Plant Profile - Rugosa Roses

I absolutely love my rugosa rose and would like to include more in my landscape in the coming years.  I currently grow 'Hansa' which is famous for their rose hips.

Easy to care for rugosa roses require no fertilizer or special pruning.  All I do is cut out the oldest canes each spring to keep the plant in tip top shape.  It usually takes me about 10-15 minutes to get my rugosa rose ready for the growing season.

Rugosa roses are very hardy too and ideal for northern gardeners as they do not require heavy mulching during the winter. Many varieties are hardy to zone 2, that is unheard of in the hybrid tea rose world.  Following is a list of the benefits associated with rugosa roses.

• Cold Hardy - the hardiest varieties tend to be white, pink and red, while the yellow, peach and bi-colored varieties may not be as hardy.
• Many varieties produce gorgeous red rose hips.  Some good varieties to look for are 'Hansa', 'Frau Dgmar Hartopp' and Scabrosa'.
• Lovely fall foliage colors ranging from yellow, orange to red depending on variety.
• They can grow in any kind of soil in areas that get at least 6 hours of sun per day.
• They do not half to be sprayed to prevent disease or bug infestations.  In fact spraying them with anything usually causes leaf drop.
• No fertilizing required.  I just add a little compost around each bush in the spring along with a fresh layer of mulch to control weeds and that is all.
• They have a remarkable tolerance for road salt, so are ideal for roadside and seaside gardens.
• Many rugosas have a spicy fragrance to their blooms that rival many other roses.
• Rugosa roses are self cleaning, so deadheading is not necessary unless you want to encourage a second flush of sporadic blooms.

There are two small downsides to the rugosa rose, but not enough to be a deal breaker in my opinon.  They do have incredibly prickly stems.  The upside to that is you can lay the stems in freshly tilled gardens to keep cats out.  And the second downside is that they tend to sucker a little bit, but not enough to be out of control.  The suckers are very easy to dig up and give to friends and if creating a wall of beauty is what you want, then planting several rugosa roses would be a nice way to do so.

I hope you too will decide to add an old fashioned rugosa rose to your landscape this year.  You'll be glad you did.

Some good places to order online:

• Spring Valley Roses
• High Country Roses

New Leaf Castings

We had such a mild fall I was able to make six new leaf castings.  They have fully cured and the first of them is now for sale in our Etsy Shop.

 

This one was painted with copper metallic first, then dry brushed with two shades of green and an irredescant white paint.  It's been sealed with three layers of an outdoor acryllic sealer so it is ready for many years of use.

Use them as a birdbath, feeder, candy dish or just as a piece of sculpture in your home or on your patio.

Buy it here for $29.00 plus shipping.

My Cleaning New Year's Resolution

My New Year's Resolution this year is to systematically clean our house from top to bottom, room by room, one room a week.  I started at one end of the house and am cleaning one room each week from top to bottom.  You know the way...getting under the furniture, wiping down the walls and windows, nick knacks and the like.  Stuff that I don't do every week when cleaning.

I really hate cleaning.  I don't get much help with it around our house, so I tend to put it off and then only do the basics each week; vacuuming, light dusting, bathroom cleaning, dishes and that's about it.  I get caught up with my hobbies, reading, the computer, and the housework is at the very bottom of the list. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

My husband and I both have allergies and we have a cat and I was beginning to feel stuffy all the time when I was in our home for more than a few hours at a time.  During the week I didn't notice it as much, but on the weekend I'd really start to feel the effects.  It had to be all the dust in our house.  So I decided to make a change....an important change that will affect the way we feel when in our home.

I started with the master bathroom, then the master bedroom, the dining room and this week is our kitchen.  I think the kitchen and the living room will take the most time and once I've gone through all the rooms, it should only get easier as time goes on since the cleaning will be getting done consistently.

Today I cleaned the dingy, sticky feeling cabinets.  I've cleaned them before since we moved in 10 years ago, but some of them never really felt truly clean.  But today, they look and feel like new after about an hour of scrubbing.  Here's how I did it.

1. Mix one part dawn dish washing detergent with two parts hot water.
2. Working in small sections of three or four cabinets at a time, scrub each cabinet with the soapy water and a scrubby sponge safe for non-stick cookware.
3. Allow the cabinets to sit for a couple of minutes and then wipe them down with a clean wet cloth, rinsing the cloth several times to remove all the soapy water.
4. Allow cabinets to dry and then look for sticky spots that may remain.
5. Using a paste of water and baking soda, scrub the sticky spots in a circular motion, repeating until sticky spot has been removed.  Wipe the baking soda away with a clean wet cloth.
6. If any dullness remains, spray down cabinet with a 50/50 solution of white vinegar and water.  
7. This is optional, but to add a little shine back to the cabinets, you can rub them down with a little Orange Glow.

Craft Paint Storage

My craft room is pretty small for the amount of stuff I have in it.  I use two dressers for storage and counter space.  I have a couple of small book cases and a salvaged short metal cabinet in the corner.

Every few months it seems I am tweaking something to try and get more storage for the different interests I have.  Stained glass and tiles take up a lot of room, but I am really saving space with the organizers hubby got me for Christmas.  And now I'm adding more beads to the mix so that I can do more wire art.

But the one thing that has always been a problem for me is how to store all my craft paint bottles.  Years ago, I bought one of those spinning bottle holders.  I think it held 180 bottles and believe me, I had it almost full.  It's great storage, but my counter space is so limited and narrow that I could never turn the thing around and get to the paints I needed.

Inspiration struck the other day when I was looking at a couple of sturdy boxes that were about to go out with the recyclables.  I have a feeling I have seen this idea before, but I didn't really remember it until now.

I cut down the boxes so they were the same depth as the length of the paint bottles (about 4") and just stacked them on their sides.  It's easy to see their colors and it's easy to pull out the color you need.  It takes up space on top of my bookcases that would otherwise have looked cluttered and messy.  I think I'm really going to like it.

Neat and Nifty TECH L.C.