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Post by whollygoats on Jan 15, 2021 13:24:20 GMT
Midsummer Night's Dream takes place on the summer solstice, a reminder that the midsummer was in June. I don't know when or why folks started thinking of these dates as 'the beginning' of a particular season when they were often referring to them as 'midseason'. If one starts with that point and pushes the seasons around on the calendar, one winds up with a rough approximation of the seasonal calendar of Europe, to whit:
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Post by Mari on Jan 18, 2021 7:39:36 GMT
I only knew about 4 of those. The other points are wholly unfamiliar. I'll look it up.
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 22, 2021 15:42:48 GMT
Waiting for the arborist.
I contracted a professional arborist to do the pruning on the trees along my western border, the one that abuts the duplex. They're due early, with the utility boys soon after, to turn off the power, because the power to the house runs through both trees. I'll be power down for six hours at most, prolly less.
After setting up the contactor, I'm going back to bed.
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Post by Mari on Jan 25, 2021 7:46:57 GMT
I should probably get one to do my tree as well since the previous owners butchered it at some point, but I'm pretty sure it's not a priority list for funding. It'll live till it is I'm sure. What time did they start?
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 27, 2021 3:06:33 GMT
The two-man crew arrived about 8:30 am and were gone by 10 am. They did the job without shutting down the power. It looks like acceptable trim work...it cost me $400.
And, yeah...trees can wait.
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Post by whollygoats on Feb 2, 2021 18:51:41 GMT
'Tis Imbolc....The first day of spring.
I still have winter rose buds, trying desperately to bloom in the cold.
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Post by whollygoats on Feb 7, 2021 1:19:59 GMT
CROCUS! Multiple screaming yellow blooms in the front, next to the public walk and next to the lower course of front steps, in the western front slope.
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Post by whollygoats on Feb 17, 2021 14:11:03 GMT
Every thing is under 5 to 8 inches of ice-glazed snow.
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Post by Mari on Feb 19, 2021 8:47:49 GMT
Our snow is gone! Not too many crocii yet though.
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Post by whollygoats on Feb 19, 2021 13:49:27 GMT
The snow is melting, but it is still present. I have screaming yellow crocii poking up through the icy spots.
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Post by whollygoats on Feb 23, 2021 18:28:42 GMT
Iris reticulata blooming in the spring bloom pots!
My first Tete-a-tete miniature daffodils, too!
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Post by Mari on Feb 26, 2021 11:10:15 GMT
My heather seems to have pulled through this year, but one of my hebes is a goner.
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Post by whollygoats on Mar 1, 2021 1:29:39 GMT
Oooooooo what an exquisite day in the garden.
Shirtsleeves. I had to wear a hat to protect my baldness from the sun. It was glorious.
Tomorrow, I plant sweetpeas!
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Post by Mari on Mar 2, 2021 7:53:39 GMT
Ugh, I don't like sweet peas. The flowers are lovely, but they grow everywhere and are difficult to remove. I'm still hoping for some daffodils but I'm afraid they didn't make it. I do have some tulips popping up though.
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Post by whollygoats on Mar 2, 2021 14:44:06 GMT
Ugh, I don't like sweet peas. The flowers are lovely, but they grow everywhere and are difficult to remove. I'm still hoping for some daffodils but I'm afraid they didn't make it. I do have some tulips popping up though. Grow everywhere and are difficult to remove? That has NOT been my experience. I planted last year and a few shoots emerged, but I never got a flower and they all died. I'd love to see this 'grow everywhere' trait of which you speak. You think sweetpeas are bad? I'm planning on planting morning glories in pots along the same line as the sweet peas. Now, when folks say 'morning glory', that 'grows everywhere and is hard to kill' typification immediately jumps to mind. But...I am assured that these 'heavenly blue' morning glories are not the same as the white bindweed morning glories which are the bane of local gardeners. Nonetheless, I'm planting them in pots, just to be safe.
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Post by Mari on Mar 3, 2021 13:10:05 GMT
I checked Google just to be sure but we are talking about the same plant. The one I have in my garden is tenacious and not near as bad as ivy, but it does have similar tendencies. It grows through and around several other plants and through my fence. I don't think I have the odoratus variety in my garden though.
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Post by whollygoats on Mar 3, 2021 14:26:35 GMT
Well, I'm talking about Lathyrus odoratus; in this case, the variety 'Old Spice'. They are annuals. I'm hoping that they are climbing variety, rather than bush variety. You may well be talking about Lathyrus vestitus, the wild sweetpea. I note that it is listed as a perennial, and I think I know to what you refer. We have it growing alongside major interstate highways which don't get enough grooming (along with Scotch broom, another pest). It has a characteristic soft carmine pink color and covers a fair amount of ground. To get rid of it, you will have to track every vine to its root and dig up the root. Before it reseeds. What I'm planting, for their scent, are annuals which will not return unless I do a monumentally poor job of maintenance, or replant each year. Their ability to generate volunteers the following year is not vaunted.
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Post by whollygoats on Mar 3, 2021 22:34:11 GMT
The plum two lots east is starting to bloom. Niiiice.
Today, I spent time grooming the rosegarden in the back; pruning and clearing away undergrowth. Most of that time was spent in the company of a pair of nuthatches, who look like they might be scouting to set up nest nearby. They were quite chipper and a mite intrusive. The hummers also made an appearance. This time not just the female, but Mister Hummer, complete with the shiny ruby ascot, as well. They are sipping their way through my offering and I see I now need to 'refresh' it.
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Post by whollygoats on Mar 8, 2021 3:14:40 GMT
My first hyacinth amongst the recently potted spring bulbs. It is pink. Bright pink.
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Post by Sarah W. on Mar 9, 2021 17:22:13 GMT
I don't have a garden, but if I did it would still be covered in snow.
However, it looks like I managed to bring at least two of my succulents through the winter without a grow light. Two are in a tenuous state and two have died. Not a great success rate, but it wasn't my choice to try keeping them alive. They were abandoned by my roommate when she moved out last summer and I've just been attempting to sustain them since.
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Post by whollygoats on Mar 11, 2021 20:33:34 GMT
Vinca minor and even a couple of real, full-sized daffodils are abloom.
The roses are done. I just started in on the grape. The clematis was a short work.
The rhubarb is up!
Weeds and grass everywhere.
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Post by whollygoats on Mar 14, 2021 17:48:12 GMT
Heh....Dave had dropped by and we were observing social distance and wearing masks on the back balcony, when Murray entered our view and made it ever so clear that I needed to do something about my newly emerging rhubarb sprouts. See, I have planted my rhubarb in an old tree tub some 30" high by the same diameter and filled with heavy mulched material, and then, after that had settled and the tops had died down, I remulched it with more composted farmyard manure. Nice and fluffy....So fluffy and easy to turn over that it had attracted Murray to use it as his toilet. Murray gave us a graphic demonstration....and seemed pretty smug about it, actually.
So, today I rounded up one of my roundels of rabbit wire that I'd proliferated with the hens and topped the rhubarb tub with it, spikes up. I caged my vicious rhubarb.
*sigh*
I expect that I will be able to remove the cage once the shoots have had an opportunity to emerge, as they'll make it too difficult for him to hunker up there to do his bidness and he'll go back to slinking behind the garden shed.
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Post by Mari on Mar 15, 2021 7:39:19 GMT
Ai, Murray!.... I invited a neighbour experienced in maintaining roses to help me prune my rambler. It has to be pruned back a lot since it has grown through fencing we have to remove this year.
I have a daffodil too! My vinca major is also doing its thing. One of my hebes died though as has a skimmia. No idea how that happened
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Post by whollygoats on Mar 31, 2021 21:37:42 GMT
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Post by whollygoats on Apr 1, 2021 1:27:41 GMT
So...The katsura is leafing out. Always the first of the trees to leaf and first to shed them.
The sweetpeas went in the ground more than a week back.
Sunday, I planted the morning glory seeds in two pots next to the garden shed porch.
With all the greening, I rushed off Monday morning to the nursery. I came home with a tray of sagina subulata...Irish moss and Scotch moss, compact growing, traffic resistant, ground cover. As its name alludes, it looks like moss, but it isn't. It requires sun and actually blooms, with tiny white blossoms. So, today, I spent time planting in plugs of this stuff on walkways in the back garden. I had an established spot on the walkway from the garden shed porch to the crossroads; this addition completes the west side of the crossroads square and starts all the way down the rosebed pathway to the patio. I'm presently lifting rudies from their intrusions on the plaza and hope to use the last of the sagina subulata to start them in the spaces between the slabs....it's prolly a multi-year project that I'll rush this summer.
I big beautiful day in the back garden. Still, the grape did not get pruned. Bad goat.
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Post by Sarah W. on Apr 1, 2021 18:20:24 GMT
Those are the fanciest daffodils I've ever seen. And the pots with the mixed hyacinths and (mini?) daffodils are lovely!
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Post by whollygoats on Apr 2, 2021 3:27:47 GMT
Those are the fanciest daffodils I've ever seen. And the pots with the mixed hyacinths and (mini?) daffodils are lovely! The miniature daffodils are a lot of fun. They are also early. I also have a couple of full size daffodils in each pot, for which you might discern the buds, which are Mt. Hood variety, so they'll be pure white.
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Post by whollygoats on Apr 3, 2021 21:08:53 GMT
So...It's another beautiful spring day and I'm taking temporary refuge indoors because there is no real good place out of the direct sun to work.
I'm 'waiting for shade'.
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Post by whollygoats on Apr 3, 2021 21:11:15 GMT
Right now, I'm reworking 'the plaza', the space bordered by the garden shed and the hen condo, made of chunks of former sidewalk concrete.
It's been a weedy mess for several years and I'm trying to clean it up to add sagina subulata and other traffic tolerant ground covers in the interstices of the slabs.
I have a collapsible sunbrella w/stand to go with my cheesy plastic chairs. Viola! It's a large violin! On 'the plaza'!
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Post by whollygoats on Apr 4, 2021 0:40:19 GMT
Well...most of the sugina subulata is in the ground. Two pathways, the crossroads square, and the plaza. The palette. The pathway. The plaza.
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