Life Is Just a Bowl of ...

The cherries were nearly ripe on July 5 when I took this picture. (I did not add that drop of water for photographic effect. It's genuine dew.) The cherries ripened to a very satisfactory dark red last week and I ate them - unceremoniously. There were seventeen to begin with. Birds pecked a few, despite the net over them. We sampled about a dozen in various stages of ripeness. So, like the four strawberries I harvested in June, the cherries were about $2.50 each. On the plus side, from now on they'll be more or less free (not counting, of course, the fence and the net that protect them.)

This is my favorite rose. Well, in my garden, actually it's the only rose. I don't usually try to grow things that aren't easy. But I have been trying with roses. This "Joseph's Coat" has been doing its best against all odds. It's been here for years. It now has three canes, the tallest of which is still only about thirty inches tall.

Every year I try to remember to fertilize it regularly. I try to remember to cover it in the winter. I try to check it occasionally for Japanese beetles or mildew. And every year it rewards me with more and more blossoms.

In one heroic effort to show the rose how much I care, I persuaded Belinda to move the Siberian Iris you can see behind (and to the south) of the rose in the picture. Well, it wasn't that hard to persuade her. I don't think she's ever had to move a Siberian Iris before. It may be a few years before I try to get her to do it again. She thought I should move the rose (which I admit is only about one tenth the size of the Iris.)

Anyway, now the Iris and most of the Liatris around it is gone. The rose is visible through the trellis at the entrance to the garden. I'm mulching the rose with a full bushel of my best compost. Maybe someday it will cover the fence like the catalog pictures I've seen.