Why I Oughta...

I took a walk around the garden this weekend thinking about what I needed to do to button the yard and beds up for the Winter and came across a bunch of rabbit-caused problems.  The dang rabbits are giving me a lot of worries about this Winter.  I posted about some of the problems they've caused over the years including how they went whole hog on our small Oakleaf Hydrangeas last year .  We didn't get ANY blooms because of their chomping.  They ate off ALL the most recent growth - and Oakleaf Hydrangeas bloom on 'old wood' (aka...last season's growth) .   Those dang! rabbits have destroyed all of my Toad Lillies , killed a Canadian Hemlock tree , stunted some of sedges and chewed off a bunch of branches on our Hicks Yews.   Knowing my enemy, I've started to protect things with cages of chicken wire - including these Arrowwood (Chicago Lustre) Viburnum  and some of our Hemlocks .  And...(this year)... ALL of our Oakleaf Hydrangeas .   However...it is clear that

This past weekend, we went over to the local garden center to meet the Big Guy and his reindeer.  We've done this same deal a number of years and it is a nice way to start the holiday season.  In addition to having the kids visit with Santa for a few minutes, we also buy our annual allotment of Christmas flowers - Amaryllis bulbs.  These bulbs are big and nicely cared for and (this year) cost $21 each.  I'm pretty sure that when we started doing this, these bulbs were $15.  This year, we're growing three new bulbs as well as attempting to force four from last year.  I picked out one and two of the kids picked out their own, too.   Below are the tags of the three we came home with:  Flamenco Queen, Magic Touch and Sunshine Nymph.   These bulbs come nicely packed with a little padding for protection.  They're also MUCH larger than the bulbs you'd find in the typical packaged 'set' that includes a container, potting material and the bulb.  MUCH larger.  See bel

I mentioned that I started to split some of the Norway Maple tree firewood that resulting from the removal of the large tree in our front yard.  In a post a couple weeks ago, I talked about how I've started to split some of the larger rounds with my axe.  I've taken a slow-but-steady approach to the project and will continue to split this wood over the next few months.  The first splits resulted in pieces that I am putting up on a rack to season for the year.  I did, however, want to begin to track the moisture content of this freshly cut, green wood.  Here, below, is a photo of my moisture meter showing 50% moisture in this piece:  The moisture level that split, dry firewood needs to get to in order to be considered 'seasoned' is below 20% - so we have a long way to go.  Norway Maple is known for 'drying quickly' , so I'll test this theory by trying to track these freshly split pieces in the coming weeks/months.  Will it be ready this season?  I doubt it,

This post is going up on November 15th, but the photos are from earlier this month - on November 3rd.  Thus...for YoY garden diary record keeping, let's call this 'early November'.   Here's a peek at the large red oaks in our backyard - just about a year ago .  They were holding ALL of their leaves and looking good.  By early December, they had dropped *most*, but were still holding some .  Come Spring, they were still bare in early April .   What do they look like this year - in early November 2022?  See below for the photo showing the brown and orange leaves all over our tree canopy. Here's the same tree two years ago .   We had a VERY big wind storm this past week, so the trees look VERY different today.  I'll post an updated photo - showing mid-November - in the coming days.  

A couple of weeks ago, we had a 3.5" caliper Triumph Elm - Ulmus Morton Glossy - to our front porch beds.  At the time the tree arrived it has *some* leaves on it with some branches already bare having dropped their leaves.  Today - just two-or-so-weeks after planting, the tree has dropped ALL of its leaves and has a set of roundish, brown buds all over the limbs.  Below, is a look at the buds that have set on our new Triumph Elm tree: Over the years, I've documented in the [garden diary] a look at some of the tree buds in our yard - including these Exclamation London Planetree that I planted during the pandemic .  I'll go out and try to capture some photos of this year's tree buds in the Fall/Winter garden in the coming weeks.  

Just a week later and this is what our set of Paperwhite bulbs look like in their glass jar:  roots have gone wild and the tips of the stalks have all emerged and are starting to shoot upwards.  This happened REALLY fast (at least in my view) and I've tried to follow the recommendations so far - including keeping them out of a bright room while the roots establish.  Below is photo showing the current state of these Ziva Paperwhite bulbs : I went back and bought a 2nd bag of stones to help bury the bulbs up about half-way to help get them more solid ahead of the potential 'tipping' that happens with Paperwhites.   This am, I also began the poisoning of these bulbs in an attempt to keep them compact.  Below is the bottle of rubbing alcohol (91%) that I added in a small amount to the gravel.  It is about 5:1 water:alcohol added.  This will, hopefully, stunt these enough to keep them from 'flopping over'. I've used a similar alcohol treatment to Amaryllis bulbs in

Hard to believe that it is mid-November and that we're still getting roses off of our Disneyland Roses.  Here, below, is a little set of flowers and buds that I cut off yesterday morning - right as the weather around here is beginning to turn towards Winter.   This past week, we've had temperatures in the 60's and 70's during the day, but now we're facing the harsh reality:  Winter is arriving.  This Disneyland Rose bush is putting on its final show:  This past week, I took a couple of chicken wire cages off of some hostas that have gone dormant and connected them together to make a Disneyland Rose winter protection cage.  The last time I showed these roses in our sideyard was in September when I talked about prepping for Winter .   This past Winter, I protected *some* of the roses and left others unprotected.  This year...I'm going to just try to do what I can do.  I started with one - the middle one.  You can see that cage below and how I've started to fil