We finally found a surgeon who would perform the urgent surgery on our dog. Piper had a benign tumour, on his face, which had to be removed or it would continue to grow, and eventually impede his ability to eat. All of the surgeons (many were asked) refused to operate because it was next to some important facial nerves. One agreed to do it for 6500.00. We thanked him and kept looking.

To facilitate Piper’s visit to the saint of a vet who offered to do the surgery for a much, much, much more reasonable cost, it required a trip up to Campbell River. A complicated process but to save that kind of money, we could handle the inconvenience. We spent the night with friends in Nanaimo and headed up island before dawn. After the operation, the doctor released our wee boy to us as soon as he absolutely could and we were able to drive back down island and home before dark. Piper was fairly woozy when we picked him, but I held on tight and we didn’t lose him overboard. His recovery seems to be going well at home.

There are lots of healthy wee vegetable seedlings covering our dining room table. They are doing really well under the new grow lights and on the heat mats, which last year’s plant sale funded. It puts us weeks and weeks ahead of schedule. The support of my gardening friends is much appreciated. I am hoping to repeat the sale this year.

I opened all my dahlia tubers and gladiola bulbs, which had been stored oh so carefully wrapped in paper, covered in wood chips and egg cartons. All of the gladiola are moldy and all but three dahlias rotten. It was very disappointing.

If you recall, last year I tried to grow a variety of roses from cuttings and just when everything was going very well, I fertilized all the babies and it killed them. I was left with only one Queen Elizabeth rose which survived. This year, I have tried to propagate roses in three different ways.

In September I pruned two branches off the Golden Opportunity rose, dipped them in rooting powder and stuck them in the dirt in the garden. They have had no extra attention or covering during the winter. They are doing really well, and there appears to be new growth on the stems.

In January I took 17 cuttings from various roses. I dipped them in rooting powder and put them in pots filled with a very sandy soil, in the greenhouse. They were left alone for six weeks. Then I watered them and put glass jars over each. At this point most of them seem to be doing well, I will not be fertilizing them.

The third method is really fun. Last week, I split a strong stem in half on four different roses. In the middle of the split I placed a banana skin. Then I wrapped a banana around the whole stem and zip tied it in place. Then I wrapped a plastic jar filled with potting soil around the banana and again zip tied it in place. Apparently, and this remains to be seen, in a couple of weeks the jar will be full of roots and I can cut the stem away from the mother plant to pot on its own.

With any luck this year I will have roses to plant in the garden where I had expected to plant dahlias and gladiola.

Still very little rain falling and we are about 2000 gallons shy of having full water storage tanks. Time is running out with pollen season arriving any minute. If there are a couple of solid days of rain in June (like we used to have every year) we will be fine. But it is frustrating for sure to have those tanks sitting unfilled.

Last year. I had a pink lace hydrangea that I had grown from a cutting as a door prize. This year it looks like I will have a rose

to give away