Yellow Jacket Queens Trapped. 28 Apr 24.

 These look larger than yellow jacket scouts.  Plus, the queens might be the only ones flying around in late April (maybe).

If so, that means probably fewer nests and fewer yellow jackets to deal with in the orchard.

I do need to set up more traps.

Grafting Project Update: Feral Black Cherry. 28 Apr 24.

 For several years of dog walks, I watched after road mowing crews mowed off the side of a large feral black cherry growing in the county roadway easement.  When I could access the cherries, they were delicious and different from the usual sweet cherry, black and with a "black cherry flavor".  

I salvaged some sticks and grafted to a sour cherry (I think North Star?') that wasn't mature yet,  headinf there. I thin that was two, but maybe three, years ago.

Here are those black cherry branches now.

They are much more vigorous compared to the sour cherry tree.  The big tufts of flowers, are the feral black cherry.  The more sparse flowers are the sweet cherry.

I think I can prune back the black cherry about 1/2 after they bear.  There are some sour cherry wild seedlings in the duck yard - maybe I can graft onto those, and try to preserve the original sour cherry.

Up-Potting Tomato Seedlings. 27 Apr 24.

 I repotted more than half of the tomato seedlings.

Apple Grafts Update. 27 Apr 24.

 A number of the apple grafts have growing buds now.

Ginkgo Graft Update. 27 Apr 24.

 The buds seem viable and swelling now on the ginkgo grafts.

More Fig Tree Air Layers. 27 Apr 24.

 After looking at various websites, some say one-year old wood is suitable got air layering fig trees, while others say three to four year old wood will work.   No harm in trying older branches as well.

So I set up an air layer on Lattarula on what looks like three or four year old wood, and the same for Violette de Bordeaux.  I also set up an air layer of Violette de Bordeaux, on first year growth.

The Lattarula is full of brebas now.  I removed the brebas from the branches that I air layered.

I decided with the last couple of air layers, to use string for fastening the Aluminum foil.  One of the web pages I consulted (forgot which one ) recommended that to allow for inspecting for root growth.

Now it's a matter of time.  A month, two months?

Weather. 27 Apr 24.

Not a lot can go on in this weather.   Generally, raining a lot,  Mid 49s during the night.  Mid 50s during the day.

My main concerns are that some plants will stall or rot.  

Still, there's a lot to do, indoors and out.  

Some things seem to like this weather.  Roses are growing nicely.  Figs are developing.  The garlic looks great.  

The  Four O'Clocks seem happier  planted outside now, than getting TLC in containers and brought inside at night.  

Redlove Calypso ♀ x Columnar Golden Sentinel ♂ About To Bloom. 24 Apr 25.

 During Spring 2020, I applied pollen from the columnar apple, Golden Sentinel, to isolated flowers of the red flesh apple, Redlove Calypso.  An apple developed.  I stratified the seeds, and three germinated - a red leafed seedling, a seedling whose leaves were green / red combined, and a green leaf seedling.  (Blog Post)

The leaf color is from Redlove Calypso.  The red color even shows in the roots.  Here.

After growing for some time, the green leaf seedling was obviously not columnar.  I planted it put in the garden.  The red and red-green leaf seedlings clearly have columnar trait - thicker, mostly vertical stem.

Today I noted the red/green leaf tree has two clusters of flower buds.

They look quite red.  Here is the form of the tree, with no pruning.

Developers of new apple varieties, evaluate thousands of seedlings to find something special.  I have no expectations for that.  If this tree's flowers develop into apples, and if they are "good enough" apples, that will be good enough for me.  From the flower color and the coloration of the leaves, I'm already certain the apples will have red flesh,  From the tree structure, I already feel certain it will be columnar.

Trapping Coddling Moths. 24 Apr 22.

 Coddling moth worms have not been a huge problem for me.  There have been some.  Last year there were more.

With all of the deer cages gone, it will be easier to remove fallen apples, which will help in the future.  I plan to spray kaolin clay this year too, partly to reduce sunburn too.  Tanglefoot on the trunk may also have a role.

I will try this approach as well, more or less.  I don't usually reference youtube, because there is so much garbage there.  I thought this one made some sense.

So far I only have a few bottles.  I will watch for more.

Lilac Season. 24 Apr 24.

 The lilac hedge is blooming nicely.  There are no two alike.

Most of these were from a batch of tissue culture starts from the Canby garden show, 20 years ago.  A few are starts from a neighbor, or from our old house.

Making a Sturdy Rolling Garden Stool. 24 Apr 24.

 Here's my garden stool project so far.  The ends and top are a 3/4 inch thick wooden plank, 11" wide.  The back and bottom are from a piece of 3/4 " thick plywood.  The supporting parts are cut from 2 x 2's.  All of this was from the wood storage shed.

I based the height on a metal garden stool that is about right but becoming bent and wonky.  I decided I want it about 3 inches taller, to suit my legs.  Since it will be heavier than the old stool, it will be on casters.  I chose 6" casters, which add 7" height.  So, I subtracted that.  That's good, because more weight means heavier stool.

Here are the cut parts just sitting there. View of the front, which will be open to hold tools and stuff.

Back view.   Back is closed, to give rigidity.

I've assembled most of the top, using deck screws.  I think I'll back them back out, and apply liquid nails before re-screwing it together.  That should give more strength and rigidity.

Using 2x2s as shown on the bottom, will give strength for the casters.  I might use a hole saw to cut openings in the ends, to lighten the weight a little.  The back too, if a practice piece of plywood cuts OK.  I ordered a pad for the seat.  It will need a pull handle or rope.  Once the wooden parts are assembled, I will apply a coat of deck stain, same as the raised beds have.

TLC'ed Daylilies Gradually Looking Better. 21 Apr 24.

 These are the Molokai and Bettylen daylilies that had an extended stay in the garage before planting.  I planted them 24 March. They are in full sun now.

I didn't label so don't know which is which.  They have excellent root masses, so today I gave them a general purpose fertilizer, 1/4 strength, to boost leaf production.

Here is how they looked when I planted them a month ago.

And out of the box.

So far, so good.  I wonder if the larger one might bloom this year.

Seedlings. Basil, Cilantro, Morning Glory, Snow Peas. 21 Apr 24.

 The basil seedlings look pretty nice.

The cilantro took a lot longer, but coming up now.  I wondered if the seeds were viable.  The are.

I soaked some morning glory seeds in water.  They got sort of back-burnered and  wound up soaking for three days.  At that point, the seeds had roots.  So I planted them.  Two days later -

The transplanted snow peas are happy I didn't plant them where jays and voles eat them.

Ozark Beauty Strawberry Plants. 21 Apr 24.

 Here are the containers that I planted yesterday and the day before.

There is also a 4th box.  Twenty plants, total.  I think they perked up quite a bit already.  Maybe they'll start growing new leaves soon.  Then I will know we're "in business".

Air Layering To Start Fig Trees. 21 Apr 24.

 I've been working on Wild Fire Risk Mitigation for the house.  This year is predicted to be hotter, dryer, earlier.  That means more wildfires or wildfire potential in my area.  Over the past few years, I've evacuated twice for wildfires, although they did not reach my immediate area.

One aspect of reducing wildfire risk to the house is to have cleared zones of no flammability, or  reduced.  For an area of the foundation, to five feet from the house, all flammable trees and shrubs need to be completely removed.  Mulch should be replaced with stone, lava, or gravel (I have some areas with cement patio or driveway, which is great).  The second zone is 5 to  30 feet from the foundation.  That needs to have only scarce, widely spaced not-very-flammable vegetation, with pruning up to 10 feet above the ground, and short cut grass under 4" tall.  That's the fig tree area.  I don't think it's too bad, but I want to make it better.  My goal is, in the long run, to have only low- mowed grass there.  Remove the trees.

It doesn't have to be this minute.  Today I moved the very- small tissue - cultured Chicago Hardy fig tree, to the other fig grove that is far away from any structures.

The Carini and LSU Tiger have not been productive.  I keep them for sentimental reasons, and "in case" they ever perform better.  I'll let them bear this summer, if they do.   Most likely, they'll get cut down completely.  No need to "hoard" fruit trees that don't produce.

White Sicilian is pretty good.  It is small enough to dig up and move this fall.  Also, it might be outside that 30 foot limit.

That leaves Lattarula, which is highly productive, highly reliable, both breba and main crop, delicious flavor.   I don't think I'm up to moving it.  Too big.  Cuttings can take a long time.  What I hope is that by air layering a larger branch, I can start a much larger new tree than by taking cuttings.

There are multiple videos and websites about air layering figs.  I used this one.   Basically, cut a band around a branch, removing bark and cambium.

Have a pre-prepared quart zipper bag, filled with wet potting soil.  Cut one side of the bag.  Wrap the open part of the bag around the cut, such that the tree cut is completely in contact with and surrounded by potting soil.  Then wrap the bag firmly around the branch.  Tightly tie or wrap it in place.  I used electrical tape.

Now wrap tightly with aluminum foil, to exclude sunlight.  Now it looks like a burrito tree.

I removed all of the starting figs on that branch, so all of the energy can go to growing roots.  I tied it so it wouldn't droop so much.

Now it looks like a burrito tree.

Will it work?  I don't know.  According to various websites and videos, we should get a good mass of roots in six to eight weeks.

I'll do a few more, just in case.  Here I used one-year-old growth.  I'd also like to try an older, bigger branch to see if that gives a better head start.

Reporting Mandevilla Vines. 20 Apr 24.

 I repotted the Mandevilla vines that I described pruning yesterday.  The water just seemed to go through the soil.  I thought new potting soil would be beneficial.

I removed them from their pots and carefully knocked off all of the old soil that I could.  It was interesting to see that the older, pink flowered vine has tubers sort of like dahlia tubers.

Before exposing those tubers, the roots didn't appear to be overly root bound.  However, the soil appeared to be poor quality, and have poor water management properties.

The younger, smaller, red mandevilla didn't have large tubers but there were some smaller ones.

Now both plants have fresh, new potting soil.  The water doesn't just run through now.  They are ready for a new year.

Pruning and Re-Booting Mandevilla Vines. 19 Apr 24.

 I overwintered these Mandevilla vines in the sunroom.  They rarely got water.  They did make some vines.  The one in the blue container pink, is two years old.  The other is red, has overwintered once.

I think the red one will need a new container soon, and the pink one will need re-potting and sone root pruning.  I basically pruned off the past year of growth from the red one, and most of the past two years of growth from the pink one.  There was a lot of dead looking material, bare stems, dead growth tips.  

This image is s few days later.  I think growth has started to take place already.

Sunmaid Cordana (?) Yellow Mini Rose Blooming. 19 Apr 24.

 It turned out pretty nice.

The others from the original container are also budding.  This one also has more growth buds emerging from the base.  I've been giving it the same treatment as the others, watering with Schulz house plant fertilizer per label instructions.  It's outside in full sun throughout the day.  If it looks like nights will be above 45F, I leave them sheltered on the deck outside.

There is a faint tea rose scent, if you smell up very close. It's nice.

This flower is larger than those on the original plant.  The plant is taller, with longer internodes.

Planting More Four O'Clock Seedlings. 19 Apr 24.

 The first few Four O'Clock seedlings did OK, so I planted about half of the rest.

I have them covered until they toughen up,  I scattered some slug bait.  I left a couple of the plants more exposed to see if rabbits or deer would eat them.

Today's soil temp is about 50 F.  Coldest temp, last night was 45 F.