Still fighting voles

Sunny today, calm and in the low 60s.  Very pleasant for this late in the season.

I cut back the baptisias today.  Although we have had frosts and even a light snow last Monday, the baptisia foliage was still pretty green on the Twilite Prairieblues under the bedroom window.  In the Birch Garden the 'Alba' had blackened.  But it's only a matter of time before they both look black and destroyed, so they came out today.  I love the rattly sound of the seedpods.

Voles are still tunneling in the front garden, so I put more Espoma gravel down, especially deep into their tunnels.  They've dug right below the small chaemycyparis and into their roots.

I also sprayed the area with a cinnamon scented repellant, and doused some of the other gardens too.  I hate sprays.  They never work right, they get on your hands no matter what precautions you take, and they are just awful to use.  I hate them.  I don't even think they are effective.

The aronias have beautiful deep red berries this year.  Really nice.

November Day

Lovely day today, in the low 60s with sun.

I cleaned up the edges of the kinnikinnik and the cotoneaster whose woody stems had spilled out into the walk.  Jim needs it cut back for snowblowing this winter.

The October Glory red maples continue to be just stunning:

And the Crimson Queen Japanese maple has gone from its brown summer color to bright red:

Tree Inspection

Cold and blustery, real November weather.  In the 40s.

Yesterday Mike DeSanto from Bartlett came to give me an estimate on some pruning work for winter.  I had asked to have them prune the two maples (to be able to walk under them, and to have the canopies thinned and shaped).  The dogwood in front and the Norway maple also need some shaping.

While he was here we had a nice tour of the gardens.  He is so sweet... asking about all my plants.  I love talking to him.  He actually took notes on some things I have that he wants to try in his own garden!  He asked about some perennials and seems to really value my expertise.  He was very complimentary of how everything is looking in my yard.  What an ego trip for me.

I asked him to look at the flat topped black gum out back.  He showed me something I had never noticed:  it had its leader cut a long time ago and has not reestablished a vertical shoot to take its place.
It was this way when I bought it (I looked at the photo I took when it was first planted and sure enough, there is the sideways top shoot, angled off from the top).

My only hope is to try to stake it so the top side branch is pulled upward, and over time it may lock into that position.

It really needs some kind of help, look at how flat it has been growing.  I can't believe I never saw that chopped off leader in the container plant I bought!

And here it is after my pathetic staking effort today.  It was impossible to drive the big wooden spike into the ground, even though the soil was damp.  And the velcro straps are ugly.  It will need to stay like this for several seasons.

I also did some pruning of the paperbark maple, to cut off a side branch on the left that was making  it unbalanced on that side.  A before and after photo follows:

before pruning the branch on the left

after

Today I did some more clean up: cut back the iris and the crocosmia foliage.

Snow

Raw Monday morning.  Snow, with some accumulation on the colder mulch areas.  Rain and ice, in the 30s.

Tucking In Plants

Partly sunny today, cold.  In the 50s, quite chilly, but once I got going and moving around it was nice.

I pulled out all the huge parsley "shrubs" around the birdbath today.  What immense root systems they had.  Like trees almost!  What a lovely spicy scent as I crushed the foliage and tore them out and put them on the compost pile.

I pulled in all the containers, and they are all sitting on the porch now.  The amaryllis and the big pot with the hydrangea are in the garage.  The rest are crowded on the glassed-in porch.  We'll see how some of the tender ones overwinter there.

I cleaned up the spent sage blossoms and the sundrops.  The sundrop leaves were a nice red fall color this year.

I tried painting Tanglefoot on the stems of the shrubs that the rabbits and voles gnaw in winter. to deter them. No, no, no.  It was too cold and all I got was stiff gummy glue that would not attach to anything.  I tried microwaving some in a cup, but it got too runny, then solidified again when I went outside.  It must have to be the perfect temperature, and even then it's probably too messy to deal with. 

It did deter the ants from crawling up the hummingbird feeder pole though.

The Espoma gravel in the front walk seems to have deterred any more vole tunnels for now.  I'll have to rely on gravel spread around the vulnerable shrubs.

Frost

A hard frost last night.  We've had several very light frosts, but last night was the first real one that coated everything evenly and zapped the tender plants.  The zinnias blackened and the marigolds are gone.  40s today, but sunny and nice.

A beautiful frosty sunrise this morning.  Unfortunately the window glass caught the flash.

I took out the blackened annuals, cleaned up a lot of daylily foliage.

The big baptisia in Northern Exposure still looks good and green, but that will go soon.

I have almost all the containers inside on the porch, but still have a few more to bring in.

Love the amsonia in the low afternoon light.  I just wish the blueberries in front of it would keep their leaves into fall and turn scarlet like the others I have seen.

October Glory is starting to color up now in November, but it's not at its peak yet.  Look how stripped and clean the garden below looks now.

15 years ago today, November 3rd.

End of October

Today was cold, in the low 50s and breezy.  Cloudy.  But earlier this week, before a front came through, we had balmy days.

At one point during the week, I was sitting in the Adirondack chair at the far end of the yard next to the Birch Garden.  There was a blue sky, it was very warm, windy, and all the colors of fall were dancing around in the gusts of wind.  Yellow leaves began raining down in swirls and eddies, and they sparkled as they were blown around.  It was a bright shower of leaves glittering in the blue sky.  A magical moment.

Today I spread more of the Espoma gravel vole bloc in the front garden.  That's two big bags, covered up with some compost.  I took out some of the sedums that the voles had really eaten off at the roots.  I had put out traps, and they apparently ate all the peanut butter bait, nothing left of that at all.  But the traps were unsprung.

I didn't know the gooseneck loosestrife (Lysimachia clethroides) turned yellow in fall.  It looks really nice in the container with the still green foliage of the soapwort, with its dried arching gooseneck flower spikes still on.


The sourwood has lost all its leaves and looks so small and sparse.  Is it thriving?  It looked ok this summer, but does not seem to have grown even an inch.

Does it even seem much bigger than it was in 2007?  I guess.

2010

2007

The black gum behind the dry creek bed also seems to be ok, but hasn't grown an inch.  And its naturally tiered structure is getting flatter and flatter and weirder.  The top seems to be missing.

Sourwood and Black Gum are both slow growers... but are these ok??

A shot to end with:

I love this view, but the dry creek bed looks a little too structured and neat, like a symmetrical trench.  It needs more variation and some rougher-shaped edges.  And some plant stuff spilling around it.  Hmmmmm.

Warm October

Rainy today but very warm, in the high 60s overnight!  Summery.

Fall color is still going great.

Fothergilla

Mums and Stewartia

Doublefile viburnum, Blue Ice amsonia, Dimity fleeceflower

Looking back

Autumn Day

50s today, but sunny and calm, very nice day to work outside.  Jim cleaned up the garage, brought in the patio furniture and drained and stored all the hoses.

I cleaned up the gardens some more, cut down the geranium wlassovianum even though they still had color.  But without the dried tangle below, the blueberries and amsonias in the Northern Exposure garden look neater and nicer.  This is the first year the blueberrries have some red fall color, but the amsonia taebermontanas haven't turned yellow yet.

I took the kiwi vines out of the white bottomless planters... the soil kept falling out even though I had put hardware cloth in the bottoms.  I chopped them pretty severely, then wrangled the rootballs pretty roughly.  Repotted them in the 14 x 14 square plastic pots and then put the white plastic trellis into the soil... right into the remaining roots.  Some pretty rough handling, I'm afraid!

I also pruned off some large branches at the bottom of the Blackhaw viburnum to limb it up a little into the tree like form I want.  And I took off some tall suckers.  I want to keep this narrow and tree shaped in between the two air conditioners.

The Blackhaw has a dense twiggy branching pattern, and the branches go every which way, so pruning for shape is a challenge.  The Blackhaw doesn't have much color yet.

Isn't this combination of mums and Stewartia pretty?

Fall Clean Up

Today is wet and rainy, in the 40s.  A front is coming through.

Yesterday was partly sunny and in the 50s.  I spent most of the morning out in the yard pulling out the ratty daylily foliage, cutting back the spent stalks of monarda and veronica and coreopsis and other perennials.  I chopped back the heleniums... they were so gorgeous and sunny and bright in the wet summer of '09, but got all brown and ugly this summer.  Even with watering it was just too dry and hot for them.  But they're keepers for next year.  I yanked most of the zinnias and marigolds out.

Berries on the aronia

I found bittersweet seedlings everwhere.  There was even a large fully grown plant twining tightly around an aronia stem already!  I untwisted it and pulled that right out. 

I pulled out all the purple coneflowers from Meadow's Edge. They just never did well, always bug-eaten and floppy and unattractive.  They're gone, and will be replaced with Karl Foerster grass in the spring for a more meadowy look there.

Sprayed the front walk garden with vole deterrant, we'll see if that helps. Tunnels are everywhere.

On the back hill my prized little Norway spruce that had been growing leaps and bounds was completely and totally whacked by a deer.  The entire top leader was chomped off and the bark stripped all the way down the trunk to the middle of the plant.  I cut it down to the middle, took off all the side branches but one to try to start another leader.  Then, in anger, I sprayed the whole area with what was left of the Plantskydd.  Actually, the sprayer was clogged (of course), so I just poured the foul stuff all around.  Pheeeuw.