my garden

I don't know if it's my illusion: this summer is very rainy, and it rains every day for a week or two. For those who raise roses, rain is both a blessing and a burden. There are many natural nutrients in rainwater, which is extremely beneficial for the growth of roses. If the interval between the two rains does not exceed four hours, you may not hit it, and if you hit it, it will be washed away by the rain. I am often lazy in the rainy weather, so the leaves of some roses are inevitably black and speckled. No wonder it is said that the ornamental quality of roses in summer is far less than that in spring and autumn.

I started growing flowers in October last year. A friend of mine for many years saw the photo of the terrace I posted and asked me how I planned to arrange it. I said I had no idea, and she said, why don't I send you a few rose seedlings, anyway? Your place is so big, it's empty and empty. To be honest, at that time, I didn't even have a concept of what roses looked like, and it was impossible to think that I would raise dozens of varieties later.

She sent me a few links: nutrient soil, chicken manure, ceramsite, gallon pots, and let me buy them accordingly. When I saw these, I was stunned. I thought that planting flowers was nothing more than digging some garden soil downstairs, burying the seeds, and watering them every day. She explained to me little by little that it is difficult to grow roses with ordinary garden soil, because it is not breathable, so it is necessary to use nutrient soil; gallon pots are not very good, but at least they are better than ceramic pots, and they are cheaper. If you put ceramsite on it, it will not be easy to accumulate water and avoid the rotten roots of the rose; chicken manure belongs to the organic fertilizer with relatively strong fertilizer effect and is used as a base fertilizer. When the rose seedlings and these equipments arrive, I will follow her instructions: first put a layer of ceramsite on the bottom of the pot, sprinkle a layer of nutritious soil, then sprinkle a layer of chicken manure, and then put the soil, and wait until the soil is almost formed. high, put the plant in and bury the roots.

She sent me five varieties of roses: Zhenzhou, Feather, Monet, Japanese room and Kongmeng, among which Kongmeng has buds, the others are bare rods. I don't know if I can survive, but the arrival of these roses has inspired my ambition. I started to look around this patio, and I stopped thinking about other arrangements, I just wanted to fill it with plants and turn it into a garden.

Because it is on the top floor, there is no problem with lighting, but I didn't know much about the habits of various plants at that time. This terrace is divided into two floors. The first floor is actually the second floor of the house. Going up the stairs, there is an attic of more than ten square meters, equipped with a bathroom. When I pushed the door and went out, I saw an open space. I installed a sink at the back, bought a long table with water patterns and Bordeaux chairs, and used it as a leisure area. There is a curved stone chair or stone platform on the right side of the leisure area, which is just above the curved half-floor window in my room. I didn't think about it when I was decorating it. Master Lin covered it with brown of the same color as the side. It's a small red brick, so it can't be used as a chair to sit on, otherwise it would be a bit rude. I put a few roses with good potting soil there.

On the north side of the attic, there is a small area, and at the end is the pavilion where the stone table and chairs are located. I bought some black iron racks and placed them side by side on the wall. One of them was three-tiered and one was two-tiered. I put the plants on them, just in the right heights. There is a stainless steel staircase on the side of the attic, which can go up to the second floor. The cement lumps on the second floor have been almost removed by oxalic acid. My mother wanted to dry clothes here, but the drying rack couldn't take up all the space in it. Later, I used the second floor as the healing area for Chinese roses, because this is where the sun is most abundant.

At that time, what I most wanted to plant was not a rose, but a tree. Whether it can bear fruit or not is a secondary concern. The most important thing is the lush foliage. With such a big terrace, why can't I have such a desire? I looked around on the Internet, and they all said that the lemon tree is the best. It has a fragrant fragrance, a good appearance, and the fruit is edible. I bought one and matched it with a white diamond-shaped cement pot. In the beginning, I didn’t have my own opinion. I just bought whatever was good on the Internet, so I bought Daffodil, White Palm, Mosaic and Lacquer, Golden Twig and Jade Leaf, Rhododendron, Jasmine, Gardenia, and twelve more. Plant herbs. These habits are not the same. The succulent and golden branches and jade leaves are succulent and do not need frequent watering. It is best not to expose them to the sun; Duckfoot and white palm do not like direct light, so it is best to keep them indoors and water them. The frequency is slightly higher than that of succulents; Rhododendron, jasmine and gardenia like light and water and sour, it is best to add some ferrous sulfate when watering, and there is no problem in drying them; mosaics are also light-loving and water-loving, and the leaves will also The color changes with the amount of sunlight; as for those herbs, they are simply water absorbing machines. If it is not for the small basin with its own absorbent cotton rope (the so-called lazy basin), it is basically watered every day.

The most frustrating thing is that the habits of these plants and roses are all different, and roses are the easiest to raise to death. Too much water is not good, it is easy to accumulate water and rot the roots, too much fertilizer is not good, it is easy to burn the seedlings, the soil and pots are not breathable, and it is easy to smother the roots. Shade is required), at least for more than four hours. The five varieties sent by a friend, Kongmeng was seriously damaged after the flowers bloomed. Zhenshu, Feather and Monet all sprout. Only the Japanese room did not move, and it gradually turned black until the whole plant died. Probably over watered.

After the National Day, I suddenly got inspiration and wanted to use the canopy to make a flower waterfall. It’s not that I haven’t thought about making a flower wall, but the only wall on the terrace that is suitable for making a flower wall faces north, and it can hardly enjoy any light. I can only choose shade-tolerant climbing plants, and there are not many choices. The most famous climbing plant in Shenzhen is bougainvillea. Not only can it be seen everywhere on the side of the road, but many people also love it. The bougainvillea next door has a large branch extending over the open space beside our terrace. The flowers are so large that the branches are bent. I want to do it all the time, just use the rose roses to make the waterfall, and the candidates are the red Lonza gems and the blue rain. Later, the red dragon went dormant after blooming one flower, and the blue rain can only do its part. I was worried that the blue rain would also stop the vegetables, so I bought two more pots.

In addition, I bought two more trees, a jacaranda and a cherry tree, imagining that one will grow like an umbrella in the future, and fall into a colorful place at a certain season. The ping pong chrysanthemum in pink and light green is mainly used as an embellishment of garden colors. Green apple arrowroot and rainbow arrowroot, together with duck foot wood and white palm, are placed on the north-facing balcony on the first floor. My parents couldn't stand the loneliness either. They brought back two giants from the flower and grass market, a pot of rhododendron pine and a pot of cardinal coral. I complained that they destroyed the harmony of the garden. At that time, major platforms were burning money to seize the market of community group buying. My mother began to enjoy the happiness of buying a pot of flowers for a few yuan, and successively added twenty or thirty kinds of flowers and plants to the family.

After growing flowers, researching materials and taking care of all kinds of flowers and plants took up the bulk of my spare time. I bought the "Encyclopedia of Gardening" published by the British Royal Horticultural Society, and a "Guide to the Design and Construction of Small Space Gardens" written by a Japanese, but the most direct source of information is still online gardening bloggers. In terms of fertilizers, in addition to Huaduoduo No. 1 and No. 2, I also bought NPK ternary compound fertilizer (granules), potassium dihydrogen phosphate, ferrous sulfate, sheep manure, but I did not buy Aolu. Medicines cost the most money. At first, I only bought a set of rose guards, a bottle to kill red spiders, a bottle of sterilization, and a bottle of insecticide. Next, I purchased Muwangte, Pyridamit, Spirofenac and Avi, Etoxazole for killing red spiders, imidacloprid for killing thrips, chlorothalonil and mancozeb for preventing fungal diseases, Shigao and Take the enemy to deal with black spot and powdery mildew, Pythium specifically for gray mold. Not to mention garden shears, watering cans, watering cans, shovels and nail rakes.

Even with the tools in place, the process can be arduous. It is said that if you haven't seen a red spider, you can't raise a rose. Who would have guessed that my perfume lemon would be the hardest hit by the red spider? At first, I used Muwangte and Huaxiajing from Rose Guard, thinking that it should be fine if I use them alternately two or three times, but after a while, they will come back again. Later, I flushed it with water, but the symptoms were cured but not the root cause. Often, the water would come back after it dries up, so I could only spray water repeatedly in the morning, noon and evening. For leaves that have been eaten by red spiders, the center of the leaf surface will begin to turn yellow, and it will gradually spread. To a certain extent, the leaves can only be cut off. A good lemon tree has only bare branches after two months. I put it in the corner of the garden, and it can still get rain, but it has not been taken care of. It struggled for nearly half a year before dying with hatred.

Of course, the rose was even more worry-free. Kongmeng, Honglong and Juliet went dormant after blooming once, and it was only mid-November, and they didn't know how to wake them up. Three pots of blue rain, the branches and leaves have grown a lot, and sometimes shoot buds will grow, but the flower buds are not seen. I once suspected that I bought a fake product, and I heard that the blue rain bloomed in Guangdong by luck. Some Human-raised blue rain will not bloom until death. The only thing that makes people hopeful is Zhen Zhou, which is the best growing from the beginning, but it is a kind of rose that can be irrigated, and the branches are easy to grow old, wasting a lot of nutrients. It was not until late November that I saw the first flower I planted, and the flower shape was not full, and it was slightly shriveled.

The turning point in the garden came with two friends. One wanted to move, and a few roses could not fit in their new home, so he thought of giving them to me. A friend of mine like me recommended a flower shop to me, who is called "Help Master" by Jianghu people. The first ones sent were Mashu, Misaki and Blue Storm. Her real universe is really big, like an old pile, the middle one is so thick and high that it hangs down; Misaki is also an old pile, and the shape is quite a nine-curved ileum; the blue storm is normal, but it does not bloom , but it is not open now. I went to watch the live broadcast of the gang master and photographed many good seedlings for about ten yuan, such as romantic baby, herbal, vine rainbow, Mercedes, Newman sisters, Como, Mrs. Charlotte, romantic baby, vine Rainbow and Lady Charlotte are also Fujimoto. The second friend changes a batch of flowers every once in a while. She gave me the red intuition, retro brown, Eve (three pots), feathers, Japanese room, juice balcony, and latte that she had raised. Became a big bloomer in my garden.

I learned a lot of useful crafts from the helper, such as pruning. For roses, pruning is extremely important. If you don't prune after flowering, then your rose will be greatly delayed when it blooms again. The correct post-flower pruning is to choose a five-petal leaf with a full bud point at the bottom under the flower, and cut it off the first centimeter of it. Pruning is also the main shaping method. The ideal shaping is to make most of the branches grow at a similar height, like the potted tree above. After the middle one has bloomed, I will cut it off by the middle. Pruning should also cut dead branches, weak branches, blind branches, and cross branches. Needless to say about the first two, blind branches are those branches with black buds, which are generally caused by lack of fertilizer and light. The pruning method is similar to pruning after flowering. The pruning of cross branches has both aesthetic considerations and health considerations. If the cross branches are not cut off, the inside of the plant will be too dense with branches and leaves, and there will be no ventilation, and bacteria and insect pests will easily breed. Pruning can be addictive, because the feeling of dominating the fate of plants is also a manifestation of the desire for power. With one cut, the growth of the plant for a long period of time will be affected, so it must be restrained. Pruning when the weather is bad in winter and spring can also cause bruises.

After the first floor of the terrace could not fit, I put some that have not grown open to the second floor. The flowers on the second floor gradually increased, and I began to think about planning it more carefully. The blue cloudy rain still has long leaves and no flowers, but the branches are gradually sturdy, and the three pots are comparable, so I plan to repot them all. It was originally a two-gallon pot, and it was best to replace it with a three-gallon pot, but I only had one three-gallon pot and two five-gallon pots. too much. I placed a pot in each of the three positions on the patio near the canopy, left, center, and right, and began to shape them. This is a process of groping slowly, because I have not seen similar cases on the Internet. I kept the three to four thickest branches in each pot, cut off the rest, and pulled these branches down along the angle of the canopy, securing them with wire in the middle. If the pots are taken out individually, they are all quite strange shapes. Each branch is like a parabola, and the parabola has branches. But the waterfall is just beginning to take shape.

Slowly, I also tasted other sweetness. After moving in, I bought a pot of Apple Eucalyptus and a pot of Silver Water Drop Eucalyptus. The Apple Eucalyptus was placed on the bar in the study, which greatly enhanced the surrounding style. The silver water droplets are growing rapidly. Before the Spring Festival, I changed it to the white diamond-shaped cement pot of the lemon tree, which just matched the camellia I bought at home. In addition to the real universe, other roses are also in full bloom. In the beginning, it was Misaki, and Monet also opened one. After the Spring Festival, there is a tendency for a crowd to compete for beauty. Dozens of buds are knotted on the feathers, forming an army of their own. Eve and retro brown are not too much. Although there are not many buds, they are better than big and full. The romantic baby and Mrs. Charlotte are growing gratifyingly, and the plant type is Zhou Zheng, and they are the leaders of the new generation. Mercedes and herbs, for no reason, pulled out some strong bamboo shoots from the bottom, and the flowers also bloomed, which caught people off guard. However, the most amazing thing is the red intuition. When it first arrived at my house, it was already 1.23 meters tall, similar to the second tree. When the feathers were all over the bud, it only quietly knotted eight or nine, and I didn't care much. When its first flower bloomed, I didn't know it had such remarkable strength. The red intuition flower is the largest flower in this garden. At first glance, it looks like an ordinary red rose, but the petals are covered with textures of different shades, like clouds, and naturally have an extravagance.

It was the appearance of red intuition that stimulated my yearning for the art of flower arrangement. Because of its thick and tough texture and straight branches, it is naturally a material for flower arrangement, unlike Misaki and feathers, which have fragile petals and soft branches without much plasticity. Silver drop eucalyptus is suitable for use as a foil, and the dark gray-green tone is almost versatile. I have bought many vases, among which the "mixed juice" oil orange bottle is my favorite. The toughness, shape and color of the flower, the size, texture and shape of the vase, the matching objects, and the surrounding environment are all important for flower arrangements. I am ashamed to say that I have not produced any good works at present, I can only entertain myself, but the way of planting flowers and arranging flowers by myself gives me a sense of pride in integrating life and art.

Some friends don't understand this. When they see me planting flowers, they say, "You are living in middle-aged and old age?" The performance, but those who have seen "Chrysanthemum and the Knife" will not say so easily. Modern people are always used to dividing life into "public sphere" and "private sphere", or to divide freedom into "positive liberty" and "negative liberty", even in Rawls's "political liberalism", the democratic public The belief in cultural and personal wholeness also appears to be fragmented. From recent research, I feel more and more that this distinction is unreasonable for Chinese people. Isn't there any publicity in individual life itself? Living your own life well is the best way to protect your own mental strength, it is also the foundation of accumulating strength, it is the resistance to injustice at the micro level, and it is also to overcome this era on your own.

Since planting flowers, my perception and understanding of the world has changed a bit. Before, I only knew about red, orange, yellow, green, blue, blue, and purple, and it seemed that each color was completely different. Now I personally experience that they are a continuous spectrum. For example, it is said on the Internet that Misaki's flowers are pink, Kongmeng and Blue Cloudy Rain are blue-purple, but in fact, when rose nutrients and light are insufficient, Misaki will also bloom white flowers, Kongmeng will be lavender, and blue Rain can even turn pink. They also occasionally "teach me to be human". Monet, who was given to him by a friend, got "root nodules" after opening a flower, which is said to be a cancer of plants. I seriously performed an operation on it, cut off the tumor at the root with a knife, and then disinfected it with bactericide. After a month, the tumor grew again. I think it should be out of care and no longer maintain it, but my mother doesn't know it, and she still waters it occasionally. In this way, this Monet actually survived, and more than a dozen buds were bloomed. While most of the nutrients are absorbed by the root nodules, it still grows and blooms indomitably. Such tenacious vitality can not help but make me respect it.

Planting flowers, if the purpose is too strong, will always disappoint yourself. When I was full of ambition and planned to grow a plant, several roses died one after another in the rainy season. Among them, the feathers with the most force in the Spring Festival, the calm and solid retro brown, and the juice balcony that is said to be the best. But if you let go of your obsessions, they can often surprise you. Jasmine and gardenia were less than a gallon when I bought them. From October to the Spring Festival, they hardly grew long. I thought they would die soon, but after the Spring Festival, they suddenly broke out, and they were replaced twice in three months. When I changed the pot for the second time, I looked at the root system. It was thick and dense, and it was unusually strong. Now Jasmine has become the light of the terrace.

Last month, the blue rain finally grew buds, breaking the curse that Guangdong is not suitable for blue rain. Their branches gradually advanced along the canopy and branched, and some of them hung down from the canopy. Although they had not yet formed a waterfall, they were already the water in the sky, which comforted me.