the next gardening challenge

I finally have asparagus! It seems to be hard to start from seeds, so this year, I bought crowns from Gurney's and nine out of the ten are growing in my garden. (Strawberries are growing like weeds this year. I'm getting a handful of fresh strawberries every day now! I don't even want to mention the rhubarb; those plants are like weeds too. I need to harvest again already (3 weeks and probably a week overdue) before we get aphids like last year.)

Since I managed that, I chose my next challenge (after watching a talk by Monsignor Rossetti, whose mention of the Blessed Virgin Mary being shown with roses (hence, the Rosary) inspired me).... ROSES! In my devotion to Our Lady of the Rosary and because it's perfect for an area near the house that gets lots of sun and has been an eyesore of nothing, I decided to try growing roses as my next project.

Now, we live in zone 4 for growing, so finding the right plants can sometimes limit us, but I found a beautiful variety from Heirloom Roses called Prairie Harvest. It's a faintly yellow color that would look perfect next to our green siding. This shrub rose is supposed to endure winter, so I hope the money I spent and the time that we'll put into establishing them will be worth it.

This is a new challenge, but I'm up to it. I only hope the plants are too, because a full bloom of rose bushes would look beautiful near the house where there is nothing else to see on that side, which faces the road when you approach our house. So, it needed something more than the trellis with the grapes, which is about twenty feet away.

I'll post a separate update on the writing.

God bless!