Tag Archive for: trellis

Do you love roses?

I do.

For those of you who have been following me for any length of time, you know that my love affair with roses is something that I like to share with others. For that reason, on a lovely day in May, I made a visit to the Old West town, Tombstone, Arizona.  

Old West town, Tombstone, Arizona.

This historic town has two different attractions that appeal to me and my husband. He loves old westerns, and walking along the main street and seeing where the famous gunfight took place is something he enjoys. While it’s fun to explore the real-life places from long ago, my favorite destination lies just a block off of the main street…

World's Largest Rosebush museum

At first glance, you would never know that a famous plant resides beyond the front door of this historic inn that is now a museum. However, it is in the backyard of this building, the “Rose Tree Inn”, which lies the “World’s Largest Rosebush“.

Due to my love of roses, and having heard of this famous rosebush I am excited to see it in person.

World's Largest Rosebush museum

As you walk into the little museum, you feel as if you have stepped back into time within its rose-scented interior. As I venture toward the back where the rosebush is, my first impression is of a beautifully shaded patio area.

rosebush create dappled shade.

Over the patio, the outer branches of the rosebush create dappled shade.

As you make your way toward the main part of the rose bush, the sheer enormity of its size begins to be evident.  

twisted trunk of the rosebush.

In the center of the branches, you can see the large, twisted trunk of the rosebush.

It is really hard to get the scale of how big it is from pictures – but look at how small the door looks off to the right side.

World's Largest Rosebush museum

Now, see how big it looks with me next to it in the picture, above. Note – I am fairly tall at 5’9″.

shady underneath World's Largest Rosebush

The trunk is approximately 12-feet around and very shaggy with strips bark falling off. It definitely looks old.

This photo is taken with a flash, which lights up the area considerably. In actuality, it is very shady underneath.

rose bush story

Even when you stand right next to it, you can’t quite believe the enormous size.

This rosebush is not only the world’s largest – but it is also very old. For that reason, the history of the rosebush and how it came to be in Tombstone is quite interesting.

World's Largest Rosebush museum

History

Then the rose came from Scotland in 1887, which makes it over 130 years old. A young Scottish immigrant and her husband moved to Tombstone in 1885.  Her family sent their homesick daughter a box filled with cuttings of her favorite rosebush from home.

She gave one of the cuttings to her friend, Amelia Adamson. Together they planted the rosebush in back of Amelia’s boarding house where it has obviously flourished in its new surroundings.

Years later, the rosebush began to get attention with its large size. Consequently, it was declared the world’s largest in the 1930’s.

Now, the Tombstone rosebush reaches over 8,000 square feet!  

 view of the rosebush

To get an overall view of the rosebush, you walk to the other side where there are steps to climb. Because the only part you see underneath the patio are its branches, the view from above is quite different. As a result, you have a clear view of the lacy foliage and flowers in the spring.

World's Largest Rosebush museum

Can you imagine how beautiful this would look in bloom? It is said that roses absolutely cover the entire upper part of the rosebush with fragrant, white flowers…

 Lady Bank's rose

This is a close-up of the flowers from a different Lady Bank’s rose.

World's Largest Rosebush museum

As you can imagine, holding up a rosebush this large isn’t easy. Therefore, metal rods form a checkerboard pattern that are large wooden posts hold up.

 bird's nest on World's Largest Rosebush

I spot a bird’s nest within the branches.

After I finish with my photos, I stroll back into the museum where I notice row of small rose bushes.

cutting for sale of World's Largest Rosebush

Above them is this sign…

World's Largest Rosebush museum

Well, I don’t describe myself as an ‘impulse buyer’,  I just have to buy a cutting from this historic plant.

World's Largest Rosebush

I do have a good spot for it where it can grow up on the wall in my side yard. Because it can’t climb without support, I will provide a trellis for it to grow up on.  Lady Bank’s roses also make great ground covers.

Although this rosebush was an impulse buy, it requires less maintenance than more traditional roses. I certainly can’t wait to grow a piece of the world’s largest rosebush!

Colorful Plants, Spiky Pots, Snakes, Roses and the Prom!

I hope you enjoyed the grand tour of my edible garden that I created in my side yard.

Today, I would like to show what is happening in my original vegetable garden…

my edible garden

As you can see, there is a lot growing in this area.

Among the vegetables is a giant sunflower, pots filled with ornamental plants AND vegetables and hollyhocks that have finished flowering can be seen alongside the garden.

Off to the right side, you can see my container corn.

And yes, those are plastic patio chairs inside my vegetable garden.  (I’ll explain why later.)

vegetable garden

This edible garden is actually made up of three parts.  My original vegetable garden was a fenced in square space.  Like many gardeners who like to grow their own food, I realized that I needed more space – so we added on an extension a couple of years ago…

vegetable garden

The third part of my edible garden consists of vegetables growing in containers along with ornamental plants…

my edible garden

I currently have zucchini growing in the closest pot along with a jalapeño plant, parsley and sweet potato vines.

The middle pot is filled with a Thai pepper plant, chives, cucumber, celosia and kangaroo paw.

The third (and my most favorite container) has a bell pepper plant, cinnamon basil, green & purple sweet potato vines, dianthus and angelita daisy growing inside.

my edible garden

The outer vegetable garden is filled with sunflowers and bush beans.

Our family loves to eat ‘string beans’.  They are easy to grow and to freeze for later.

vegetable garden

Here is something that you may not know about growing beans.  “They make their own nitrogen, so you don’t need to add any nitrogen fertilizer.”

In fact, if fertilize them with a fertilizer that contains nitrogen – it can cause them to grow beautiful leaves, but not beans.  That is because there needs to be a balance between the other major nutrients – phosphorus and potassium.

If you do apply a fertilizer, make sure that contains a low amount of nitrogen.

vegetable garden

I have lots of cucumbers growing in the original vegetable garden along with a couple of pumpkin plants.

As a child, I grew up calling cucumbers ‘gurkens’, which is what they are called in German.  I spent some time when I was young, in Germany, visiting my grandparents while my grandfather was working over there.

I love cucumbers and we eat them 3 or 4 times a week.

cucumber plants

It can be a little hard to spot ripe cucumbers.  Most of my cucumber plants are growing up onto the trellis, but sometimes you can find cucumbers growing on the ground.  You need to move the leaves aside to see them.

I like to eat cucumbers with salad, using my grandmother’s top secret’ salad dressing recipe.

I only wish that I could grow cucumbers and leaf lettuce at the same time….  

vegetable garden

Okay, back to the patio chairs sitting in my garden.

Why on earth would I place chairs in my garden?

Well, they are an easy way to provide shade for vegetables that quickly wilt in the full sun.

And so, that is what is going on in my edible gardens this summer.

**I am excited to share with you a gardening video that I made for Troybilt as a part of my involvement with the ‘Saturday 6″.

I’ll debut it for you on Monday 🙂

Earlier this week, I shared with you the first garden on the Arcadia Edible Tour.  It was just wonderful to see the Sweet Life Garden in person.

However, we had to tear ourselves away from the first garden because there were more to see…

Micro Farm

We stopped by Larry’s “Living the Dream Micro Farm”.  

Arcadia Edible Tour

Like many of the gardens we visited, Larry had chickens.

But, what really caught my attention was his row of trash can compost bins.  

trash cans

Each trash can was filled with compost in a different stage.  The trash cans are re-purposed by the City of Phoenix and are available to their residents for $5 a bin.   Other cities offer free or inexpensive trash cans or compost bins.  Check your local city’s website under waste management to see what they offer.

Larry loved talking about his composting.  He primarily uses chicken manure, coffee ground and leaves.  It takes approximately 2 1/2 months from start to finish according to Larry.

tomato plants

Larry had huge tomato plants growing, heavily laden with fruit (yes, tomatoes are technically a fruit).

Bird Cage

After leaving Larry’s garden, my mother asked to stop by Baker’s Nursery, which is her favorite place to buy vegetables.  Baker’s is the favorite nursery of locals and is located on 40th Street, South of Indian School Rd.

Arcadia Edible Tour

The problem with me going to a nursery as nice as Baker’s, is that I become like a child in a candy store.

Arcadia Edible Tour

I always come home with plants and seeds.  In this case, I bought more bush beans for my garden along with some perennial flowers and Angelita Daisy.

Back on tour, we saw some great examples of vegetables being grown.

Eggplant

Eggplant.

Arcadia Edible Tour

Aren’t these cucumber vines impressive?  The trellis is made up of rebar and wire mesh.

cucumber flowers

I think cucumber flowers are so pretty, don’t you?

vegetable garden

I do love the bright colors of blanket flower, which attract pollinators to the vegetable garden.

Arcadia Edible Tour

I think vegetables are beautiful.

Arcadia Edible Tour

This may look like a green tomato – but it isn’t.  It’s a tomatillo.

Arcadia Edible Tour

Zucchini is so impressive in the vegetable garden. They grow so quickly and get so big.  I have them growing my garden too.  Now, I just have to get a recipe for chocolate zucchini cake so my kids will eat it 😉

Arcadia Edible Tour
Arcadia Edible Tour

I haven’t grown strawberries in my garden, although they are my favorite fruit. I spent time in Germany as a child with my grandparents who had a huge strawberry garden and one of my favorite memories is chasing the rabbits away.

I may have to try growing some next year.

In addition to fruit and vegetables, we did see a beautiful lily pond…  

Arcadia Edible Tour

And something quite unexpected…

Arcadia Edible Tour

That’s the thing with garden tours, you never know what you will see…

As you can tell, we were enjoying ourselves very much.

There was so much to see, that I still have one more post showing you some of our favorite parts of a few more gardens.

So come on back….you hear?

I love visiting other people’s gardens, particularly if they have fruit and vegetables growing in them. So, I was thrilled to be able to go on a tour of local ‘edible’ gardens earlier this month.

Arcadia Edible Garden

This is the second year of the Arcadia Edible Garden Tour, which is made up of a collection of residential gardens in the ‘Arcadia’ area in east Phoenix.  I used to live in this area and it is one of my favorite regions of the Phoenix metro area.

Because my mother loves gardening almost as much as I do, I decided to buy her a ticket too and take her with me as a Mother’s Day gift.

Our first stop was to see Jill’s Sweet Life Garden.  I made sure to visit there first because I had been following her blog and couldn’t wait to see her gardens in person.

Arcadia Edible Garden

As we entered the garden, We headed straight for the raised vegetable beds.

Arcadia Edible Garden

My mother and I love to grow leaf lettuce, so we had to see what varieties were being grown.

Arcadia Edible Garden

One of the reasons that I was excited to go on this garden tour, was to get ideas to use in my own garden.

Like, using regular wire mesh over the garden.  This would be great to use as a support for shade cloth in summer or frost cloth in the winter.  It is much more attractive then PVC supports.

The trellis is made of rebar and wire mesh and provides an attractive support for vining vegetables.

Arcadia Edible Garden

As many of you know, I love to grow nasturtiums alongside my vegetables.  They aren’t only pretty, they help to keep bad bugs away from my veggies.

This bed had a variety of nasturtium that I was anxious to try ‘Cherry Rose Jewel’ (I found seeds at Botanical Interests).  I will definitely be planting these next year.

Arcadia Edible Garden

As I was busy admiring the raised beds, my attention was drawn upward by a massive trumpet vine that was growing up a Phoenix date palm.

Arcadia Edible Garden

Talk about an unexpected support for a vine – I loved it.

I have been growing a special variety of corn in a half wine barrel.  

cucumbers

Sweet Life Garden had cucumbers growing in a barrel with a beautiful trellis.

Baker’s Nursery had these wine barrel trellises available, but I’m not sure if they still do.  You could certainly make your own.

sunflowers

In addition to cucumbers, sunflowers were also growing in a barrel.  I may have to try this.

Arcadia Edible Garden

I love growing herbs in pots, but I think Jill’s look better then mine because of the half barrels.  I think I need to get more for my garden.

beautiful heirloom

Tomatoes were growing like crazy with some beautiful heirloom varieties ripening.

Arcadia Edible Garden

Wouldn’t this look beautiful on a sandwich or on a salad?

Arcadia Edible Garden

I think it is important to have seating areas scattered throughout the garden, which invites you to sit and enjoy your surroundings.

Arcadia Edible Garden

Here is another example of the wire mesh being used as a trellis.

Arcadia Edible Garden

For those of you who mourn the fact that they cannot grow leafy greens for their salad in summer – let me introduce you to Malabar spinach.

Okay, it’s not exactly a spinach but tastes great in salads and tastes like spinach when cooked.

It loves hot temperatures and needs a trellis for support.  I have seeds, but will probably wait until next year to plant mine.

The seeds can be a little hard to find at your local nursery, but you can buy some through Amazon.com for under a $1 – just type in Malabar spinach in the search.

Arcadia Edible Garden

Why limit yourself to growing just vegetables?

Fruit on shrubs and trees is also fun to grow as you can see from the large peach tree, above and the espaliered apple tree, below.

I especially enjoyed seeing the peach orchard. My peaches are almost ready for picking 🙂

Arcadia Edible Garden

I have been busy picking the blackberries off of my vines and have been thinking of adding more next winter.  

Arcadia Edible Garden

After seeing the berries at Sweet Life Garden, I will definitely add more to my own garden.

Did you know that there is a thornless variety?  I have one thorny blackberry bush and the rest are thornless.  Guess which kind I like best?

Arcadia Edible Garden

It was time to wrap up our visit because there were more gardens to visit.

Arcadia Edible Garden

Did I mention that they have chickens too?

On our way out, we enjoyed seeing a variety of products offered by Sweet Life Garden and local vendors.

Sweet Life Garden
Sweet Life Garden

I had already eaten breakfast, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying a few samples.

Sweet Life Garden
Sweet Life Garden

The three-cheese black pepper bread came home with me.

Sweet Life Garden

We had a great time visiting Jill, at Sweet Life Garden.

But, our adventure didn’t end there.  There were more gardens to visit.  I will give you the highlights of the other gardens in my next post.

**You can find information about the Arcadia Edible Garden Tour on Jill’s blog, Sweet Life Garden.  Be sure to order early next spring, when tickets are available.

Arcadia Edible Tour: Part 2