All about flowers

I like flowers, especially roses and tulips. When I lived in California, I grew 6 different kinds of roses on my patio. Through out late spring to late fall, I watered them in the morning before I went to work, and I shaped them in the evening when I come back home. When I cut those already fully opened flowers, I felt sorry for cutting them out from stems. Eventually, I found that I had so many-- I have to cut them to let the youngsters have a chance to grow, and I end up not having enough vests for all flowers and  have to put them in the mug. Everyday, I had about 300 flowers beautifully bloomed on my patio, and the flower season last for almost half of the year. Among them, Iceberg and Clamis Castle were the most perfect spices-- Iceberg are cute, and the beauty of a fully opened Clamis Castle will just take your breath away.

To me, Roses are probably the symbol of my peaceful life in north California. I adopted my cat Issac there. I was single for years and Annie visited me every six months. Her visits were longer and longer, and eventually she made her plan to stay. Weather in San Francisco is always dry and cool. Days and years went by without noticed. Life was easy but plain-- I finally felt I have to move on or I would wither and die down. I never thought I may not have chance to go back.

After four years in Maryland, I moved to Erie with M. I moved into a small house with a big backyard. I had a lot of pots from our wedding-- in Fall, I got a box of tulip bulbs and planted them in the pots. Winter was kind of mild according to Erie standard, but the frost came back several times in March. One of it destroyed the first group of tulips that was about to bloomed. I had only little left-- most of them are from Annie. whoever knows her can expected the tulips to be red-- since it is from Annie, the color have to be red! I never told her how amazing I felt about this-- she told me she hated color red when she was a kid because my grandma made her a lot of clothes in red so many that embarrassed her. I am not sure if she is ever aware of this: when she got old, she started to like this color.

We moved again last year to our new house. After recovering from C-section, I started to do a little of gardening in Fall. I got Poison Ivy when I planted these tulips-- and have to stop nursing. Those tulips came out beautifully this year! They probably are also delicious as a lot of rabbits came and ate them. M finally asked me to setup the fence-- according to him, if we do not set the fence, we probably just growing salad for those rabbits.

my choice of color-- pink. This stain also grows taller and bigger. 

My house in spring...

Oh I also grew these daffodil-- I was never a big fan but these looks nice.

Leonard is very curious about those tulips-- yes, the red ones are from last year. I moved them from the pot after moving here.

A rabbit at my house-- it looks like a kangaroo, isn't?

While the tulips was blooming, M and I went to get the roses I always wanted. I planed to grow them in my garden, only to find they already spurred. Eventually I planted them in the big pots just like the way we did in California. These climbing roses came out beautifully. The color are wonderful, and the shape are perfect! The only drawback is they attract a lot of japanese beetles. I use both traps and sprays at the same time, but still cannot get rid of them! Annie became an expert in flower cutting-- she competes with those japanese beetles and find the best timing to save those flowers. After each spraying, there are couple of peaceful days before those evil bugs came back. While the buds starts to form their shape and shows their color, japanese beetles came back. Annie also gears up so she can gets the flower first-- these roses are hers captures after one of the victory.

My enemy is enjoying lunch at my backyard!!

This is a climbing rose... I believe I choose white/cream color. I have no idea why it came out yellow!

The red one at the back is ours too. See how the shape and gesture are different between these two?