I loved last Saturday’s rain. Some major puttering took place in my house. Just the fact that I for once did not have to drag hoses around was a big gift from Mother Nature.

Sue at Heather Gardens took issue with last week’s column where I praised the Kousa dogwoods. She said the old variety, cornus Florida, is her favorite. I must say: she is actually right. However, we know the old variety has been subject to a disease in the last few years so it has been replaced by the Kousa (or, Korean) dogwood in modern landscapes.

It is, nonetheless, lovely and short lived in bloom. I have one in the woods but think it has always been there; I do not recall planting it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t, since my recall is iffy at best.

When I moved onto the property in 1974 there was an overgrown and seriously-in-need-of-pruning apple tree. It took a few years to get it back into working order. At some point I found one of its babies and moved it to a better location.

For the first time in all these 40 or so years, the baby has apples. Will wonders never cease?

There is a bumper crop of collards in the vegetable garden that, remarkably, are free of pests. They did have flea beetles in their youth. I treated them with wood ashes, which did the trick.

Anyway, I made a big pot of the greens cooked in chicken stock. We all enjoyed them for days and pretended we lived down south.

Rats in the greenhouse ate most of the winter squash and pumpkin seeds before they had a chance to even germinate. A few did survive but they have suffered, trapped in seed trays. I finally freed them into some hay mulch and walked away. I hope they now have a fighting chance.

Oops, I forgot to plant green beans until this week. Good thing they take only 50 days to produce. Sadly, a person cannot do everything.

Isn’t the road to that well-known place paved with good intentions?

The sweet potato slips I ordered last fall finally arrived. The poor things looked terrible but I put them in and in just a few days they have perked up. I tried in vain to grow my own slips from a few of last year’s crop so it’s a good thing I ordered some anyway.

If you are in the market for a wonderful rose, consider the old French bourbon, zephirine drouhin. It is a deep rose color and, most importantly, thornless. It is ideal for climbing on an entryway fence as it doesn’t tear clothing or skin. It also can take more shade than most roses, which require six hours of full sun at a bare minimum.

Fun fact about roses: the blossom of each individual variety of roses has a set number of petals. I did a search for my old rose history book to find the number of petals for a zephirine drouhin. As with most of my belongings, I never find what I need when I need it!

What a week in the news...

Donald Trump et al. claim the U.S. has a two-tiered justice system. I agree with him for once — only he’s in the top tier.

The Democrats are not whining about charges against Hunter Biden even though many people pay taxes late. And in our sick gun culture, I bet others don’t tell the whole truth when seeking a firearm.

Finally: we all loved the Kennedys but do we need R.F.K. Jr.’s crazy conspiracy theories and anti-vax platform? I, for one, am pretty happy I never got polio or Covid.

Also, I’m going to be irritated if he’s another Ralph Nader and costs Joe Biden a loss to a (probably) convicted felon.