Fixing the rose garden

Today is ANZAC day in Australia. I got up early when the kids rose and we made Anzac biscuit. I can't stop eating them. So to burn off some energy I got started on fixing up the small rose garden in the front yard.

It was a mess of lavender and lambs tongues which never grew well because the big paper bark tree blocked all the rain. The poor roses were leaning and needed re-staking too.

Here is what it looked like before (sorry about the dark photo but it was in the morning shadow):

I pulled out all the old plants, removed the leaf litter from the tree above, re-staked the roses, added some compost from the compost bin, sprinkled on some soil wettener, the replanted 2 nandinas from the backyard. The nandinas had to be moved anyway because the extension is going to replace that garden bed. I stole some mulch from the other front garden and gave it all a good water with some seaweed solution.

Now it looks nice and fresh and ready to grow next spring.

Towards the end of winter I will give the roses a prune. I will have to keep the water up to them this year as I'd love some roses to pick to put in the house. Last year the flowers didn't last long.

Grow, little garden, grow!