The Potting Pen

It’s no secret that I’m inspired by pretty much everything Brooke & Steve Giannetti do, but I’m especially inspired by their beautiful way of life at their home, Patina Farm.  Patina Farm is one of my all-time favorite books and I just love looking through it for inspiration.

obsessed!!

It turned me back onto attempting roses, which I’ve always had trouble keeping mite-free and alive.  Brooke & Steve’s climbing roses are absolutely incredible though and their photos were just too gorgeous for me not to try it again.  So out we went to get some climbing roses… I went with white and yellow varieties and popped them right into the gravel.  They bloomed away and I had no clue how to really keep them healthy (there is SOOO much info online to wade through I just wasn’t sure what was for the overachievers and what was actually needed.)…

yellow roses from the pen on our table

… so I posted a photo of my roses (above) and asked my Instagram buddies what the best solution was for keeping them healthy and I got it from a lot of trusty sources (thank you guys!!) that the easiest thing to do is to spray them weekly with an organic 3-in 1 insecticide, fungicide and fertilizer.  ( I got  a neem oil one from our garden center) …And then I think I’m also supposed to feed them with an additional fertilizer every now and then but I haven’t gotten to that part yet.

Getting those mites!!!

…Well anyway, the summer hit and we started traveling and I neglected spraying my roses and came home to little more than stems and sticks!!! THE MITES!!!!!  Most of the leaves were either gone or bitten through and the poor roses were on their last legs.  (Ugh I’m the worrrrrst!!!)  Anyway, I started spraying away religiously over the past month and it’s CRAZY how quickly they’ve started coming back!!  They’re by no means awesome again but I can see how hard they want to live!!!  (Is it weird this whole situation has made me like them more?? I’m pretty impressed by their tenacity lol.)

trying to get the roses to come back!!!

You can see in the photo below that I’m literally spraying bare stems at this point

We had some blooms last week and they’re still blooming (veeeery slowly now compared to earlier this summer when I was a good garden mom to them) so I’m just going to keep at it and hope that when they come back next spring, they’ll be strong and healed up again.  (I’ve still got to figure out that “feeding” part of the equation before then though!!)

I love hanging in the pen and the kids and pups play a lot on that little area of driveway in front of it (the garage is on the other side) and the older boys have a lacrosse bounce back right behind it so it’s a good little spot to putter around with the plants in while we all hang out.  (It’s weird but we also sometimes hang out in our garage… I’ve started dreaming about expanding out kitchen into it one day so I could have a wall with glass doors looking out onto the potting pen and do more herbs in there and maybe even add some raised beds for herbs and a fountain on the driveway portion…  I’d just want to leave enough space for the kids/ dogs to play…  I’m a long ways from that but I’ve been simmering on it.)

Anyway, have a beautiful weekend & see you next week!! xo