From ace commentor and postcard-writer Mousebumples:
Garden pics that I took planning to send, but never followed through, lol.
A handful of daylilies…
a strawberry bush (the rabbits ate most the berries this year – I’ll have to plant some nearby marigolds or something next year)…
a cherry tree…
a catalpa…
and a rosebush.
We’re thinking of planting an apple tree next year (we have a crabapple that should help pollinate and others nearby have apple trees already).
I’m thinking of Zestar! apples, but since we have clay soil, it’ll probably need extra TLC.
***********
Tis the season, so we’re told, for checking over what worked in our various gardens, and what we want to do to improve them next year…
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
Jeffery
Is it a dwarf cherry tree?
I am collecting seeds. Getting them out of the seed heads is a bother but I save money and know they will be viable.
In a bit of madness I ordered 200 small flowering bulbs in June. I am dreading their arrival. My back will not be happy planting them.
eclare
Such pretty lilies….
OzarkHillbilly
What a coincidence! Me too! Mine arrived yesterday but I’m gonna have to wait a week or 3 as right now it is way too warm.
Thanx for the pics Mousebumples, day lilies are always a welcome brightener.
kalakal
Those Day Lillies are very nice indeed.
We finally got some rain yesterday. Yay, first in ages!
satby
Looks great Mousebumples! I’m hoping my newer daylillies come up in bigger, more mature clumps like that next year! Looking up the Zestar apple, it was developed in Minnesota so it should be good for your area. I knew how to garden in clay soil, amending it wasn’t much different than what I have to do here in sandy soil. And it at least held water long enough for plants other than grasses to get a drink.
satby
@Jeffery: @OzarkHillbilly: My smallest spring bulbs like Glory of the Snow, crocus, etc. I planted in the lawn edges in clumps of 10 to naturalize. They bloom and the foliage dies back normally before the lawn needs a first mow. I took a spade, dug a flap of grass and roots sideways to peel back, stuck 10 or so bulbs down another inch each, and then put the flap back in place, and watered the whole area when I got done. Faster and more natural looking than planting one by one! You could try that?
Lapassionara
Thanks for posting. I have rabbits too, and they really decimated my dwarf sunflowers. I’m still working on redeeming the beds where the vinca minor has overgrown. A never-ending battle.
Trivia Man
I have about 6 pods in my milkweed but Kant, I would like to spread them around my yard. Will it be enough to just pop them open and drop all the seeds around or should I prep the soil first?
delphinium
Lovely flowers and trees!
No fall planting here this year. Thought I was pretty much done with the lawn maintenance but we are supposed to get several sunny 80+ days here next week along with some rain so the grass will need to be mowed at least once more this season.
satby
@delphinium: My lawn guy must have had his partner, who I don’t like, do my lawn last time. I can tell because it looked very tidy and trimmed, and to get that way he mowed down 4 recently planted daylilly fans and the sticks marking their spots, and a four year old, 18 inch tall rose bush. All planted against fences, so that took effort. To not drive my yard guys crazy, I tell them not to trim or mow within a foot of the fences.
I HATE mowing, but I guess next year I have to do it myself.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Trivia Man
last fall I planted about 60 tulips. Per advice I laid down chicken wire after planting so the squirrels wouldn’t get them. Success! Nearly all of them came up. Can I remove that chicken wire now? Next spring ? Never?
satby
@rikyrah: 🙋rikyrah!
It’s weird the “hi” emoji switches from a long haired female figure to a short haired male figure lately. Doesn’t really matter, but the old one was a better representation 🙄
satby
@Trivia Man: Those bulbs will still be just as tasty to squirrels as when you first planted them, so I’d go with never as long as the bulbs still come up.
satby
On seed saving: my cannas are all producing seed and I already have 9 planters of cannas! I’m going to start the seeds and see what comes up next spring because I’ve already mixed green leafed ones with bronze leafed ones and I want more bronzes. If I’m successful, I’ll let people here know in case anyone would like some canna plants. I’m sure to have some to share.
Mousebumples
Thanks everyone! (and for the rosebush help when I asked about that in a thread)
I honestly don’t remember if that’s a dwarf cherry tree – but probably? It’s a few years old now, and since I have about 1/3 acre, probably dwarf.
I also have a maple, linden, and Kentucky coffee tree that I planted 5-6 years ago. A hickory tree from about 4 years ago never quite made it. But, on average, pretty good luck with plantings.
Our ash is dying (might be ash borer, or light just be the end of its lifespan since this subdivision is over 20 years old), but a black walnut planted itself in its place. (thanks, birds, probably?) Planning to cut the ash this fall, hopefully. Any issues with letting the walnut keep growing where it’s planted?
Also have something growing big and fast in my front yard that I need to either pull or transplant. Oak-like leaves and already about 6 feet tall. Looks more bush like than tree like. (if I’d been thinking, I would have taken a picture and sent to AL to crowdsource identification, lol) Might be a mulberry bush? 🤷♀️
delphinium
@satby: Ugh, that sucks-are they going to compensate you for their error? I actually find mowing and weed wacking relaxing so don’t mind doing it, but may have someone come out next year just to do some spring clean up/edging along my garden beds.
Ken
The only problem I know of is when it matures and starts dropping nuts. If it will overlap your driveway, they can put dings in your car. They also stain things.
Oh, and you’ll have lots of squirrels.
Mousebumples
It may end up over my driveway, but we usually have our cars in the garage, so hopefully not an issue. And I like squirrels (I think?), so no issues there. Also not super worried about stains, but I know my dad has voiced similar concerns (eg when we bought the cherry tree or crabapple).
Thanks!
satby
@Mousebumples: Black walnuts grow very tall and have a toxin that inhibits the growth of plants beneath them, but not all plants are susceptible. I would get rid of the mystery bush, mulberries are an annoying mess and the birds will spread the seeds everywhere. A squirrel probably planted your walnut, my neighbor has a mature tree and I find newly planted “gift” trees every year.
Anne Laurie
If it’s a mulberry (the leaves on the volunteers around here look more like grape leaves than oak), the main problems are that the berries stain like crazy, and they attract birds, who will poop pink guano copiously. Given you’ve got really young kids, this *might* be an issue?
(Also, while the fruit are not poisonous, they *are* laxative in quantity, and it’s hard to keep kids from stuffing themselves… )
satby
@delphinium: The partner, an older guy, is also handling the email and hasn’t even replied to mine about the damage. the daylillies will probably survive because there’s some small remnants still growing. The rose is/was a red Freedom rose planted before I understood just how much I had to amend the soil for it to thrive. I think they’re own roots so it may come back, and I’ll enrich that spot a bit in case it does. But he took that right down to the ground; we’ll see.
Mousebumples
All good points! Thanks for the link, satby. I’ll investigate further.
I’m trying to lean into “natural/native” but not all stuff that’s growing on its own is great, lol.
And my kids don’t usually put everything in their mouths, though my 18 mo old will totally try to eat nowhere near ripe raspberries once the ripe ones are gone. We’re enjoying our late season berries now. 🤩
evodevo
@Mousebumples: The borer probably got the ash…we’ve had two-foot in diameter, 50 yr old trees all get killed by them…the black walnut will kill anything within its dripline and they can grow pretty tall, so plan accordingly
NotMax
Not my (non-existent) garden yet not too far away as the crow flies.
schrodingers_cat
A floral wreath seems appropriate for the gardening thread.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Thanx, I’ll do that. I’ve got an extensive patch of glory of the snow now that I am adding to. Certainly will quicken things up and I’ll bet I’ll agree with you on the looks of it.
satby
@NotMax: that’s very cool!
sab
@Mousebumples: I have been in my house for twenty years and we have two black walnut trees. One failed to thrive until we removed the garage. Now it’s huge. We love both of them, as do the squirrels. But in the Fall I probably should wear a hardhat in the back yard.
They do seem to be toxic to some plants under them, but the grass is okay and the yellow coneflowers. Also the baby buckeye, which is too close to the walnut anyway.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: I didn’t know what glory of the snow was until I googled it. It’s the scilla that my mother loved and that I transplanted to my yard when Mom died. That stuff thrives and is lovely in early Spring when nothing else is out. Blue.
Brits call them squills.
Mousebumples
Thanks for the thoughts! We don’t have much too close I’d worry about now – the nearest plant is a walking stick tree (I forget the actual name, lol), some hostas and bleeding hearts – but they’re all 30-50 feet away, I think. Neighbor has a crabapple that I wouldn’t want to harm, though. And I might need to measure how far it is from our garage – also 30-50 feet, probably, and I’m not sure if there’s a recommended minimum distance…
indycat32
Sort of a gardening question: Do any of those poison ivy killer sprays work, as in it results in the ivy being really, truly dead? And safe to use around my outdoor kitties. The furry vine is spreading and growing up the side of my garage (no leaves).
sab
We had to chop down our locust tree which was sick and dropping large branches. Sorry to say because we were happy. It was a messy tree the whole time we knew it.
So that opened up our yard to sunlight and a flower bed. We have been extremely incompetent in the project. Started with perennials although we weren’t really aware of the sunlight on that patch of ground.
Basting all summer, but direct light is gone this Fall.
I had been planning to double the size of the flower bed this Fall, and plant bulbs. After seeing the torment to what I did plant I think I will expand the flowerbed but only do annuals in the new half, and plant big things in front of the surviving perennials that wanted shade. The sun loving perennials were very happy.
We have shade garden in back that I love, although chipmunks are extremely cute but extremely annoyingly little nuisances.
oldgold
@indycat32: Pro Tip: Don’t make a rash decision when dealing with poison ivy.
sab
@indycat32: Yikes. I am super sensitive to poison ivy. I have been using Roundup’s poison ivy killer (I am terrified of Roundup and I use it masked and with gloves with a paintbrush not with a spray) and it seems to work but not miraculously. Some poison ivy always comes back. But not thriving as it used to when I just pulled it.
sab
@Mousebumples: Our walnut tree’s issue with the garage was that it got no water to its roots when the garage was there. Now it does.
Jeffery
@satby: They are being added to the area under the pear tree that I have been planting early small flowering bulbs in for a few years. I swear this is the last year I plant bulbs. I say that every year.
I am not doing a pot of twenty tulips this year for next spring. Will probably miss it in the spring. I am getting too old to do this.
sab
My bulbs are pretty much limited to daffodils because the squirrels and the deer eat everything else.
ETA But daylilys might thrive. Also siberian iris.
Jeffery
@Trivia Man: If you aren’t adding new bulbs you can skip putting it down. Disturbed early is a squirrel magnet. If you put in new bulbs anywhere else put the wire on top of the ground.
sab
@Trivia Man: We got a bunch of lovely red tulips about ten years ago. Our squirrels stole them from our neighbor across the street.
Mousebumples
Ah, gotcha. My clay soil may help here as well, maybe.
sab
@Mousebumples: We have clay soil also. That walnut tree was planted right next to the garage by a random squirrel. I mean six inches away from the garage,.
The garage was a bad structure. It had a gaping hole in the concrete floor. We were afraid to park cars in it, and mice and chipmunks ran rampant through the hole in the floor, so we couldn’t use it for storage. When they tore it down they only found four pieces of rebar in the whole structure. No wonder the concrete cracked.
When they tore down the garage they found another garage underneath. Siding and asphalt and roof beams and everything. No wonder the floor held even without rebar. We could have parked there
ETA Construction amateur hour.
Mousebumples
Haha, fair enough. I might chance it and see if it’s adversely impacting other flora nearby. Glad you got the garage fixed/removed!
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: Squill is something else. If you go to Color Blends, they sell 2 types of squill in addition to the GofSnow.
OzarkHillbilly
@oldgold: 30 lashes with a wet noodle for you.
OzarkHillbilly
You ain’t just a woofin’ there.
sab
@Mousebumples: We love our walnut. Dappled shade. Tall graceful tree. Squirrels love it and we like squirrels.
Glidwrith
My roses are enjoying the second major bloom of the year. The second-year mulberry seems to have accepted guidance (aka I whacked it) on how big it will be, thanks to a Juicer that recommended “Grow Little Fruit Tree”.
I have an extremely limited amount of space, so I’m trying for a combination of vertical gardening and a forest garden to minimize how much work and water is required.
It’s very slow going, in part because the fence, with whom I share five adjoining neighbors needs repair. One of them tried a land grab which would have meant half my front yard gone and water lines uprooted, all because he wanted more room for his trash can.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: The guys who tore down the garage were horrified. Also too the guys who tore down the garage were minority contractors and they wouldn’t have done any construction so slimy, yet they were avoided for a generation when the white bozos were phucking up my neighborhood.
And I am white.
satby
Yeah, me too. 25 daffodil bulbs (all new varieties to my yard) just arrived yesterday. And because I’m a slow learner (or stubborn) 20 tulip bulbs will show up soon too.
MomSense
Yesterday I bought some perennials on sale and planted them, adding to a bed that had lost some things in the drought last year and some more things that didn’t like a month straight of rain.
I was going to get another bed ready for winter but last night after the DIL’s performance the kids invited me to go out with them. We were in basement bars and speakeasies (is that the plural??) behind bookcase doors and other places they heard about by text because they move frequently. All very interesting and so much fun but I am not a young anymore.
I think I will spend the day in a cool, dark room listening to music at low volume.
satby
@Glidwrith: 😡 Glad you put a stop to that!
Bad neighbors are a special hell on earth.
Mousebumples
Sold! Our squirrels also seem to like it since we have a bunch growing this year. Probably only will leave the one that doesn’t need to be transplanted away from the house… 😂
satby
And, I’m off. Potluck day with the UUs. Wish I could stay home, it’ll be a gorgeous day.
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: The old garage underneath is probably why you got that hole in the floor. As the wood rotted out and everything settled it left a hollow underneath that the unreinforced concrete could not hold up against.
Glidwrith
@satby: The original survey plans from 20 years ago and fence measurements weren’t enough to stop his harassment. The ass actually sent a badly worded letter from his lawyer. I finally ended up looking at the so-called property pin that he was basing his claim: it was a hole in the concrete that had once had a rock in it!
Kristine
@satby: I gave up on yard guys when they almost killed my lawn by cutting it waaay too short/every week whether it needed it or not. I asked them to leave it longer, but they can’t take care of several lawns per hour if they need to stop and adjust mower height settings every time, so. I let the contract lapse when I retired and have handled it myself since. I have to battle creeping Charlie, but no more bare spots in the lawn. Except in the shade.
sab
@Glidwrith: We are having the opposite issue. We have a strip of grass between the two driveways. Our city’s building codes being what they are, three different neighbors and us agreed that the property line ran down the middle of the grass strip. The city never would have allowed our fence up to the property line, nor would they have allowed their garage up to the property line.
Kids next door got a serveyor who says the garage next door is right at the property line and they entire grass strip is ours. This feels wrong but the kids next door think that’s it.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: Chipmunk heaven it was. Our chipmunks have been disgruntled ever since the garage went away.
satby
@Kristine: my regular guy is wonderful. His older partner is changing some stuff I assume “to improve profits” and one thing is to charge the customer the service fees on credit payments. Which are a business deductible on your taxes, so a double-dip as far as I’m concerned. I like the kid who started the business, but he’s only 30 and the middle aged guy will be able to prevail in business decisions, based on his longer experience. Too bad.
satby
@Glidwrith: Good for you! A hostile neighbor in Chicago once moved the stakes from a stake survey I had done. But he missed one and couldn’t obscure the line etched in the concrete sidewalk the surveyor had made. When they called the cops on the guy putting up the fence to prevent that neighbor from parking partially on my yard, the cop pointed to the line, in line with the missed stake and told the guy to mind his own business.