Back to the Garden

My frustration with - I suppose - MY inability to use Blogger continues - can't get more than one photo in a post without them mixing up, getting out of order, or lining up, side by side, at the top, rather than where I want to use them to illustrate my very important words. Aah well. This photo at least illustrates TWO things, the snowballs planted three years ago in the former driveway which circumnavigated the house - until we decided that we needed wind protection on the North more than we needed to be able to get from the upper to the lower driveway (or vice-versa) through the yard. This is the first year that there have been any amount of blooms on them, and, because they're in the shade (on the North side of the house) they bloomed later, and stayed longer, than their bigger parents on the South. We planted several things there at that time, including alders to improve the soil, a lilac, and a Rosa Glauca. There were blooms on the lilac as well, and they were double ones - I can not recall buying a hybrid lilac but I MUST have, because while it is the same colour as the common ones, the bloom was hybrid - huge, double, and later than the commons.
The shawl is Haruni, in Malabrigo laceweight (it's a single-ply 100% merino wool from South America and is very popular on Ravelry). It has a very simple allover lace pattern in the body, and a very fancy edge with big doubled leaves which cause the shawl to curve a bit (meaning it's bigger than a simple triangle, I suppose). It's quite a tiny shawl, a shawlette really, and quite warm because of the wool. I got the yarn at Romni Wools in Toronto.

Injuries won't prevent me.

I've injured my pointer finger! I think it could be knitting, although it could also be a mixture of knitting and computer. Anyway, I've been being careful and it's getting better. On Sunday I could hardly move my hand. And it's too bad if I can't knit, because (as usual) I have approximately a zillion projects on the go at once. I think I should work on the lace, since it is so loose that there's no strain at all. According to web info on RSI, I have to develop some better habits in posture for knitting, and do warm-ups immersed in hot water. Must try it!

Got more of the vegetable garden in last night - potatoes, more tomatoes, and zucchini are prominent hangers-back. I'm missing seed for the first and last, and the tomatoes I planted from seed are still a bit wee for the garden yet. I bought some more cleome and alyssum as well as a white geranium and a purple sweet-potato vine to fill up another pot - I found an identical pot to one I'd just planted, and felt I should make it match. The geranium is one I saved from last year, and it still isn't blooming, but I fear it's pink and not white. Ah well. Almost matching.

The First Rose was about three days ago - it's the rugosa at the end of the snowball hedge, as usual. It gets the morning sun, and then lots of sun for the rest of the day as well. There are some blooms coming up fast on the Philemon Cochet and the David Thompson as well. I have some dreadful bug attacking the roses on the rose mound - all of them , even the rugosas. It chews the tip of the branch just as the bud is forming, and kills it - or it is so mis-shapen that it doesn't bloom. I don't know if the bug's still there but I do squish the tips - I HOPE I'm killing it. I must look at my rose books for info. There's no sign of anything when I look closely, so I suspect it's munched and gone. And there's none on the roses elsewhere which makes me think the mound is infected with something. Merde.