What have you done today in the Garden?

I dont think I have gotten much done, just bits and pieces. Maybe it adds up?

We have had a lot of rainy days, and I don't usually work outdoors in stormy weather other than taking care of my pets. However, we did have a little bit of sunshine here and there. I did work on the ditch a bit more. I have to late May to finish it, so I can take my time, which is just fine with me. My body does not like ditch digging very much. I have about 20 feet to go to get to the house. And DS would like me to try and remove some of the bushes on the other side. He removed several trees and roots out. I won't guarantee my efforts, but I will attempt it later. At least the rain makes the digging easier.

I have been planting flower seeds here and there, any place I can find a spot for some more flower seeds.

My dill and cosmos and some marigolds are up. I have not noticed any zinnias yet. My first batch of redbeets are up. The potatoes are doing fine. I have a few volunteer potatoes in other places, including the compost pile. I planted pumpkins in there also. I might as well use it for a garden bed. The asparagus is tall and feathery. So far, I have not found any morels this year. My parsley looks great and tastes good. I have lots of seedlings from them. I may pot some for sharing, and move some of the babies. The spinach is up. The strawberries are getting huge, and blooming and have a few berries already. My wild blackberries are blooming, so we are not likely to have more frost before fall.

My grapevines are leafing out and look good. Even my older vines that have been very slow, are actually putting out some extra growth. The newest vine is still the biggest one so far. And my ancient grapevine is putting out some new growth. I don't know what kind they are, but they are small purple grapes--just not concords.

My wild wisteria vines that have invaded some of the woods are blooming like crazy. I never do anything with them, it is just more than I can keep up with. The wisteria on my rebar arbor have a few puny blooms. That vine gets pruned. I just noticed the blooms this afternoon, but it was too cloudy and dark for any photos.

My elderberries look good. I dug up a few for a friend, and a few pieces broke off. Since you can start them from cuttings, I put the broken pieces in a bucket with compost and water soup. I also watered them with compost tea. They have perked up and are growing nicely. I think they will root fine.

My little rhubarb plants are doing nicely. And the pots that I planted rhubarb SEEDS in have some small seedlings finally. I sure hope those are more rhubarb plants and not weeds. The peas look good also.

My indoor tomato and pepper plants will get put outdoors in a few days, maybe sunday. I put that sweet potato out in its container. If I can find more sweet potato vines (or a store potato), I will plant more.

The onions are doing great. The red pepper flakes are keeping slugs off of my horseradish, and I think one of the horseradish roots is finally sprouting. I want to get more red pepper flakes for pest repellent in the garden.

I would have done more mowing, but both my mowers are down so it looks very weedy for now. A friend will work on them when I get a new belt for the rider next week. I will get some spark plugs in town friday, maybe that will also help?

My peonies are full of buds this year. Yay. Most of my roses are blooming, and the others have buds. I still don't know what my mystery rose is. Guess I will name it Kelly (Rosa Kelly) after my friend who gave it to me. My Dame's rockets are blooming, and the irises are beginning to bloom. The spiderworts are blooming too. The tall spiderworts are cobalt blue, the short ones are a few shades of lavender.

My lavender from last year is back and putting out buds. I have planted lavender seeds also, but so far no sign of them. The thyme, oregano, heal-all (prunella vulgaris), and St John's wort are doing well. The bee balm is up and going good. Only 1 purple allium is blooming. I had a lot of them. All of my rosemary plants died over the winter. The comfrey looks great.

And my pear tree is FULL of pears for the first time in many years. I am so glad. It is the one that a friend pruned it wrong by mistake.

I planted my witch hazel trees yesterday, and they look great. I had planted the pecan trees recently, but they are not doing anything yet. And the new persimmon trees are also not doing anything. Did you know that persimmon trees come male and female? I have a 20-30 year old female persimmon tree, it had fruit a few years ago. It has leafed out a few days ago. I have to figure where to put the new ones, but so far no growth on them.

My giant white pines are full of new pine cones. I think they are 70-80 feet tall? I sort of remember the geometry thing to figure it out. You measure out so many feet from the base, and then figure the angle to the top, and somehow come up with the height. Tenth grade was a long time ago. Maybe I will look up how to do that. The angle at the base would be 90'. I planted those pines when they were babies back in the 1980s. Friends had given them to me.

 

Height measurements | BC BigTree

I found this on measuring the height of my pine trees. I think I will try it soon.

 

Nothing needs doing today, if I discount clearing fallen wisteria blooms. That can wait until the week-end.

I'm pleased with the pink wisteria along the side of the house that's pretty much always in shade. Lots more blooms to come out and so far, none have fallen off, as was the case last year.
















I have been giving it a full watering can full of water each night. I also pruned off the end where it was trying to turn the corner of the house and grow along the front!

Planning ahead...


We've had this terracotta planter at the front for decades. But I may break it up in the winter and transfer the mayleen clematis, to a large Apta glazed pot, like the one on the other side. I think the clematis too, would benefit from a change of compost/soil mixture.






My favourite azalea is "out."






The first flower on our "rose" patio is out. It's a David Austin, Desdemona.




The tree azaleas are now both in full bloom and the lawn doesn't look too bad.









Next door's trees are now in leaf and after their severe pruning, look OK.






They won't be such a big problem in the autumn as they were last year.

Second rhodo coming out.





A partially hidden gem. It's as old as the acer that hides it.

 

Down here, when I was in north florida, I had, at the Farm and at the house I lived in before that, about an hour south of our farm, we had ground nesting hornets that were very large. At the farm the hole in the ground that they came out of was the size of a grapefruit and you could see a continuous cloud of them going to and from the nest. At my home south of there, they were the same but the hole was baseball size.

It's possible that, in warmer climates, we have different varieties of hornets than there are farther north.

Mine never bothered anyone. They went about their business picking bugs off the plants and as long as you left the nest area be, no problem.

The bald faced hornets were very dangerous and even 50' from their nest they would attack. The small yellow jackets living in holes sting but it felt, to me, more like being stung by those little stinging hairs on some plants. I got stung 5 or 6 times in my hand and it didn't swell very much.

The white faced hornets feel like a hot nail going in your body !! I had one sting me three times in the neck and my neck was extremely stiff for days and swelled to twice normal size !! That was no fun: I could barely turn my head without pain.

 

@Doghouse Riley LOVE that David Ausrin Desdemona !! Just a gorgeous bloom on it !!

 

In Texas we had what everyone called mud daubers. I had one of their nests (I guess they're called) on my science table, abandoned of course, and the kids thought it was very cool.

I moved my strawberries to a bigger spot, on Sunday then covered them with some old window screens to keep the animals from eating their leaves. It's raining today so I'll just be staying in.

 

@Willowisp0801 we have mud daubers in georgia and florida too. I think they're all over the South.

Today, since I was wide awake at 4:30 am, I carried on watering. Now that everything that needs it has been hydrated, I'm relaxing for the rest of the day except for the fact I did laundry and have to get it off the line.

 

Replacing a old lavender bush for a new. I cut the old one right back but couldn't get the root out, so I'm leaving it there, it shouldn't grow back from old wood, planting the new one close by and it will have more light.

 

Today I finished cardboard mulch for two of the three tomato beds.



I know it's not pretty. But it does a very good job. The tomato towers are in place for medium- and taller-growing varieties. A few are very small growing so don't need the towers.

A few snowpeas survived the slugs (so far) so they have towers too.

I installed shiny pinwheels to keep birds off the strawberries. Or at least annoy them.



I used streamers in the past for raspberries and cherries. I might get those out too.

I planted the first of two bush summer squashes, a hybrid zucchini-type called "Dunja".



Also the first of the winter squashes to be on trellis, a smaller Japanese or French type called Red Kuri.



Also the first of the big pumpkin - type that will sprawl on the ground, Galeux d' Eysine



Nearby, some of the Alpine strawberries are looking promising.



Several years ago, I pollinated a red-flesh apple variety called "RedLove Calypso" with pollen from a columnar apple variety, either North Pole or Golden Sentry. I forget which. I grew the seeds from that apple. Two plants had red leaves, so likely red flesh apples, and had the columnar growth pattern. I planted them in my garden. One bloomed last year, but no apples resulted. Both bloomed this year. I think there will be a few apples this time.



The tree definitely has the columnar shape, and red-ish leaves.



As to the apples, if they form, I'm hoping they will be bigger, less tart, less hard, compared to Calypso, but maybe have the berry-ish flavor notes. Maybe some sweetness from the columnar parent. Time will tell.

 

Been a bit busy this week. Had our first few Strawberries for pudding today



Been picking Spring Onions, last of the Spinach and Kale, and plenty of Rhubarb



Ended up giving the Rhubarb to some of our campers, one of whom swapped me a jar of Strawberry jam for it

They make a lot of jam so they'll come down to pick some more before they leave.



We need rain too @Anniekay

Good idea with the cardboard @Daniel W

I like that tree measuring thing @AAnightowl

 

Just annotated this pic, it just looked like a load of grass without it

 

Ough Leeks !! Your Alliums all look really healthy !!
I want to try growing leeks some time. They say that they are difficult to grow here with the heat and humidity we have.

 

Trimmed the shrubs. Edged the lawn. Mowed the area and pulled weeds in the Podophyllum bed and scotch moss bed. Trimmed the dwarf white pine tree sporting candles . It’s starting to look like spring in the PNW.

 

Nothing planned for today. There's a lot of golf, tennis and football on TV.
Brought the trail cams in, to charge up the batteries. I have two on adapters, but one of them doesn't seem to be working very well. There's 24 rechargeable batteries, between the three cameras. I've only one charger which takes four and needs two hours to charge. So it's a 12 hour job, (not for me, for the charger)

Just had a check of the roses, no sign of black spot and three more are starting to bloom. Despite me clearing a lot yesterday, more fallen wisteria blossom on the patios.













The azalea hedge in the front garden is almost in full bloom and the acer tree is nearly "fully leafed." It's gone from its pink and pale green colour to a slightly darker green. It will go darker than this.
The blossom on one of our two rhodos is fading, the other is nowhere near coming out yet. The lawn needs a cut, but it won't get one today.





This brick gate post pillar, I moved two feet to the left 27 years ago when I bought our first Honda CRV.
When the house was built in 1965, the drives by modern standards, were quite narrow,
I was quite proud of my "newly acquired brickying skill." Then two weeks later the cable company dug up the pavement to lay their cable and splashed cement up it, some of which is still there.

 

Don't worry about the cement staining. @Doghouse Riley
It gives those pillars character !! Nothing is perfect, or stays perfect even if it started out that way. Things with character are more interesting than are "perfect" things. That applies to all things, people as well !! IMHO.