Busy time in the garden. I’ve been piddling along out there lately, doing little jobs and thinking strategy for the fall. This past week I had some time, the weather cooled down, and I was on a roll.
I have lots of potted plants, mostly succulents, that are tired and need to be repotted or pitched out. I consolidated some of them into bigger pots and I think I might have a little plant sale with the plants I’m not in love with anymore.
I’m trying to make a space so I can get a couple of chickens, but I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me before that’s going to happen. The big cedar tree in the front will provide one perimeter of the chicken enclosure, but right now the tree is surrounded by bicycles so I have to move some things around out there. I bought a bamboo fence and Mi Esposo helped me get it placed today. I filled in a big space with more gravel which cleaned up the area tremendously. I love crushed gravel! Instant fix.
Last weekend I got a lot of flowerbed cleanup and fertilizing done. The climbing rose beds got raked out and I applied Ada Perry’s Rose Fertilizer. I think Ada Perry’s fertilizer has been the secret to the big difference I see in the health of the rose bushes since I’ve started applying it. Walter Andersen’s Nursery is the exclusive nursery to buy Ada Perry’s if you are in the market for it. Anyway, I finished off the beds with worm castings from my own compost bins! Nice!
I still have things to move around out there but it was a good start. I’m loving the cool weather because I know it’s not going to last. It stayed cool like this last year until mid-August, then the heat hit with a vengeance for a few months. Threw my whole gardening calendar out of whack. Keeps things interesting, that’s for sure!
Tagged as:
Ada Perry,
Ada Perry's Rose Fertilizer,
fertilizing,
roses
A few days back I posted This Month’s Garden Jobs and made reference to a rose fertilizer I had purchased called Ada Perry’s Rose Fertilizer. I bought a bag of this months ago at Walter Andersen’s Nursery just because I hadn’t seen it before and it looked interesting. The name Ada Perry didn’t mean anything to me at the time, but since I bought the fertilizer, her name has been popping up on a regular basis.
A couple of months ago I was doing some research and I came across some old newspaper articles written by Ms Perry for the San Diego Union Tribune. She wrote her gardening column for over 22 years. She was a contributor to California Garden magazine as well. I’ve also learned that she hosted what was probably the first radio “garden show” in San Diego.
Ada worked at Walter Andersen Nursery for many years. Her first love was roses and she developed her own special formula for feeding them. She developed this combo over time after testing on her own roses. After her death, Walter Andersen Nursery pre-mixed the list of ingredients specified by Ada and they now sell it under the name of “Ada Perry’s Magic Formula”.
If you don’t have an opportunity to drop by Walter Andersen Nursery for this mix, you can create your own with the following recipe: 1 Cup mined gypsum; 1/2 Cup blood meal; 1/2 Cup fishbone meal; 1/4 soil sulfur; 1/4 Cup Sul-Po-Mag (0-0-22); 2 TBSP chelated iron or iron sulfate; & 1 TBSP Epsom salts. Multiply the above ingredients by the number of roses you need to fertilize. Feed each rose 2-1/2 Cups of this mix after your January pruning. Reapply in June.
Ada had some plants named after her: a begonia, an iris, a fuchsia, and a miniature rose that has been called one of the highest rated, hybridized miniature roses developed.
The latest issue of California Garden ran an article about Ada from its archives. It was a nice article to read and rounded out my knowledge of Ada Perry. I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet this lady who sounds like she was interesting, a creative gardener and a good friend. But I can think about all this when I’m spreading Ada Perry’s Magic Formula around my roses.
If you haven’t read This Month’s Garden Jobs that I posted a few days back, check it out. There is work to be done!
Tagged as:
Ada Perry,
fertilizer,
roses
