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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...)
