Why I Oughta...

The journey this year with our three Disneyland Roses has been all about paying just.a.little.bit of attention to them.  Or at least MORE than I have ever done in years past.  It started with mulching them in to overwinter this past Winter.  Then, I transplanted the first one from the backyard to the southside bed before it broke dormancy .  I also decided to feed these roses - for the first time.  I used a bag of Jobe's Organics Knock-out Rose granular food and started the first feeding in late April ( posted in early May ).  Then, gave them a second feeding one month later - in late May ( posted here in late June, despite the feeding being in late May ).  Today, I'm posting in early July, but sharing a photo I took of the bag of rose fertilizer that I used in late June.   This was the third and final rose feeding of the season.  Late April, Late May, Late June.    When I was out there feeding the three roses - which have bl...

Like I've done in year's past, I decided to use Jobe's tree spike fertilizer in and around some of our trees in the yard.  These were (surprisingly) hard to find this year - and I ended up buying them online at Home Depot . What struck me was the pretty BIG difference in the quantity of the package that Jobe's has brought to market.   Take a look at the photo in this post showing that they had boxes of 15 spikes last year (2020).  The, flip back here and look at the pile of spikes I bought this season below.  The boxes had just 9 spikes in each box.  I bought four packs of 9 - 36 total spikes for deciduous trees.  And one box of 15 evergreen spikes (below): I used the evergreen spikes around the new Falsecypress tree , the Weeping White Spruce and the hedge of Hicks Yews - where I wasn't able to put down spikes for every shrub.   Same thing on the decidious spikes - even with 36 spikes, I ended up short of feeding all of my planted trees ar...

Just a couple of days past a year ago, I posted about how I was feeding our columnar Frans Fontaine Hornbeams with Jobe's fertilizer spikes and included a photo of PART of the trees after they had been fed.  This year, I bought three boxes of the spikes for deciduous trees and one box for evergreens. In that post, I mentioned that I put the spikes in the ground on May 1st in 2019.  And despite this post being dated May 23rd, I have just gotten around to posting this - as I put the spikes in the ground on May 12th.  12 days behind 2019. Here's how the trees look below - from a similar view - as last year.  You can see how the gap between the trees that are right outside the screened porch is closing down below the fenceline. The trees haven't totally filled in for the year, but they're already doing well to provide some screening as they green-up and out this Spring. Hoping the fertilizer spikes will help keep them growing on their current trajectory....

I'm adding this entry to my [ garden diary ] to mark the date when I added this Jobe's Organic Compost Starter to our active bin and our tumbler in the Spring.  If you're not familiar with a compost starter, here's a good overview of what they are and what they do. There is some competing views on the value of a compost starter or booster, but if you believe the claims and buy one with 'microbes', then your compost starter - like the one above from Jobe's - is cultured to speed the decomposition of the materials in your pile. There are a bunch of people who say that they don't really do anything - but for less than $10, I figure...it can't really hurt, right?  It contains no synthetics and is made up of things that you can buy at a garden center like Bone Meal, Feather Meal, Potassium, and manure. I used this same product last year, but I don't think that I posted about it in the garden diary. Here's the listing on Amazon (note......