I was looking for something to put in front of the deck railing to spruce things up a little bit.  One day, a few weeks ago while on my lunch break, I bought two yellow rose bushes at the Home Depot for $1.00 each.  They were really in rough shape when I took them home.  They were really wilted and it looked like they had not been watered in many days.  I didn’t really think they had a chance, but for one dollar, how could I go wrong.  Often the nursery people that supply Home Depot are on sight.  What people don’t know is that anything that is not sold by the end of the landscaping season usually gets pitched in the dumpster.  If you want some good deals, now is the time, and don’t be afraid to negotiate.

The rose bushes have come back nicely:

When I planted them, I shoveled plenty of compost from our compost pile into the hole and mixed it well with the soil.  This is typical hard pan, a mostly clay and rock soil deposited by the Wisconsin glaciation on its last run through the area about 20,000 years ago.  In order to turn this into good topsoil, copious amounts of organic matter and sand need to be mixed into it.  The organic matter adds nitrogen and other nutrients.  The sand helps with drainage.

After copious watering, they are doing much better.  I hope that I planted them early enough to get the roots established before the first hard frost, which is likely about 2-3 weeks away.

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