Potential Weekend Project

I could do this with a young helper on a single weekend.





- iPhone uPdate

Coloring Inside the Lines

I have very modest goals for this year's garden. One of them is to actually plant most of the plants I buy (versus letting them die in their original pots). So now I try to buy and plant all in the weekend, scaling my purchases to specific blocs of time. 

This week was annuals into boxes. I decided two of my 3' x 3' boxes along the side in full sun would be dedicated to annuals. When I saw the very bright colors at Behnkes, I went for monochromatic approaches.  I have a red box, and I have a yellow box. They each have several types of flowers, but all in the same color. I had to work to make sure the reds were truly red and not orange or magenta. The yellows, again, NOT orange. White or cream is OK.

I also decided on a basil range. One box is devoted to basil - I bought two plants each of eight different varieties. I left the center of the box open, thinking something taller may need to go in there.

This leaves me one box - I think I'll do beans there - but maybe I'll do sunflowers. I have seeds for both. Something tall, anyway.

This monochromatic approach I really like. I have a yellow bed of perennials that pleases me much. I also have a blue and purple patch, that never fails to grab me. Here is May Night salvia with siberian iris transplanted from Mom's house in Bellport.

I ran out of time, but I'm pleased with what I got done.

Another Day in the Yard

I spent a good part of the day working in the dog's yard, doing major cleaning.  It was a cold and windy day - a sharp front came through last night - and it was a bit too chilly to sit quietly outside.even in the sun, so it helped a lot with my "always keep moving" philosophy.  But in typical gardener's fashion, one job led to another.

My first motivation to get going was because one of my motorcycles is gone! Hooray!  With the big one gone with no effort from me, I'm motivated to get the other disposable one out the gate and gone forever. It opens up a big spot in front of the shed, with just dirt right now. Definitely improves the view from my oasis.

I started by cleaning just the patio. I moved all the furniture off it, swept and then hosed it off. I got inspired and swished bleach all over it and squirted it off, then windexed all the windows.  I contemplated oiling the furniture but that will wait for another day - I had made everything too wet.

Somewhere in there I got into my citrus rehabilitation mode. My oldest Meyer lemon looked dead a couple of weeks ago. It bloomed its head off when first I brought it in last fall, and we assiduously tried to pollinate with a paint brush, but all the blooms dropped off (though they did smell great). It then got covered in spider webs and all the fruit from the previous bloom dried up and dropped off without reaching full size. Then the leaves all dropped off. There were periods in there with insufficient watering, I confess. So it had been reduced to nothing but sticks.  I set it outside a couple of weeks ago.

Now it has a few tiny leaves starting to appear along the dried up sticks. I did some pruning of clearly dead stuff, and some more pruning of crossing interior branches. It is easier to see the structure with no leaves at all.  I rubbed off the remaining spider webs and soaked it in insecticidal soap. I added citrus fertilizer and some additional potting soil, watered it well, and moved to the front corner.  We'll see what happens.

I thought about working on the other two lemon trees but tried to stay focused instead on the yard. I hacked off some big branches from the beech tree along the fence line, just above where the motorcycles have been parked.  It lightens things up, and improves the view into the trees and the park. I did not do a good job of pruning - it was definitely beech butchery.  I cut as much of the english ivy and japanese honeysuckle along the fence and trees as I could get at from inside.  I hosed mildew and mold off one side of the plastic greenhouse. I got the little motorcycles partly cleaned off and out of the yard. I emptied the rain barrel (drained it to the spicebush) and cloroxed the inside before fastening it back up again. I cut the grass (finally!) and cleaned up some twigs and branches from previous pruning.  I raked up some of last fall's debris and got it into the compost heap. I spread some extra fencing to make it taller along the chainlink fence.

Lastly, I spread grass seed on the bare spots. I got lucky last year and spread grass seed back there in March, and then it rained all April and May and it got a good start. Now, this year, to spread it with minimal preparation of the ground, in May, during a very dry run is not likely to pay off so well. But it's worth a shot.  Timing and serendipity lead to good results - maybe I'll get the serendipity this time, at any rate.

This yard has the potential for looking better than it's been for a couple of years. Some of the improvements are permanent, and some are the once or twice a year cleanup types. I'll enjoy going back out there to see what I've done and what a difference it makes.

Blooming Now

- iPhone uPdate

Blooming Now: Drainpipe Clematis

- iPhone uPdate

Finally Cutting the Grass

I've got a young paid helper who thinks it looked nicer long.



- iPhone uPdate

Young Life

I've got babies all around me.  At least two of the bird houses I've installed have families there. Both of the ones I know are occupied are attached to the eaves of the house - one in front and one in back. The one I'm watching now has very noisy babies in it. Mom and Dad are both very busy fetching things, and when one perches on the outside the kids inside burst out with a explosion of "cheep cheep cheep" which I assume means "feed me feed me feed me".  Besides the noise, which starts very early, there are also by-products beneath the box that have to be cleaned up regularly.  I still like watching them, though. One year my nephew spent a whole afternoon on this couch watching them, both with the naked eye and binoculars. And one year I happened to catch the moment they fledged. I think it is a single moment - they emerge from the nest, and I don't think they go back. They spilled out one at time, fell/fluttered to the ground, and in a few minutes fluttered back up into the tree.

The tree right outside my living room window is an old brittle silver maple that has a couple of hollows in it where limbs have fallen off. There is a hollow I can see from this same living room couch that often has a squirrel family in it. This year there are two babies, and one of them is our local genotype of black squirrel. They are small, but fully formed. They venture out of the hole and around the tree, but haven't yet reached the ground that I have seen. The maple seeds haven't come yet - that is a major source of food for them.

I hope the owl doesn't get my babies.  There are much more useful things for the owl to eat than my particular friends. Maybe since owls hunt at night and squirrels have no night vision and stay home at night they will never encounter each other.