Warm and Unusual

After some bitter cold a few days ago it is back to being warm, unseasonably so.  60 degrees today!  And in the 50s the past couple days.  No snow, and it's all so unusual.

The tulips in pots on the porch are coming up.  Snowdrops are up.  Daffodils are sending up shoots.  It's early January!

It was so warm out that we could do garden chores easily.  We finally got the clamp off the Japanese maple in front, and drilled a hole through the broken stem, glued the center and added a 4 inch bolt.  Awkward work, but we got it done.  The clamp is back on to hold the glue in place, but I'll need to remove it soon.  I could see where it had damaged the outer bark quite a bit from being held in place all year.

I also tied up the side branch on the Diane witch hazel.  It completely lost its center in the October storm, and I'm trying to get the horizontal side branch that remains into a more upright position.

Also staked and tied the leaning sweetbay magnolia outside the bedroom window.  It did not lose any branches in the October storm, but it had quite a lean afterwards.  The ground was soft enough to pound in a metal stake!

And I re-tied the sourwood, it still leans.

snowdrops are so hard to photograph!

It felt wonderful to be out in the yard in springtime temperatures, puttering and fixing things.  But really.  It's January.

Winter Thoughts

8 degrees this morning when I got up.  Yikes.  Sunny today, clear but very very cold!

This is the time of year to pore over catalogs, make plans and lists and think about what I want to change or add.

One thing has bothered me: the golden hops vine did nothing for the corner of the front garden last year.  

It was too rampant and unshapely, it outgrew the support, and it was not as interesting as I thought it would be.  Not golden at all.  The foliage is rough and coarse.

One option is to create a larger support --- either long strings up to the gutter for it to climb straight up, or simply a much larger trellis (where to get that?)

But my winter thoughts tend toward getting rid of it.  I don't like it, and my experience with the knockout roses is that I should eliminate what isn't working for me.  

This isn't working.

I can always try the Jackmanii clematis there instead.  It's in a pot now and can be moved.  Whaddya think?

Maybe, move the hops vine to the side of the garage and let it climb to the pergola on the right side?  I've been waiting for six years for the climbing hydrangea to get to the pergola, and it's close, but the hops vine would cover the right side in a season.  The pergola is the only structure big enough for this climber, but I'm not crazy about putting it in that small corner.

In any event, it comes out of the front garden this spring.

Happy New Year

Christmas in Denver

A great time with Greg and Tom, for an early Christmas. 

We celebrated Greg's birthday together on the 17th too.  It is such a special time together, and it will change with girlfriends / wives / grandkids.

For now, it was just the three of us, and it was wonderful.

Merry Christmas!!

Symposium

I signed up for this all day symposium on February 4 sponsored by the CT Horticultural Society:  Spring Into the Garden. 

Sounds interesting: Tony Avent on Landscaping in Drifts of One (designs for plant collecting), and Nan Sinton on Romancing the Site (finding the hidden garden in your own backyard).

There's also a shade gardening talk, and that doesn't really interest me, but the other two topics do.

Boy Did it Rain. And Blow.

Over the past two days we have gotten 3 inches of rain.  Last night the wind blew so strong and the rain pelted so hard that I thought the windows would buckle in.

There is quite a bit of flooding all around town and along the river.

Christmas Tree

We put the tree up yesterday.

The top has to be repaired each year, the little dowel just doesn't hold it on.  It tilts.

A wheel broke off the base last year, so we have it shimmed underneath.  It lists.

But it looks lovely, wobbles and all.

Although the cats are never impressed.

Wine Party by the Fire

Cold, in the 50s and sunny.

Jim surprised me and pulled the old aluminum firepit up from the cellar, put it in the gravel garden, got some firewood, cut it up, and built a fire for us to sit around.  For the past two evenings we have had wine and cheese and crackers, sitting around a fire!  Very romantic.

The overhead floodlights from the upper window illuminate the area, and the flames in the firebowl dance.  It doesn't give off much heat, but it's pretty.  And smoky.  The smell of wood smoke is wonderful, especially on a cold night.  But it gets strong and a little stale on our clothes and hair later on!

The one thing we are lacking is a good table by the chairs.  We need a place to put the cheese tray.  My found stump works great for a glass of wine, but with the lichen on it, we can't put a level tray there.

I do love the look of it, but it isn't all that useful.  What to get for a bigger outdoor table?  Something as rustic as the stump . . .  hmmm.

Trash Hill

Cool and breezy today, in the 50s, but there was sun at times.  We had an inch of rain overnight.

Now that all the leaves are down, I went up on the back hill to see the real damage.  So discouraging.  I already knew we had lost the tuliptree --- that was cut down at the stump.

The back hill four days before the snowstorm.  The tuliptree is now gone.

And one of the sweetgums is decapitated about two feet above ground but lives, with only its lower skirt of branches.  I knew about the maples and oaks that were lost or deformed.  But now, seeing all the damage, with no leaves, it looks like a hill of trash.

What the storm left is encased in bittersweet, at least in the middle section.  I cut back what I could reach but it is like wrestling snakes.  One young oak was literally being bent over by the vines.

What the storm left and the vines didn't get was trashed by the road crews.  They hauled away so much cut brush from the road side, but they also left large branches, stumps, logs and limbs covering some of the young trees, in a little from the roadside and all over the top of the hill.

And there was more actual storm damage than I thought.  Some of the junipers were split in the middle.  The new oak I had planted near the top of the slope in 2010 and babied through that summer's drought and heat --- it snapped off and was lying on its side.

Then, to top it all off, I had not put plastic mesh around the newest of the small whips I planted in the meadow at the bottom of the hill.  Of course bucks found the one maple and one oak not covered up, and shredded the bark.. The oak is not bad, the maple is shredded on one side only but I think it will heal.  I put plastic mesh on them.

It does look like brush, kindling, weeds and broken trash all over.

And it had looked so awesome this summer and early fall.

October 11, 2011

And back in May, 2011

Decorations are Up

Today was warm and almost muggy.  In the mid 60s with rain on the way.

Despite the unseasonable feel, we put up the outside decorations.  This year I didn't feel like struggling with lights at all.  We just went with wreaths on each window, a sprig on the lightpost.  Very low key.

They are held up by suction cup hooks on the glass.  We'll see how well they hold up in cold and wet weather.

I may feel differently later, and may light the little Alberta spruce in front.  For now, I just like the wreaths.