but my squeamish side finds the idea of other people wearing such intimate pieces of clothing a bit icky. That's when I accidentally happened upon a website that explained how to make yarn out of old t-shirts! The result is my first two balls of t-shirt yarn! I'm not sure what I'll do with them, but there are all sorts of neat crafts I found that require t-shirt yarn, and I'm thinking I could dye some of them with tea or coffee to give them some really organic coloring.

**********************************************************************************

I'm really quite taken by the trees as they resurrect from winter. Daily, sometimes several times a day, I've been inspecting each branch, looking for signs of life on the barky skeletons. On Saturday, the only tree presenting any vitals signs was the redbud in our back yard. When I awoke this morning, however, all of our crape myrtles had burst into baby leaves, in some cases hardly visible from a distance. The shumard oak is covered in very swollen buds that I know by the end of the week will erupt into salmon-colored, downy leaflets.  

Second in beauty only to the redbud is the ash trees between my and the neighbors' house. I don't know if I've ever noticed how beautiful those horrible wads of pollen can be, but yesterday while I was taking a shower, through our bathroom window, the brilliantly red pollen against the clear sky, framed by the spotted bark of the trees caught my attention. I don't mean to over-describe the view from my window, but it was enough to end my shower early (as opposed to my typical 40 minute bathing experience), throw on some clothes, and go outside, wet hair and all, to take a picture before the sky or light changed enough to lose the effect.

Thanks to Linda Davis and SOS for a laughter filled meeting last night. Laughter is good.

"I always knew looking back on my tears would bring me laughter, but I never knew looking back on my laughter would make me cry." - Cat Stevens