Off the beaten path

A couple of days ago, I had a meeting in Montgomery. Since my car has been acting strangely, Mr. G drove me . On the way home, I commented that it would be nice to take a side trip and stop off in Jemison to visit one of our favorite nurseries. Mr. G agreed, and we headed off to Petals from the Past, a nursery owned by Jason and Shelley Powell, specializing in heirloom plants, especially old-fashioned roses. But they grow and sell an astounding number of so many plants- including not only the gorgeous, fragrant old-fashioned roses, but perennials, vegetables, herbs, fruit, garden art, water garden plants, and more. The nursery store is an old farmhouse, surrounded by an inviting wraparound porch and breathtaking display gardens. I was sorry that I didn't have my camera with me. All the roses we've bought there have done well in our garden. Almost too well, as you can see from this Katy Road Pink-if I ever manage to keep the spent blooms picked, it keeps blooming and blooming, but it is SO loaded, that the task becomes an impossibility. But it also bears lovely large hops, which the birds love, so all is not lost. This bush has never been sprayed, the only fertilizer is a side dressing of compost every once in a while, and has survived droughts, floods and neglect. Katy Road is a real trooper, as are most of the heirloom roses I've encountered. Here's a close-up of one of the buds:

I must apologize for the poor quality of some of the pics I've been posting. The cover to the battery compartment on the camera is broken. In order to take a photo, one must keep it squeezed shut while trying to keep the camera steady- which sometimes proves difficult.

We didn't buy any roses on this trip, but did buy some herbs and veggie plants and a Meyer Lemon tree to replace the one we lost a couple of years ago. It even has some buds- so we may get lemons this year!

The nursery also has you-pick fields of blackberries, which just opened. The huge berries are now ripening and should hit their peak in a week or two. The plants are grown on post and wire trellises in long rows, which makes picking easy- and you don't get covered in chiggers in the process. Since I was dressed for a business meeting, not for berry picking we didn't even try this time, but I'm thinking we need to make another trip down there in the next two weeks.