Yup, the yard sharks are migrating.
The neighborhoods around Redquarters seem to be having a serious surge in the yard shark population this year. One house had to post a big “No Swimming – Dangerous” sign. They have three big ones. Ours is pretty small, as you can tell by the photo, probably only a yard (meter) or so long.
This is a miniature rose bush. The entire plant is about two feet tall, and a spreads out a lot. The flowers are the miniature part. Each one is at most the size of an American quarter (fifty Euro cent coin). Apparently this year this one decided, “Heck, let’s outshine the big ones!” and cranked it up to eleven. In bright sunlight, the flowers are a dull, dark orange. This photo was shot around 0630 local time, so just after official sunrise.
As you can see, they really are orange.
Below are, well, climbers that won’t stay attached to the wall. I think I planted them too far out from the wall, so they decided to become shrub roses instead. The pink monster behind them IS a climber, and currently has canes sticking, oh, four feet over the eight foot wall.
The shrub roses (Knockout™) outside my office are all four-feet tall, except for the two yellow ones. None of the yellows in that brand have grown as fast as the reds and pinks. It could just be coincidence, or something with yellow roses in general. They tend to be a little fragile (aside from Harrison’s Yellow, which will beat aphids to death, laughs at Black Spot, and takes over if permitted to do so.)
Cat Rotator's Quarterly 
c4c
Took a minute for “yard shark” to register. Fun idea!
Yard Sharks? Sorry don’t get the joke.
Me either.
Look at the fin beside the rose bush. People have started getting those, and plunking them down in flowerbeds, and random spots in the lawn, then moving them around on occasion.
So, in autumn when the leaves die off, is that the horticultural equivalent of Sharknado?
😉
Sometimes it’s a Good Thing to be where “popular” ain’t.
It’s a cute way to keep people off the grass– a shark fin sticking up like the grass is water.
Plus, it’s just cute.
What are Knockout™ roses. Is that just the name of a strain, or are the GM for some tolerance or resistance?
Knockout™ is a brand of own-root, inexpensive, hardy, disease resistant shrub roses that bloom a lot on decent-to-OK care. Mine get benign neglect, are watered weekly, and do very well, as you can see. https://www.knockoutroses.com/about
Harrison’s sounds just about perfect, then.
(Fricking aphids.)
And then there’s the concrete half-alligators, that you can put on the lawn like they’re in a swamp….
Rose question: Mom for reasons of impulse buying bought a climbing rose this year. (Zone 3/4, bad impulse) Assuming it survives the summer in the pot by her door and I can plant it this fall, what should I know about climbers? There’s space in the microclimate by the proof-of-concept grapes (they don’t die but they don’t fruit either, not enough sun), or the current rose microclimate which is not as warm over winter as the grapes are but south instead of west facing. Yay for leaky older and newer walls!
Mom likes to line a bunch of usually hybrid teas up between the concrete sidewalk and the gravel driveway each year, in the plastic pots they’re sold in. The others are hanging in there, but the climber is looking really unhappy, leaves curling up and drying.
Last year’s roses (all hybrid teas) lost between thirty and seventy percent of their tops in spite of being mulched, and the worst of them keeps sending up below graft runners which I promptly cut off. This is really not a climate for delicate flowers.
The old wild roses and their slightly tamer cousin the Copper Penny (looks wild til it blooms, then the flowers are about twice as big as the wild) do well here, the pretty domestic roses struggle.
The climber is getting dry and the plastic pot is letting the roots get overheated. It needs more water, and probably a bigger pot.
When you transplant it (if it lives that long), water it daily for ten days (unless you are in a wet place already). Mulch 3-4″ around the base. The flowers will be on old growth, and don’t prune too early. In summer, keep a relatively thick mulch around it, and water 2-3 times per week (unless you get rain.) We tend to prune the climbers hard every two or three years, and remove dead canes on an as-needed basis. If it seems to do well, I’d recommend putting plant anchors on the wall before you need them. It’s easier when you are not trying to reach through/around the plant to get the hooks or brackets mounted.
Thanks!
Rain? What is this mystical substance you speak of?
The rose bed gets two hours of sprinkler twice a week. Maybe they’d like more . . . we’re just a week and a half from our last snow, so barely getting started on the watering season. High and dry up here.
You might tuck a cheap rain gauge in the bed and see how much water the plant(s) are actually getting. I’ve been surprised at times, because down here, water pressure varies a great deal, especially as we get into mid-summer.
(Knock on door)
“Who’s there?
(Whiny voice) “Uh, tanager.”
(Door opens)
“Landshark” (munch!)
SNL skits from 1975 onward, after “Jaws” was released, about the passive-aggressive landshark. Still mostly funny, and probably the best work Chevy Chase did.
Land sharks are a concern, but what is really worrisome: Sewer sharks.
Sewer sharks? What’s scary about sharks making clothes?
They make them for lawyers.
At cost, no doubt. Professional courtesy. As Lawdog once said, defense lawyers’ suits have to be specially tailored to hide the dorsal fin.
LOL, yard sharks, yard hippos, yard gators… At least it’s not flamingos! 🙂
The NSFW comic Something Positive featured Canadian Trap-door alligators. It was a joke until a character got nabbed by one. (In its heyday, SP put the “Aaargghh! It burns” into “sardonic”, as evidenced by several TVTropes entries.)
I like the shark fins. There’s a lot of different things like that (zombies, the above-mentioned gators, etc.) that you can get to put in the garden.