Sunflowers

I want to plant sunflowers in a row in the meadow, behind the buckeyes.  Last year I direct sowed the seeds and each little seedling was eaten as soon as it came up.

This year I want to try again.

I will get tomato cages, wrap them around in bird netting or fine chicken wire, and set those over the seeds.  The netting or wire should keep the eaters out, and the tomato cage can offer support as the stalks grow.

The picture above shows a tomato cage with blue yarn wrapped around it, but I would use netting.

This seems like the easiest and cheapest way. 

I've looked at cloches and all kinds of re-purposed items such as wire mesh baskets, but a tomato cage and bird netting appears to be the least complicated, and the netting is probably easier to work with than wire mesh or chicken wire.  (Hardware cloth was unbearable to cut and wrap.)  So today I ordered 10 three foot high cages, some netting and clips from Amazon.

I could tie the netting on with twist ties.  But these cheap little spring clips, which are called orchid clips, will do the trick easily.

Hinoki False Cypress

Cold, windy in the 30s today.

Now that the voles are gone from the front strip, I really want to re-plant the soft little buns of Hinoki false cypresses that I liked there before.  But I have no idea what dwarf cultivar they were!

in 2010 a neat clean look

Here are some possibilities:

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Nana' --- this is the bun shaped low form.  It grows 1 foot to two feet tall and 1 to 2 feet wide.  Diminutive, dark green.  It's possible that this is what I had before, it was pretty widely available.

'Jean Iseli' is similar to 'Nana', but turns a little amber in winter.

Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Just Dandy' --- this is a bun shaped low form.  It grows 1 foot to 18 inches tall and one foot to two feet wide.  Mid green.  A rounded mound that grows a little wider than tall.  The mid green color looks more like what I had, and it is faster growing.

Wayside Gardens has this in their catalog.  Should I get them?  Plant three next to right of the Gold Cone juniper?

I Had a Plan . . .

40s today, part sun.  Still no snow at all.

In early May of 2010 I spent hours and hours trucking buckets of soil up to the "saddle" at the top of the back hill where there is a depression by the road.  I planted three rosebay rhododendrons there with the idea that they would eventually form an evergreen screen in the woods at the edge of the road.

some evergreen rhododendrons along the swale at the top would hide the house and traffic

In 2010 I had to water and water them during the drought, no small feat to get water up to the very top of the hill.

After the 2011 October snowstorm the utility road crews left piles of branches all over the little struggling rosebays, and I finally went up today to check on them.

Gone.  Not just buried under branch debris, but one was actually decapitated (may regrow from the roots?), one was uprooted with the fine roots sticking up in the air, and one was completely under a heavy log that fell smack on top of it.

Oh well, I had a plan, and it didn't work out so well.

That area at the top of the hill is not really a woodland, it's a roadside danger zone.  With snowplows, salt, road crew work, etc., none of it is really an environment to grow woodland plants in!

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.