Thank you, carpentry / photography / gardening maven Ozark Hillbilly:
The cedar root is just an aged log with a swirl of root on the end. I stuck it in the garden just because I like its character.
When Raven made his wife a garden table I got a serious case of the envies and had to build one of my own.
When my neighbor Ron finally succumbed to lung cancer, his wife offered to me his collection of cedar logs, which he was saving for I know not what. Eventually I decided one day to build this side table with one of them for the Zen garden. Simple but effective.
Any fans of the 1st season of True Detective will recognize this bit of Voodoo. I just thought it was kind of cool.
A couple years ago I built this No Tell Motel for the bees and as one can see, they use it.
I found these steals of a deal late last winter at the local Lowes garden shop. Not really much of a steal, in that I never would have paid $73 for a pot. They are nice, the big ones are 2′ in diameter and almost a foot deep but even at $19 I had to talk myself into it. I had flowers and coleus planted in them last year but they really didn’t fill them in so this year I’m thinking of ferns.
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I’m a big fan of pots & planters (the lazy gardener’s friend), but experience has taught me to cram them with plants — otherwise, the poor starters just look forlorn & abandoned. Not to mention (did I mention lazy?) airborne weeds tend to crowd out the ’empty’ space before my chosen seedlings & seeds can get their acts together. It means I have to water & fertilize more often at the height of the season, but that I can (usually) manage…
What’s going on in your garden (planning / starting / retrospectives), this week?
JPL
Ozark’s pictures are always so enchanting. You can just imagine sitting with a book on a sunny day on one of his benches.
OzarkHillbilly
C’mon guys, I sent this to Anne on Friday as a “Just in case…” but really was hoping it would be a a “For when you eventually run out…” Little did I know.
I am always afraid the plants will choke each other out, so that is good advice. Seeing as I have always been a “survival of the fittest” gardener in all my other endeavors, I really should have thought of that myself.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: But not a snowy day?
Liminal Owl
@OzarkHillbilly: What JPL said. I always enjoy your garden pictures, and this set is a wonderful beginning to my day. Thank you.
raven
Ha, what a thing to wake up to! Out table is under the screened porch and was doing fine until I forgot to turn off the water during the deep freeze and it cracked the PVC! It was pretty dumb since I put a cutoff inside!
WereBear
Wonderful! An oasis in Misery :)
Gvg
Browsing seed catalogs and the web catalogs inside. We are having a cold snap. Only 50 degrees today. I barely went outside yesterday. I did go out to replace the busted pvc pipe fitting that came in the mail so my mist system could resume working. Soon I will start my winter seedlings for spring. I hate winter.
if I get industrious today I may replace some door seals around the front door so the cold doesn’t leak in so much and save my heat bill plus keep me more comfortable.
I recommend GeoSeed again. Very good prices quality seed for larger amounts of seed. It’s easier to be successful with 100 or 500 seeds than with just 25 or 50 that most seed catalogs offer for similar prices. I think Geo is the wholesaler for many of the other catalogs I used to buy from but they sell to the public and are reputable. No pictures in the catalog and directions are aimed at professional especially florists.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Heh. This winter has been surprisingly warm after the big freeze in December. Because life is so much easier with the water spigot by the chicken coop turned on, I’ve been dancing with the devil this year. I turn it on during the warm spells and then off when things inevitably cool back down. I just know that one of these days I’m going to forget to turn it off and drain the lines before a hard freeze and then I’m going to pay the price for my hubris.
OzarkHillbilly
Somehow or other I missed that. Thanx for the tip. Now bookmarked for next year.
delphinium
Love the cedar root in the first photo and the cute bee motel. And one can never go wrong with buying pots/planters on sale. Bought a couple large pots myself at Lowes when they had a year end clearance sale; very handy for planting annuals.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: Your pictures are always so nice OH! And I love how you use things you find as natural decor.
@Gvg: The seed catalogs are here too, as is the David Austin rose catalog, which always make me covet way too many roses. It’s inspiring me to rework my raised beds on the sunny south side of the house. I’m going to move the bulb garden out and plant a couple of roses there instead, and swap the bulb garden into the east side bed I’ll build where the roses were in pots last year.
Haven’t decided what seeds to start other than the canna seeds I saved. I have the rhizomes too, but the seeds grow fast if you start them with a heat mat. Debating what tomatoes to start, and will be starting purple potatoes too.
Ken
@OzarkHillbilly: Plants choking each other out is kind of built-in, though. Even the the trunks of pando try to overshade one another, and they’re all the same organism!
Elizabelle
I love Ozark Hillbilly’s photography and creativity.
Needs. moar dog, though.
Happy Sunday morning, jackals.
Anyway
Love this set, OH — creative, whimsical, all that good stuff.
I’m envious of people who finish projects — I don’t have a great track record there.
OzarkHillbilly
Thanx for the compliments all.
@Elizabelle: Shouldn’t be too hard, they’re both a couple of photo bombing monsters. I usually cull those pics out but I’ll try to remember to leave a couple in next time.
@Anyway: My problem is I always have 3 or 4 of them going at the same time. Focus Tom, focus!
Immanentize
Opened up BJ, saw the first picture (ok without readers) and thought, YAY! OZARK HAS CAPTURED SOME FROST FLOWERS! Oh well.
Winter here near Beantown has been mild thusfar, but two more months of serious possible freeze/snow/ice lie ahead.
I am between sixes and sevens because I will likely be moving this spring, so I am trying not to want to garden here. But I did get the recently released — and fabulous! — book Beaver Land at Xmas. I highly recommend.
Kristine
Always lovely photos. I love the zen garden
It’s been unseasonably mild since last month’s cold snap here in NE Illinois—highs in the 40s/high 30s expected for the next week or so. Ground is bare. A few of the daffodils in a sunny spot have poked through, which will mean frost burn if we get a February crash.
No seed catalogs here. I need to rearrange and organize what I have. I want to clear a bed in the corner of the yard where the old crabapple used to be. If the volunteer native ninebark that sprouted survives—which it should because native—it will be the centerpiece. Then I’ll add some milkweed and liatris. A few more things as yet undetermined.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
Thanks for the book recommendation. Bookmarked, as it were.
Having recently moved to a place with a smaller garden, I am cutting way back on my seed starting. I also plan to travel in the spring, so I might break down and just buy already-started plants, rather than leave Ms. O with a mini-nursery of seedlings to tend in my absence. Perhaps I’ll direct sow things that are ok with a later start, from my supply of leftover seeds.
Prediction: I’ll buy more seeds anyhow. Because that’s how it works. Always.
OzarkHillbilly
Heh. No frost flowers this year, conditions were never quite right for them. I will probably do an “Ice and Snow” show for the folks here tho, and a couple frost flowers will probably make the grade.
Beaverland looks good, on the -to read- list it goes. STL’s early years were deeply entwined with the fur trade. I suspect the author spends more than a little ink and paper on that.
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: I’m glad to catch you. I hope all is OK? Where are Spring travels taking you?
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: She does, but she also nicely balances her understanding of (respect for?) modern trappers with her obvious horror at our earlier trapping habit.
My new place has beavers, a large beaver pond (maybe 8-10 acres?) And recent signs of beavers beavering. It has well water that is so sweet, no nitrates or nitrites, just a bit cloudy — but that good water is in no small part due to beaver wetland filtration systems.
SFAW
Ozark –
As usual, your stuff is an un-Blech-y respite.
SFAW
@Immanentize:
Are you going to be staying in the area (i.e., MA, of course)?
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
Thanks for asking! All is well, and getting better as I shed various onerous volunteer commitments. I’m training myself to say “no.” Nicely, of course.
Travels are to Portugal and Spain. Walking the Portuguese Camino, and then a few days in Sevilla and Granada before flying home. I walked the Camino Frances (the most commonly known route, often referred to as the Camino de Santiago) some years ago and got hooked by that form of travel. Subsequently did a section of the Camino del Norte, as well as several other long-distance, multi-day walks in Sweden, Germany, and Scotland. I love experiencing a country on foot and the simplicity of carrying a minimal amount of stuff with you. I don’t do wilderness backpacking, though. I like having a bed and plumbing at the end of the day.
Have been thinking of you too. Hope all is well with you and young man Immp.
Immanentize
@SFAW: Yes I am — the new place is, at the moment, seasonal. No heat, not even a functioning wood stove. But plumbed for baseboard. Heating system will be job one there, I think. Maybe heat pump? May be too cold for geothermal? I’m investigating.
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: Direct sown seeds seem to need less consistent watering than transplants, from what I’ve seen.
delphinium
@Immanentize:
Yes-OH’s frost flower pics are always so amazing-some of my favorite garden chat photos.
@Kristine:
That is my plan this year too-rearrange what I have, before getting anything else. Although I did end up buying some bulbs in the fall, so will see if I can stick to this.
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: I am well, he is well. That trip sounds amazing. Please send communiques from the trail.
SFAW
@Immanentize: It sounds like it’s either in the middle of nowhere (i.e., deep woods or similar) or waterfront. [Obviously, my own biases are coming into play in those guesses.] I’m assuming it’s not a teardown, just something that needs a lot of work.
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid:
True. The most probable transplants will be tomatoes, given their longer growing season. I’ve cut way back on my tomato ambitions, but I can’t give them up altogether. The triumph of hope over experience, etc.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
Will do. Glad you are both thriving. Best wishes for your move. It’s stressful, but can also be liberating in multiple ways. I hope the new place quickly becomes home for you.
Geminid
@Immanentize: I’ve read that the new electric baseboard heaters are more efficient than the old style. There are lots of good, compact electric space heaters out now too.
Insulation and weathersealing will make a big difference in how much heating capacity you need. There may be assistance to be had from the state and feds here.
But a wood stove is good insurance against power outages and a way to keep electricity costs down. And they are nice to cook on. I used to heat with wood and occasionally cook up beef or pork roasts in a big iron pot, with potatoes, carrots and onions. Mmm, mmh!
OzarkHillbilly
Nice, I’m jealous. Watching them go about their business is just like watching a private wildlife theatre. Someday I’ll have to tell you the tale of the Monster of Misty Moon Lake.
Immanentize
@SFAW: almost nowhere? It’s north of Syracuse, NY. on the other side of Oneida Lake near the wee town of Cleveland, NY. So, forested maybe a mile from a big lake.
Immanentize
@Geminid: mmmmm. Stomach rumbles.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Heat pumps are efficient but they have a hard time keeping up in extreme cold so a supplement (wood stove, etc) is nice to have
Miss Bianca
OH, your capacity for creating beautiful spaces through plantings and carpentry is an absolute marvel.
ETA: On the local weather note, up at the Mountain Hacienda it’s been pretty dry this winter so far – all the snow-bombing that’s been going on in the Rockies and the Sierra Nevadas has been conspicuously passing by the Sangre de Cristo range. That could change later in the season – we’ve tended to get more snow in May than in December, lately. We’re supposed to get a little snow today, have to hurry and split wood and get the upstairs chimney swept out before the scream-y winds that plagued us last night come back…
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: I will enjoy that telling.
There is a newish theory that beavers, although small brained, work more like termites — collectively and generationally. They are neat little critters.
The pond created dead tree (like 20 feet tall) which are now home to blue heron rookeries and osprey. It looks like a Bruegel painting some times. I will send pics to AL in the Spring.
delphinium
@Immanentize: Your place sounds really nice!
I’m in the southeast part of central NY, near some of the finger lakes.
Elizabelle
@O. Felix Culpa: Excited for your Portuguese Camino trip. Wow! Will be in touch about that.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: I remember one time floating on the Current river, I was working a deep hole for some smallies for dinner. I had just paddled up next to a rootwad next to the bank when I looked down into the water and “HOLY FUCK IT’S A GAWDDAMNED NUKLEAR SUBMARINE!!!!” Then my brain kicked in and said something along the lines of “Get ahold of yerself ya drama queen, it’s just a beaver.”
Barbara
Could you maybe post instructions for the bee motel?
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly:
LOL. Great story, and great pix up top as usual. A snake swam past me once in the lake at day camp when I was much younger than I am now. I remained very, very still until it was gone.
WereBear
@satby: Can’t you plant the bulbs in the rose bed?
I guess it depends on how many bulbs😁
O. Felix Culpa
@satby:
I’m trying Brandy Boy tomatoes from seed this year. I’ve never had luck with Brandywines or very many other heirlooms, e.g. Purple Cherokee, in the NM climate, and supposedly this hybrid (from Burpee) is hardier, but with a similar flavor profile as the heirloom variety. We’ll see. Albuquerque is generally 10 degrees warmer than our previous home in northern NM, so I’m not sure what impact the higher temps will have.
Mousebumples
I’ve been browsing through the Jung’s catalog and thinking of adding some more berries on the south side of the house (replacing some annuals) – we’d rather have food than flowers, lol.
The Anne (yellow raspberries that are practically white in hue) and maybe some black raspberries…
But we may also be adding something-something geothermal for green energy in the spring, so we should probably figure that out first…
OzarkHillbilly
@O. Felix Culpa: Once while skinny dipping on the Big Creek in Shannon County I had a cottonmouth swim up to within about a foot of the family jewels while I was sitting on the gravel bar with my legs splayed. I was looking for fossils and looked up and there he was. I grabbed a handful of gravel and froze. We stared at each other for about 30 seconds until he finally said, “Just so long as you know who’s boss in these parts.” and swam away.
Elizabelle
@Immanentize: Congrats on the new place. Sounds like a wonderful home.
For summer, at present. And welcome, beaver overlords.
Miss Bianca
@OzarkHillbilly: In your telling, that story is horror comedy gold.
TerryC
This week I planted 11 corkscrew willow cuttings and dug up and transplanted 15 black walnut seedings. Our weather here in Ann Arbor is so unseasonably warm that it seems the ground may not freeze at all this year.
For the spring I have ordered 490 bare root trees and bushes from five sources:
St. Lawrence Nursery – expensive but highest quality, larger-size cold-hardy trees and bushes, specializing in apple varieties
Coldstream Farm – good bulk purchase prices
Missouri Department of Conservation – great seedlings, super pricing
Washtenaw County Conservation District – great prices, limited variety, most counties have annual spring sales like ours
Monticello – off-beat, but the best source I have found for purple beautyberry bushes
Best!
Miss Bianca
@TerryC: Ah, Ann Arbor. And black walnuts. I miss my college town sometimes – not quite enough to move back to Michigan (although who knows – never say never!), but I loved Ann Arbor dearly.
OzarkHillbilly
@Miss Bianca: Yeah, after I froze my snake loving buddy says, “Tom, that’s a cottonmouth.” and I replied, “I know, I know.”
OzarkHillbilly
@TerryC: I usually get some seedlings from MDC but this year I forgot to order them in time.
munira
What a neat place you have. Very creative.
TerryC
@OzarkHillbilly: They sold out fast!
cope
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m loving your pictures and the stories they are evoking, thanks.
For my 60th (more than a decade ago), we went to North Carolina to do some gem hunting. I was sitting on the bank of a small pond in an abandoned quarry, sieving fine gravel looking for emeralds. I was sitting knees bent, feet slightly in the water, when a snake, non-poisonous I think, slithered from behind me into the pond right between my feet. Snakes don’t usually bother me except when I come across one unexpectedly. This one was unexpected.
OzarkHillbilly
@Barbara: Sorry I missed your question earlier, Barbara. Here’s a couple links from the NC State extension publications:
What is a Bee Hotel?
There are several links to the side there including Bee Hotel Design and Placement.
OzarkHillbilly
@TerryC: They usually do.
@cope: I have no fear of snakes but that would give me a start even if it was just a garter snake.
satby
@TerryC: That’s a lot of trees! Are you reforesting an old farm?
Glidwrith
@Barbara: Seconded!
currants
@Immanentize:
That’s exactly what I thought! “Oooh more frost flowers!” But no…. and if the weather is as moderate as it sounds out there, there won’t be any this week either.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Okay–OH, I’m not a TV person and not a movie person either–can you tell me what the hanging triangular construction is? Or is for? Looks like it’s made with bamboo?
OzarkHillbilly
@currants:In the first season of True Detectives, the… Sickos were making these sculptures to hang/place around their victims or anywhere they’d been, like a warning. I just thought some of them were kinda cool.
eta: and living where I do, they might act as a warning to some.