DON'T FOLLOW MY LEAD.....

and forget to wrap your young trees in the fall. Even people who KNOW better forget sometimes. NOT happy to find my newly planted 'Snow Sweet' apple trees chewed by rabbits, (sorry Joe, got any more?) If your trees have this extensive damage, just pull them out, they will not recover. Sadly, this is not the first time I have overlooked this important fall job. Products you can use are paper tree wrap or mesh materials, wrapped directly around the trunk. Using a plastic tube may keep rabbits away. but mice may still be able to crawl inside. When the tree outgrows the plastic tube, you must remove it (actually long before it outgrows it) I am amazed at how many trees have plastics sleeves embedded in them. The fluids for the tree, run up and down the outer layers. When these are chewed up the flow stops, hence - death to the tree.
A bigger tree may struggle for a few years, but eventully die. So if they are tiny like these 2, why wait....get going on another, and wrap it! Trees most tasty to rabbits are young trees with thinner bark like fruit and maples trees. Before the tornado, we had a few rabbits here and there, now we are over run. Did all the rabbits west of us, like from Sky View Ridge blow over here? If you are missing some, please come and get, and take their family too.
Back to the trees.....Nearly all fruit trees are grafted.

They have a top piece called the scion, and the bottom piece called the rootstock. Even wonder what that lump is in the tree trunk? It's the graft union, where the 2 pieces grew together. The top part determines what type of tree it is like "Honeycrisp," and the rootstock determines the hardiness and growth rate and size, that's how we get standards, dwarfs and semi-dwarfs. So if you get sprouts growing at the base of your fruit trees cut the sprouts all the way back. They are not new fruiting branches but sucker growth from the rootstock. On occasion the top graft of your fruit tree might die but the stock is living and the sucker growth starts in earnest. It will NOT be your desired tree. To learn more about trees, attend week 4 of gardening classes. =)



Some overgrown shrubs will respond well to this type of pruning. Types are : lilacs, viburums, willow shrubs, spireas, ninebarks, potentilla and other multi branched shrubs. This is drastic but it can renew plants that are doing poorly or have been neglected. Of course, it will take a few years for some of them to recover or to have blooms on your lilac again. Regular, annual pruning will keep your shrubs in shape. At class, we will discuss, renewal pruning, heading back, pollarding, coppicing, shearing and thinning. The right hair cut at the right time for each plant.

This above photo taken on 2-09, is of a Pink Diamond Hydrangea . Even their winter flower is attractive. Well, I think so, I love drieds. These flowers resemble lilacs in shape and can be 12" long. Huge. Not to crazy about the 'Endless Summer' Hydrangea craze a few yrs. back. By the end of summer it was done! I guess I should have read more into the name! Other hydrangeas I grow are Limelight, Tardiva, White Moth & Quickfire. New for us this year will be 'Incrediball' (12"round flowers), and Pinkie Winkie. So if you know a bride looking for summer hydrangeas.....you know what to do.

This is a winter photo of Limelight Hydrangea. Just to give you another idea for the winter garden. I know, I know, I love the summer garden best, but don't we have winter for almost 1/2 the year? These will all be cut back to about 18-24". Limelight produces flowers on new and old wood. They can be pruned in November or very early spring. I like to leave them until early spring as the top growth helps to catch snow that protects the root zone, especially the first year. Getting antsy for spring? I think it's on the way. Still to early for you to start those tomatoes on the window sill. Wait...... 1-2 more weeks. Ok to start peppers & eggplants.

LANDSCAPING CLASS WK 4 OR 5, MAY 11 OR 18

The week we have landscaping class, we will touch on a number of topics. We can't fix your whole yard or draw a detailed plan in 2 hours. But, we will talk about many of the basic issues most

homeowners share. I will show you how to create a draft of your yard, and the order in which to repair/install. We will discuss turf management from a 'low-input' perspective, less maintenance. Trees and shrubs: the biggest mistakes made with woody plants, is incorrect pruning, wrong time of year, wrong method, or none at all. In the above photo at our home, mother nature did the pruning. Taken after the 8-06 tornado. This photo does not show much damage, but where did the slide go? How about all those patio sets waiting for the wedding guests in 9 days......hmmm.

The last 4 photos in this group of 5 are pre-tornado. Our current landscape has had little repair yet. This photo above was our front courtyard area. You can see just a corner of the solarium where I used to start my transplants. None of this area remains today. This garden was 2 yrs. old in this photo, and 5 years old when destroyed. I prefer to use bark mulch around my shrubs in the landscape. I love the look of stone, but eventually both systems need re-doing and I would rather pitch fork bark then shovel stone. Even using fabrics, as bark decays or erosion blows soil into your rock mulch, both ways will eventually support weed growth on top of the plastic!

This photo shows a very established perennial flower bed, about 5 yrs old.
I love boulders! We had a stone staircase put in made of huge slabs of limestone. That survived the tornado! Using large features like boulders can also add winter interest to the garden. We have used river rock in some of the walkways. This garden area has 3 complete different levels, from top to bottom of steps. I love the cascading plants that creep between the stones. Our location is very exposed to wind, so all of my choices here have to be tough to withstand it. Click on photos to see a larger image.

The 'old house.' This is another garden bed near the former courtyard area. When my husband was excavating for our new road in 2000, he dug up all this limestone. It was likely from an old cistern. He knew when he uncovered it there was going to be trouble. He didn't get the stones re-buried quick enough before I spotted them. These beautiful jewels just waiting to be re-used in a purple flower bed! It worked until a few trees crashed into it. New plans......

When stacking irregular stone besure to line to inside walls with fabric to keep the soil in.

This garden area is along our driveway, about 150 feet of boulder wall and 4 stone staircases. The roundish blue flowered plant in the center of photo is a hardy geranium, "Johnson's Blue." The pink to it's right is a perennial cascading Baby's Breath. The white domes waaay in the back, are hot caps covering small seedlings. Hope you enjoyed seeing some of my landscape photos, can't say it resembles that now! Check out info on side bar for Garden Class information. I have 35 signed up, with only 30 spots left so don't delay if you are interested. Classes are FREE.