What I've been up to

I've been away the past 2 weekends. We went up to Uncle's place up on a lake near the 1,000 Islands for July 4. Different Uncle (and different lake) than Memorial Day Uncle. It's beautiful and quiet up there, we usually go up for the whole week but schedules didn't work out for that this year. Then we were at my moms in Syracuse for the rest of the weekend. My husband took on gutter cleaning duty (she had helicopter problem too that manifestited itself in the gutters) I really dislike cleaning gutters so I decided to weed the front "flower bed". Basically it was all weeds so I pulled almost everything out, hit some sales and planted a bunch of stuff. Then I put down a soaker hose and mulched the whole thing. My moms neighbors are very happy they don't have to look at the weeds anymore. I put in low maintenance plants that are deer resistant.

This past weekend I went to see my sister in Ithaca. There was a rose propagation class there that I signed up for given by Lee at http://www.derrosenmeister.com/. It was a wonderful class. He has a beautiful property with an amazing garden that was a hayfield 5 years ago! It was a 2 hour class and we each walked out with 2 cuttings of 5 different non patented roses and with the knowledge of how to propagate roses. It was the last class he offers for the year. I can't wait to take more classes next year. He's got a large selection of cold hardy roses, I'm studying up on his inventory and trying to narrow down my choices to put in the garden next spring!

Gruss an Aachen is blooming right now (see picture), it smells great, it's a beautifully delicate rose. I think the mystery Sweet Promise is actually Sweet Promise. The bud is unfurling as we speak. It's more of a deep apricot than I was expecting. It kind of clashes with the rest of the garden, I'd like to move it at some point to a new location. I'll have to research that and see if it's feasable.

What's blooming now: EVERYTHING! Echinacea, hostas, sweet peas, helianthus, yarrow, stokesia, foxgloves, delphinium, bee balm, cosmos, coreopsis.

Veggie garden update-we have tiny tomatoes forming! I have been harvesting lettuce for quite a while, tiny cucumbers are visible and the summer squash should be ready in about a week to ten days.