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Apr. 7th, 2005 07:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickAt work today I got to install a new circulator pump thingie on a furnace. That involved troubleshooting *and* tools, so no downside there. I'm so proud of myself for being able to get which way to turn the screws to tighten them in only two tries... :P
I raked up the leaves and cleaned the dead plants (dead tomato vines, dead squash vines, brittle stems of the 3' tall Mint That Ate Manhattan, etc.) off the garden so that I could see what I had to work with this year. I also pruned out the dead canes from amongst the black raspberries. I still need to tie up the living canes onto the trellis. (This is more work than most people are willing to put into their black raspberries. Mine, however, are lush and perfect every year because they are not lying in the dirt. They're also really easy to pick. And they're tidy.) The black raspberries didn't fare too badly over the winter and I've got a nice selection of fruiting canes left for the coming season.
The roses... well, probably I should know better than to try to grow rosebushes. This is not rosebush territory. This year's victims (nothing died entirely but all of these lost better than 50% of pre-winter plant matter and they're looking pretty damned sorry): Queen of Bourbons. Madame Hardy. Quatre Saisons Blanc Mosseaux. Rose du Rescht. All of these guys are facing the shovel. I can't be having with crappy performers in my yard. I have no time for mowing around crappy performers, but I might try moving Hardy to see if she does better somewhere else. She's a nice rose. Some roses took a few hits -- they're a bit wobbly, but still standing and should rebound nicely over the summer: These are they: Stanwell Perpetual, The Fairy, Madame Plantier (naming roses after patron's wives was apparently quite the thing once upon a time). Some roses survived with barely a scratch and look great heading into spring: Dr. W. Van Fleet, Himalayan Musk Rambler (both of these eat houses and I will need to build them things to sprawl on this year), the two purpleish rugosas from Roy (these look absolutely spectacular), and oddly, Charles de Mills which is damage free and FIVE FEET TALL. Dang. Way to go, Charles! Rock on with your bad self! (Charles is a gorgeous gallica rose and when conditions are good, he blooms prettily. If the humidity is too high or it rains inconveniently, he makes amazingly vibrant maroon balls of mush -- nobody's perfect. Should he perform to spec, though, there will be stellar pictures along about June. Stay tuned.)
The peonies are fine but I need to get shit on them before they get very tall. Mulching the peonies with three or four inches of shit (pony shit, as you might reasonably expect, due to the pony references. I try to have hobbies that overlap like this -- it's SYNERGISTIC!!) after they're two feet tall and getting leafy sucks. This sounds like a lot of work for peonies but it isn't really that bad and it makes for very happy peonies that send up sixty or seventy hard round knobby buds (there are four peony plants in this clump) to the height of my tits. Other people are in awe of my fucking peonies. They are quite impressive. (I mulch damn near everything else with several inches of pony shit while I'm at it, mostly because it keeps the weeds down. Also, the pony shit is free because I pay for it at the front end...)
The irises (german bearded) are fine. The irises (siberian) appear to be doing well but I'm missing a plant I thought I had. Possibly something ate it. The irises (japanese) seem to have made it through the winter except I'm only seeing three and I thought I had four. Probably it was eaten by moles or voles or some fucking thing. The iris (psuedocoras) is fine as is the iris (graminea). I have rather a lot of irises.
The daylilies inside the fence are fine. The daylilies outside the fence have been eaten off by the deer. The daffodils interplanted with them remain untouched, as they should. Daffodils are poisonous, see. Daylilies are not, but the deer will get tired of eating them in a week or two and they'll be fine. This has happened before, you see, and I know how it comes out. The oriental lilies have not yet made an appearance and I'm slightly worried about that.
The mint... it's mint. A nuclear attack would not kill it. It's fine. The catnip is still alive. I fenced it again because having cats roll around on it orgasmically, as amusing as that may be to watch, is probably not that good for it. The snowball bush (hydrangea paniculata grandiflora) is fine as is the mock orange. I don't know what to do with the mock orange to make it flower, but I'm getting tired of looking at it not flowering. V. annoying. The campsis vine is still eating the chimney. It doesn't leaf out until very late so I keep thinking it's dead when in fact it's just resting. The damn thing (it clings on its own) is as thick as my wrist at the base -- probably a little thing like winter won't kill it. (It attracts hummingbirds, which is why I have it. This is not just gardening-catalog bullshit. It really does attract hummingbirds, lots of them.) The red trumpet honeysuckle is in fine shape too. I'm quite pleased with it. I have not checked my expensive lilac bush to see if it's dead or not. I figure it's probably best to wait and hope. (This is probably what happened to that Schaivo woman's parents...)
I raked up the leaves and cleaned the dead plants (dead tomato vines, dead squash vines, brittle stems of the 3' tall Mint That Ate Manhattan, etc.) off the garden so that I could see what I had to work with this year. I also pruned out the dead canes from amongst the black raspberries. I still need to tie up the living canes onto the trellis. (This is more work than most people are willing to put into their black raspberries. Mine, however, are lush and perfect every year because they are not lying in the dirt. They're also really easy to pick. And they're tidy.) The black raspberries didn't fare too badly over the winter and I've got a nice selection of fruiting canes left for the coming season.
The roses... well, probably I should know better than to try to grow rosebushes. This is not rosebush territory. This year's victims (nothing died entirely but all of these lost better than 50% of pre-winter plant matter and they're looking pretty damned sorry): Queen of Bourbons. Madame Hardy. Quatre Saisons Blanc Mosseaux. Rose du Rescht. All of these guys are facing the shovel. I can't be having with crappy performers in my yard. I have no time for mowing around crappy performers, but I might try moving Hardy to see if she does better somewhere else. She's a nice rose. Some roses took a few hits -- they're a bit wobbly, but still standing and should rebound nicely over the summer: These are they: Stanwell Perpetual, The Fairy, Madame Plantier (naming roses after patron's wives was apparently quite the thing once upon a time). Some roses survived with barely a scratch and look great heading into spring: Dr. W. Van Fleet, Himalayan Musk Rambler (both of these eat houses and I will need to build them things to sprawl on this year), the two purpleish rugosas from Roy (these look absolutely spectacular), and oddly, Charles de Mills which is damage free and FIVE FEET TALL. Dang. Way to go, Charles! Rock on with your bad self! (Charles is a gorgeous gallica rose and when conditions are good, he blooms prettily. If the humidity is too high or it rains inconveniently, he makes amazingly vibrant maroon balls of mush -- nobody's perfect. Should he perform to spec, though, there will be stellar pictures along about June. Stay tuned.)
The peonies are fine but I need to get shit on them before they get very tall. Mulching the peonies with three or four inches of shit (pony shit, as you might reasonably expect, due to the pony references. I try to have hobbies that overlap like this -- it's SYNERGISTIC!!) after they're two feet tall and getting leafy sucks. This sounds like a lot of work for peonies but it isn't really that bad and it makes for very happy peonies that send up sixty or seventy hard round knobby buds (there are four peony plants in this clump) to the height of my tits. Other people are in awe of my fucking peonies. They are quite impressive. (I mulch damn near everything else with several inches of pony shit while I'm at it, mostly because it keeps the weeds down. Also, the pony shit is free because I pay for it at the front end...)
The irises (german bearded) are fine. The irises (siberian) appear to be doing well but I'm missing a plant I thought I had. Possibly something ate it. The irises (japanese) seem to have made it through the winter except I'm only seeing three and I thought I had four. Probably it was eaten by moles or voles or some fucking thing. The iris (psuedocoras) is fine as is the iris (graminea). I have rather a lot of irises.
The daylilies inside the fence are fine. The daylilies outside the fence have been eaten off by the deer. The daffodils interplanted with them remain untouched, as they should. Daffodils are poisonous, see. Daylilies are not, but the deer will get tired of eating them in a week or two and they'll be fine. This has happened before, you see, and I know how it comes out. The oriental lilies have not yet made an appearance and I'm slightly worried about that.
The mint... it's mint. A nuclear attack would not kill it. It's fine. The catnip is still alive. I fenced it again because having cats roll around on it orgasmically, as amusing as that may be to watch, is probably not that good for it. The snowball bush (hydrangea paniculata grandiflora) is fine as is the mock orange. I don't know what to do with the mock orange to make it flower, but I'm getting tired of looking at it not flowering. V. annoying. The campsis vine is still eating the chimney. It doesn't leaf out until very late so I keep thinking it's dead when in fact it's just resting. The damn thing (it clings on its own) is as thick as my wrist at the base -- probably a little thing like winter won't kill it. (It attracts hummingbirds, which is why I have it. This is not just gardening-catalog bullshit. It really does attract hummingbirds, lots of them.) The red trumpet honeysuckle is in fine shape too. I'm quite pleased with it. I have not checked my expensive lilac bush to see if it's dead or not. I figure it's probably best to wait and hope. (This is probably what happened to that Schaivo woman's parents...)
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-08 01:00 am (UTC)Some of my rose sticks appear to be preparing to have new growth. Yay! Several hyacinths are blooming, as previously mentioned. No daffodils yet, but they are untouched by deer as mentioned. (Poor tulips... the only one not chopped off an inch above the ground is in the concrete box by the front door).
The daylillies appear to be outcompeting the munching. Yay daylillies! There are a heck of a lot more of them shooting up than first appeared.
And the mystery ornamental tree is reaching full bloom.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-08 10:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-08 04:40 am (UTC)I found one rogue daffodil in my backyard. We've only had this house two years (going into our third summer here) and I don't remember it from last spring or from the year before when we were scoping the place out. I intend to plant some more daffs this fall and some interesting tulips.
I'm starting to get my vegetable and annual flower stuff ready to go. I could probably have already been planting last week, if I'd gotten my act in gear and dug up more turf than I have so far...
no subject
Date: 2005-04-08 04:57 am (UTC)We used to have a patch of a very rare kind of iris which my great-aunt bred, which had been happily growing there for twenty years (I purchased this place from my parents, you see). It had, over time, become the last patch of this sort of iris in the world. My grandmother and aunt came and removed it at my request before I managed to kill it by accident.
My aptitude for gardening may be surmised from the fact that my standard gardening tools are a dirt-fork and a mower...
Ye olde garden
Date: 2005-04-08 02:04 pm (UTC)Our crocuses are done, both kinds. We have one weeny kind that we planted in amongst the grass, which is sort of a neat effect. The grass comes on long after the crocuses are done, so you see lots of little flowers in the yard, often when there is still snow on the ground. The fact that they are plain white and yellow doesn't matter much since you are so grateful to see anything colorful in mid-March. The vegetation associated with the crocuses then blends nicely with the grass when they finish.
We have a few daffodils that are out, plus our sweet cherry tree is budding out. Should have actual leaves before the end of the weekend.
Our pusy willow is done and is turning into an ordinary shrub-looking thing again.
No asparagus yet, but I am hopeful. Must mow it to knock down last year's vegetation.
Raspberries are leafing and ready to start kicking ass.
Strawberries survived underneath the....straw. Green leaves are plainly visible.
Nothing in the real (vegetable) garden yet. Not even tilled, although I think I am going to try no-till gardening this year with boatloads of mulch. Reputedly, this (the no-till) will help to minimize the weeds. It must be true, because I read it in Mother Earth News.
The potato planting this year will actually be a mulch-based planting instead of a "bury it in the ground" planting. Basically, we're going to set the taters on top of the dirt and bury them with a few inches of hay. As they grow, we will continue to add hay. This was suggested as an alternative to dug potatoes and reputedly leads to better yields. I am skeptical enough in this new-fangled idea that I plan on burying at least a half row of taters just to be safe. No need to risk starvation here. I mean, I have kids and stuff.
On a final note, I myself am flowering as well. My personal growth so far this spring has been astonishing, and I surprise myself daily with the beauty and calm that I now radiate. Hopefully, this will not fail as the grubs and slugs get more active and begin to eat my roots.