Flowers and Floundering

Ugh, sore today because of gardening yesterday.  I pruned the rosebush and yanked all the weeds out of the bed by the propane tank, then went in among the rhododendrons by the front door and chopped out the dead branches that have been bothering me for months, then went to the massively overgrown (a running theme on this property) thorny hedge at the end of the driveway and managed to take out maybe a quarter of that before the yard waste bin was full.

Sometimes I feel like my personal theme is "lots of work, for little visible progress."

All this gardening was prompted by my having bitten the bullet and ordered some roses from David Austin roses: two Claire Austin and two Strawberry Hill climbing roses to go over the two trellises on the property, as well as a Ferdinand Pichard rose for... somewhere.  All of them strongly scented, because what's the point of weak fragrance on roses?

I also finally got around to starting some seeds: Black Krim tomatoes, habeneros, jalepenos, cucumbers, Swiss chard, asparagus, zinnias, California poppies, and snapdragons.

Additionally, I auditioned fabrics.  Out of curiosity I put this backing fabric behind some of the nine-patches:

It's kind of meh.  Maybe a shaded strata, like this?

I'm still not sure.  But I did cut up a tiny tiny fraction of that basket of teals to sew a block of the month for quilt guild on Tuesday.  So, one thing done!