Garden Progress

Well, I have some sad news about my garden. Of the two roses I bought and planted, only one of them has survived. It is doing well and has blossomed once and is about to bloom again! The other one wasn't showing much hope but then suddenly had new leaves. Then just as suddenly it wilted. There were no bugs, no break in the stem, no evidence of anything - I have no idea what happened. So now I have one, pink rose.

My dahlia that I was so proud of has also dried up. Ants built a nest around it. I tried to save it but the ants had already damaged it too much by the time we were able to buy insecticide...also the yellow dahlia and the hibiscus have since dried up. We had put them in the shade out of the sun but then I forgot to water them daily! My fault.

So here's what we decided. The hibiscus and jasmine either didn't root or rooted very slowly. We decided to buy those two already rooted and at a good size so that they would have a better chance in the war with our dogs. We bought 2 fragrant jasmines and two hibiscus. I wanted a pink hibiscus, but none of them had blooms on them so I guess we will be surprised! We also bought another that they called "Francelia." It must have another name because I can't find any pictures of it on the internet; the people here have nicknames for all the plants and rarely use the common or scientific names. Anyway, it is very pretty and has tiny flowers of both purple and white color!

Then after we bought those, we decided to go back and try to do the cuttings again, but better this time. None of the rose cuttings rooted, and since my other rose died, I only have one now. So I looked up some information and got two more rose cuttings, cut them at an angle and scraped away some of the flesh and planted it 6 inches deep so that plenty of leafbuds were buried (that's where the roots will grow from). They are beautiful, yellowish red roses, like this:
 
I also went back to cut more of my favorite dahlia (the one flower that got me started) and the bush was gone! They had cut it down completely! I am very upset because it was a pretty pink and yellow. I had to settle for the two other varieties that, of course, they had in abundance. A yellow one and a dark purple. I guess it's okay, they will still be pretty. And I cut another (pink) hibiscus, to give it another try, and in case the ones we bought turn out white or yellow!

I am excited to watch everything grow and can't wait to see everything in bloom. I just hope I don't have any more ant or dog problems!!! Ugh.