Devastating Hail and a Visit from a Hummingbird.
My grapes are blooming and sending out new branches like crazy! The flowers are minute inconspicuous and greenish, but because they are in a cluster, they are more visible than if they were to be bourn individually.
We had a seriously bad hailstorm here yesterday afternoon. I missed the event, but observed the drifts of hailstones and the damage afterwards. Several cars had their windows smashed and their bodies dented, and buildings with older shingles had the shingles beaten off. There was also a short spell of flooding in some of the older homes as the subsequent downpour was quite intense and the soil was already wet from previous rains. I am sad to report that a lot of fruit was beaten off of my nanking cherry trees.
Yesterday I spent most of the day out at the farm transplanting beaked hazelnut seedlings into the permanent orchard and weeding. I did a quick scan to check for forest tent caterpillars and there weren’t any more, which proves that Dr. Evans was right about squishing them with a broom. The horse chestnut is absolutely loaded with flower spikes! I have never seen it this full of flowers, so I spent a couple of minutes enjoying watching the insects attending to the flowers and was pleased to see that not only ants were collecting nectar, but real honey bees! That made my day, so I set about some serious weeding as Equisetum or horse tail had made definite inroads in the west end of the garden. I had only been weeding for a few minutes when I heard the distinctive sound of a hummingbird: sure enough I was able to watch as the ruby throated hummingbird checked out several flower clusters before flying off northward.
The blue camas was almost finished blooming: by next weekend there should only be seedpods forming. The mariposa lilies and osha root are blooming. I am sorry to report that I forgot to bring a camera. Next weekend I hope my memory won’t fail me in this respect, so I can share some pictures with you.
The starling chicks in the back yard are almost ready to leave the nest. My neighbors to the north appear to have killed a baby crow as there was one lying on my boulevard right next to their drive way. The house wren is still nesting in the purple martin house in the front yard; happily greeting each day with its bubbling song. There is something in that particular song that is so very cheerful and uplifting that it is the very essence of the happy side of spring. Hope to have more time for pictures next week. Good gardening. MM.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Seeds sprouting in threes.
Good Things Happen In Threes
Yesterday I cut the grass in my little experimental orchard out at the farm. I am happy to report that my apricot from McFayden nursery in Manitoba finished blooming. A plum tree and two of the three apple varieties also from them are in full flower. There is also a little apple tree out there that I grew from seed, and it is also blooming. As I was cutting the grass I observed forest tent caterpillars on one of the apple trees I had started from seed. Remembering the wise words of my forest entomology professor, Dr. Evans, I found a whiskbroom and proceeded to brush them off and crush them. I know it sounds messy, but they are softer than the broom, and the broom is not going to harm the tree, so there is no need for toxic, life-threatening chemicals.
This morning I trimmed the spruce, and pine in the conifer hedge along the north side of the yard in town. The tamaracks hadn’t grown enough to warrant pruning.
Most of the rest of the day was spent weeding the big garden at the farm. New things were popping out of the soil: plums, apricots, beaked hazelnuts, horse chestnuts, and the usual amure maples, Manitoba maples, nanking cherries, green ash, etc. Most of the larger seeded species had sprouted in sets of three. I was especially proud of the horse chestnuts, as these seeds were from trees that I had grown from seed that my brother brought me from British Columbia. I had the second largest size of spencer-lemar containers filled with sandy soil and dug in flush with the external soil level. In this I had planted the horse chestnut seeds in the fall. The tree that the seeds came from is absolutely loaded with flower spikes. Weather permitting, I anticipate a bumper crop of horse chestnuts this fall.
The blue camas is half way through flowering. By next weekend I anticipate very few stragglers will still have blossoms. The mariposa lilies already have flower buds, and may start blooming in about a week. The fritillary lilies are forming seedpods. They bloomed during a spate of exceptionally cold weather, and I am observing a variation in more than just a few seedpods: usually the pods are three-chambered, whereas stress has occasionally produced four-chambered pods in my plants. True to my nature I have been separating out all the four-chambered pods and planting them in my little experimental plot to see what strange mutants will emerge – I will keep you posted!
My European hazelnuts seem to finally be acclimatized and are rapidly catching up to the beaked hazelnuts that are a year older. I am excited to get these babies down into the experimental orchard. Good gardening! MM.
Yesterday I cut the grass in my little experimental orchard out at the farm. I am happy to report that my apricot from McFayden nursery in Manitoba finished blooming. A plum tree and two of the three apple varieties also from them are in full flower. There is also a little apple tree out there that I grew from seed, and it is also blooming. As I was cutting the grass I observed forest tent caterpillars on one of the apple trees I had started from seed. Remembering the wise words of my forest entomology professor, Dr. Evans, I found a whiskbroom and proceeded to brush them off and crush them. I know it sounds messy, but they are softer than the broom, and the broom is not going to harm the tree, so there is no need for toxic, life-threatening chemicals.
This morning I trimmed the spruce, and pine in the conifer hedge along the north side of the yard in town. The tamaracks hadn’t grown enough to warrant pruning.
Most of the rest of the day was spent weeding the big garden at the farm. New things were popping out of the soil: plums, apricots, beaked hazelnuts, horse chestnuts, and the usual amure maples, Manitoba maples, nanking cherries, green ash, etc. Most of the larger seeded species had sprouted in sets of three. I was especially proud of the horse chestnuts, as these seeds were from trees that I had grown from seed that my brother brought me from British Columbia. I had the second largest size of spencer-lemar containers filled with sandy soil and dug in flush with the external soil level. In this I had planted the horse chestnut seeds in the fall. The tree that the seeds came from is absolutely loaded with flower spikes. Weather permitting, I anticipate a bumper crop of horse chestnuts this fall.
The blue camas is half way through flowering. By next weekend I anticipate very few stragglers will still have blossoms. The mariposa lilies already have flower buds, and may start blooming in about a week. The fritillary lilies are forming seedpods. They bloomed during a spate of exceptionally cold weather, and I am observing a variation in more than just a few seedpods: usually the pods are three-chambered, whereas stress has occasionally produced four-chambered pods in my plants. True to my nature I have been separating out all the four-chambered pods and planting them in my little experimental plot to see what strange mutants will emerge – I will keep you posted!
My European hazelnuts seem to finally be acclimatized and are rapidly catching up to the beaked hazelnuts that are a year older. I am excited to get these babies down into the experimental orchard. Good gardening! MM.
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