…and I ran the pond vac, which is a back-breaking sort of thing: you have to wait 20 seconds for it to void the collection chamber and come on again, and when it starts, the tip of the wand drops 2″, which can bring it down among pebbles (insta-clog!) or the water lilies if you don’t pose for it like a pool player over a cue and brace the thing so it won’t dip…
I have cleaned the pond filter about 12 times today, sometimes 2x in 30 minutes, as we stir up the bottom with the hose and let the filter catch the crud. I’m soaked and tired.
The tiller hit the sprinkling system again, this time involving a line under one of Jane’s favorite roses. That had to be moved and replanted, and the bush is heavily about-to-bloom. That meant digging, that threw the lower back out again—the si-lok belt got it back in, thank goodness: walking around with it is helpful. And we got the new rhody planted, the climbing hydrangea planted, and some of our ground cover divvied up and replanted. That’s spreading nicely, quadrupling its reach in one year.
The rhodies are blooming. I replanted my potted outdoor bamboo–again. We should be past freezes now. The dogwood out front is trying to bloom; the magnolia looks happy. I have yet to brace the contorted birch, which is twisting the wrong way. And then I’m going to have to turn that compost heap, all 14 yards of it.
But! since an actual though gross supper last night, I had energy and I could work. Dead-on about the diet having gone too far…I’m going to switch us to Chinese/Japanese when I get the scales and the rice cooker. I think I can do something proper with that.
Happy, happy. I’m looking forward to something that I can cook instead of boil.
I cannot recall what all we’ve bought—Jane’s reaction to a weird flower is oooooh-sparkly! and home it comes, especially if at a bargain. But my short list is:
Trees this year: Aurora dogwood (white), pink magnolia, 2 Canadian hemlock, 2 burning bush, numerous junipers (they offered them at 2.50 each, and we bit)…3 rhododendrons, 3 azaleas, 2 hinkoki cypress, one a shrub; contorted weeping birch; little cypress thingies (2); an espaliered apple tree (6 varieties of graft).
Vines: clematis—purple, pink double, white single ruffled, and 3 unidentifieds. Last year Wayside Gardens (online) had an end of year sale at fantastically cheap, and Jane ordered some things which arrived as dry brown twigs—miraculously half of them lived: the clemati.
Plants: 3 mysterious peonies-in-a-bag, 2 kalinchoe; 8 verbena; 2 alyssum; various tulips (last fall); a climbing hydrangea; 2 snapdragons, 2 English daisies; Siberian bugloss; 2 ajuga; 6 hanging strawberries; sweetpeas (doing nothing so far); beans (died); water hyacinth, and bamboo-in-a-pot.
From previous years: water lilies, equisetum, and an unidentified pond plant; a weeping cherry; lupine; aster; forget me not; begonia; 2 Japanese maples. Roses. Tons of iris; birds nest pine; mugo pine. Wisteria that acts dead this year. That’s what I think of offhand.
I understand Jane’s reaction — it’s new, it’s different, and I want it! Which is why my garden is a hodgepodge. Outside of hostas, the only new things this year is elderberries. I’m trying to restrain myself.
I plan on digging up some porcelain berry vine for you, it will help cover up the fence. Love the varigated foliage and blueish berries in the fall. I have Canadian Wild Ginger too, if you have a shady spot for it.
I’m a little nervous about the porcelain berry, because of its habit and mode of spreading; but the wild ginger sounds lovely. Thank you so much!
Two cherry tomatoes last night from the vine! The very first ones. Also sugar snap peas, and there is a yellow squash that I could pick, but I think I’ll let it get a little bigger, maybe two days more. But everything is almost buried in weeds, so I have to get on that. This is my first veg garden in ages, and I am really excited about it. Caterpillars demolished the mustard greens, but I got several salads from the little ones before that happened.
I tend to order fruit trees and bushes from Miller Gardens of upstate New York, on the theory that if a plant can tolerate that climate it can easily tolerate the cold of just outside Boston. This past fall I succumbed to a Northstar, sel-pollinating sour cherry, even though I have no more sunny planting space for trees. We got a huge (100 gallon or so) plastic tub (not cheap: cost way more than the sapling + postage) and put it in that. I was terribly worried all spring that the tree didn’t live because it refused to break dormancy until just 1 week ago, when the dormant buds started showing green. Boy is this late, presumably even for a late bloomer advertized as always flowering after the last front.
Eridani: A couple of years ago, I also got two elderberries from Millers, which immediately took off and one of them has consistently flowered and produced fruit from summer one. They are lush and green right now and I spotted an incipient flower head yesterday on the one in more sun.
While I could probably get by with just one cherry tree, it’s more highly recommended that cross pollination be accomplished with another cherry tree, especially one of a slightly different variety.
Bumblebees can get nectar from red clover, but honey bees cannot. The white sweet clover that everyone in middle class America abhors in their lawn, right up there with dandelions, is the flower honey bees will be able to get nectar from. The reason is that the red clover’s nectary is too far down inside the flower for the honey bee to reach with her proboscis, so she can’t sip up any nectar from them. The white clover, being smaller, doesn’t present that problem, and both red and white clovers produce excellent honeys.
I actually got the treat of getting to watch a goldfinch gently plucking dandelion seeds out of the puffy flower head and eating them. You don’t get to see that if you get rid of all your dandelions.
Last year I had this poor little tomato plant (sweet million variety) that hadn’t gotten enough sun but was still hanging in there by the time the autumn frosts were coming. So I popped it into a large flower pot (say 12″ high by 9″ wide at the top) and darned if it didn’t live through the winter — even made two pea sized tomatoes! (Tasted fine.) So I replanted it in this season’s garden and it seems to be doing ok. Never knew you could over-winter a tomato plant . . . .
@AuntieB…save some tomatoes for seeds if you can….It may be a unique plant….of course you could get complete weirdness too. 😉
I wintered over a supertunia this year…I know petunias are perennials in warm areas….but this one went crazy in my sunroom….and it seems to root itself in water. Tomatoes and petunias have reseeded from last year. I think this is the way to go with tomatoes….throw the seeds in planters or the ground in the fall and let them winter over outside. 🙂
@joe….have you ever used buckwheat for a cover crop? When I was still a Chrysanthemum Lady we would grow buckwheat on fallow areas….my bother-in-law would put his hives out…..great honey…..great soil booster….and pretty…..looked like snow. 😆
The cherry trees (aren’t they appropriate for this venue?) are both dwarf, one is a Van, which is sweet, and the other is a Black Tartarian, which is a bit tart, or so it seems from the description. I’ve gotten them surrounded by hardware cloth to keep the critters from chewing on them, plus wrapped their little trunks in non-woven tree tape, and then staked them on 3 sides. I put a short piece of the pipe insulation tubing around the trunk, then tied mason’s twine around the tubing, not very tightly, just enough to hold the tree in place. I suppose in a couple of years, if they survive, I can take off the stakes. It’s been very humid, we’ve had pop-up thunderstorms all around my area and they’re still threatening.
I was up on the roof re-routing the cable from my wind gauge to the weather station and accidentally pulled out the small wires inside the 6 pin connector. Nothing like trying to repair those up on the roof, while trying not to fall, lose the pin, lose my tools, and lose my mind. So, I just ordered 2 more cables to replace this one. My plans for a decent weather station for SKYWARN storm spotting are getting more and more expensive.
On the roof, Joe!? Wah!
The one thing to watch with cherry trees is their fragility: if climbed-in by children, they break like crazy, and a pull that would bend, say, a birch, would break a cherry tree. As long as it withstood the pull, however, it is good.
Thanks for the suggestion, Smartcat. Would be worth trying. I might also try nicking the plant and putting dirt around the nicked place to see if I could root a smaller one to try overwintering again.
I like it when my plants reseed too. I had some Chinese chives that just kept on, year after year. The camomile reseeded itself for a year or two, as did the nasturtiums and borage.
Then I moved and my new garden is about 4′ x 6′ and about half shaded. I’m trying to get some lettuce to grow in the shady area, but so far no luck. If I had more room I’d plant potatoes; nothing beats the taste of a freshly dug potato!
Once I gave a pot planted with some lettuce and a patio-pot tomato variety to our group’s secretary. She was a bit bemused since it wasn’t a house plant, but there it was on her office window sill, merrily making tomatoes (the lettuce got picked and eaten and that was the end of those plants).
Uhhh…..Joe….please don’t tell us you are up on a roof with out any safety lines! 🙁
And your knee, Joe!
At the moment, no, I am not on the roof. I am sitting at the computer desk. The roof that I was lying atop was probably lower than the wall that Cajieri, Antaro, and Jegari jumped from at Kajiminda. I take no chances, though, and keep as much surface contact as I can so I don’t start sliding. Well, the roof on the garage is slightly higher than the roof where I destroyed the cable connector.
CJ, I have the trees very well caged, the hardware cloth is 36″ high, I have a circle about 16 inches in diameter, and the hardware cloth is anchored at the base with 3″ long landscape staples, as well as the mason’s twine strung through the openings in the cloth. If said cage blows over, it’s a lot stronger wind than the stakes could handle and the tree wouldn’t have survived anyway. I will be very careful with my trees, since they were planted with good intentions.
excellent, Joe! We are glad you are in one piece, and if it blows that hard, those trees are going to be swept out roots and all! Let us hope they thrive! You’ll love the blooms: they’re very happy bloomers. The Japanese name, btw, is sakura, and one of my childhood memories is the tidal basin cherry trees in Washington which my parents took b&w photos of (they were a gift to the nation) back in the early 1930’s. My mind’s eye always saw them in color, a beautiful pink.
I was born in Washington when,due to a late spring, the cherry trees were in full bloom. There has always been a very special connection for me with cherry trees in the spring. 🙂 😀 😆
I wonder what color the blossoms will be. Since these are dark cherries, I wonder if the blossom will be pink or white.
ah, “sakura”, I’m familiar with that. In kendo, my rank is 1st kyu, which translates to a brown belt. I am one step below my first degree black belt, although in kendo, we do not wear belts to signify rank. You face an opponent without knowing their rank, unless you previously happen to know that person My favorite bamboo sword has the kanji for sakura on it. My tsuba or hand guard is leather with cherry blossoms (a 5 petal arrangement) stamped on both sides. I found out about the kanji a couple of years ago when I asked my sensei what it meant. Imagine my delight to find I had a “matched set” of shinai and tsuba. I haven’t had a cherry tree since just after we moved to where my parents are still living. There was a very nice sweet cherry three in the back yard, but they cut it down for some reason, and I wasn’t that old, anyway. I do remember how it would drop cherries all over, and maybe that’s why they cut it down, or the birds fighting and making a general mess of the fruit might have been another. I’ll share, but I want to make sure I get my share, too. Bird netting might not keep them out of the nearest cherries, but the ones inside are going to be mine. Some bunny (I believe) has been nibbling on my sweet basil and the tomato plants. I suppose I’ll have to cage them, too if I want any tomato sauce this summer. Maybe if I planted marigolds alongside them?
Here is a video from the ISKF Nationals of a local Kendo/Iaido group doing some stuff, you might find it interesting. I find it confusing… 😉
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKF2d_tIvG4
Also this one, really not sure what’s going on here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMScfZg_DE8
I’m the poster (chakaalakak)
I have an apricot, peach, and plum tree in my yard. The best advice I can give you for not losing all your fruit to the birds and beasties is “don’t put birdfeeders on them”. Alas, I like to feed birds, so I have resigned myself to having my crop disappear down critter throats before it’s anywhere near ripe!
Cages can help…some of the things that work well for me…..especially with deer, is ground up cayenne or chili peppers sprinkled on the leaves and ground…I buy the really cheap stuff at my discount store…..for my raspberries I make a fence of bamboo sticks and monofilament line. Animals cannot see the line and seem to dislike touching what they cannot see. Hair and Dial soap also seem to work well.
Hearing deer sneezing from sniffing chili pepper can be very satisfying…..I have also been know to use a bbgun to drive off critters.
I could try a Rube Goldberg solution: have a line around the plants. When a critter moves the line, it pulls a match across a striking surface, and the match is pulled away from the box to the fuses of a 20-pack of firecrackers. Scare the bejeebers out of them.
Chakaal, are you planning to be at Shejicon? If so, I’ll be glad to explain kendo, but since i don’t know where you live, I have to ask that question.
The only bird feeder I have is on the maple tree, I use it during the winter only, the birds are on their own in spring and summer and early fall. When the snow falls, I fill the feeder. There’s only one, so while I like having them around (it’s also great live “Kitty TV”, I’m not going to buy a 30 pound bag of seed every 2 weeks.
I’m in Southeast Virginia. I don’t know where Shejicon is, but I suspect it’s not close by! Ah, well. I shall have to find someone else’s brane to pick!
@ chakaal….Shejicon is in Spokane….so you are about as far away as I am. To find out more go over to the Shejidan space….just google Shejidan and choose the recent news, update site. ( I have become more circumspect about posting addresses since my old workplace got badly spammed.) I am hoping to save enough pennies to go next year.
@ Joe…I do *like* the Rube Goldberg solution….build it and they will come? 😉
P.S. To see what may be the ultimate Rube Goldberg Machine go to YouTube enter OK GO this too shall pass rube goldberg. 😉 But the rest of the world may be 10,000 miles ahead of me!
chakaal, SE Virginia is a big area. I used to live in Virginia Beach, then we bought a house in Portsmouth, and then we separated, and I moved into an apartment in Ghent area of Norfolk.
If you’ve ever seen the kid’s game “Mousetrap”, or watched “Mythbusters” make one of those weird contraptions that are so complicated but are designed to do a simple task, that’s Rube Goldberg. LOL.
Joe, I’m in Williamsburg and work in Hampton, train in Newport News. Norfolk is a little bit of a haul but Sensei’s brother teaches a class in Va Beach and I’ve gone down there for testings and stuff. I’m just a mile or so from the Colonial area of Williamsburg.