Some of the Trees in Fall. 11.7.2020

This is the Dawn Redwood now.  The leaves take on a cinnamon color - not the brilliant red of some maples or yellow of ginkgos.  This tree grew a few feet this year.  It's about doubled in height and volume since I planted it 3 or 4 years ago..

The four chestnut trees.  They grew quickly, about 3 or 4 feet a year.  There should be a good chestnut crop in the next few years.  This year there were a couple of dozen.

A volunteer Japanese maple.  This was a volunteer that I dug up and replanted, twice.  It was worth it.  The fall colors are brilliant.

 

Trees Update. 10.31.2020

 These are a few of the trees I've planted.  There are quite a lot more.  Here I'm sticking mainly with non-fruit trees, because most of those don't reach great size and store up carbon like the big trees.

 I don't understand how people can buy a 1 or 2 or 10 acre property and keep it almost entirely as lawn.  I just don't get it.  I may overdo the trees, but they are a heritage for future generations.  As they grow, they also show a commitment to the land.

This ginkgo (yellow leaves) is from the three that I grew from seeds that my dad collected in his neighborhood in Illinois.  I gave one start to him and brought the other tree here.  The largest, by far, is in Vancouver.  The second largest died a year from transplant.  This one was the smallest.  It was in a small container for too long, then planted in a bad spot, then I moved it here.  It grew nicely, then the top died but it grew back nicely again.  There is something about here that doesn't suit ginkgos well.  Maybe it's underground animals that chew the roots.  Now that this one has recovered, maybe it will be as majestic as its sibling.

One of the four Greenspire European Lindens that I planted in 2012.  This is the second - largest.  Doing quite well, handsome tree, no fertilizer or watering or other special treatment now.  Tons of flowers for honeybees when blooming.

A close up of that ginkgo from above.  I think it's about 15 feet tall now.

One of the four hybrid (European X Japanese) chestnut trees.  This was a seedling, which has grafts from the others on four branches.  I added those in case the main part is not productive, and to pollinate the others.  Handsome tree.  Chestnuts can be quite majestic regardless of their nut production.  This one is about four years old.

A grafted tree, seedling from Vancouver and top from the male ginkgo tree in my old Vancouver yard, handsome tall beautiful tree.  I don't know why this grafted tree has such screwy growth - not quite vertical and not quite weeping.  Did I graft upside down?  Will it overcome whatever it is that's making it odd?  I don't know.

Another ginkgo that I grew from seeds, this one form Vancouver.  Originally I grafted the other onto it, but the graft was broken.  So this is 100% the Vancouver tree.  It had a slow start but is beginning to take off and grow.

This is an aspen that I started from an offshoot of another aspen that I planted in 2012.  I think this one is about  4 or 5 years old.  Aspens grow quickly.  It must be about 15 feet tall now.

Another hybrid chestnut, one of the four total.  This is the smallest and took quite a while to get growing.  Now it's taking off, about 2 1/2 feet of growth this year. 

Chestnuts. 10.2.2020

 These are the first of the chestnuts this year.  The Marivale and Precose Migoule both bore some nuts.  Marivale drops them in the husk.  Precose Migoule seems to drop the nuts before the husk, meaning that browsing deer or squirrels get them.  I knocked off the ones that I could, to let them finish in a bucket in a shed.

I'm keeping the nuts for a while in the fridge to see if there are more ripening that we can roast.

Garden Updates. 6.26.2020

Miscellaneous notes.

I've been cleaning up my bearded iris bed.  It's kind of embarrassing how weedy and unkempt it became during the rainy season.  There was too much else to do.  Now I have a big cleanup to do.

In addition to weeding and cultivating, I'm cutting back the leaves and letting the rhizomes bask in the sun.  I have not decided yet about mulch, although in my heart of hearts I know it would help a lot with leaf spot and bacterial rot diseases.

I'm also culling,  If I think the flowers are ugly, I'm removing that clump. I'm also removing the ones that seemed highly susceptible to the cool wet season diseases, bacterial rot and leaf spot.  The newest reblooming varieties have been the most susceptible, and I culled most of them.  I kept a couple of the big lush modern non rebloomers for this time around, even though I think a couple of those are also too susceptible.  Next year...

Replacing those, are "rescues" from roadside "Free" rhizomes that I grew in separate nursery beds for a year or two, to see what they look like.  Those are nonlabeled, but one looks like Shah Jehan, another like Wabash, and there is a very nice white one and a plicata type with mauve coloration around the edges of the petals.  None of those seems particularly disease susceptible, and all are nice.  That let me decomission that bed in the easement, which I planted with wildflower mix, grass seed and clover.  I also moved into the iris bed, from a nursery bed in what is now the fenced vegetable garden, Monsignor, an apricot colored iris, and a purple one that is very large and nearly black.

Bearded Iris Bed undergoing cleanup for summer.  6.26.2020.

The chestnut trees are starting to bloom.  It's difficult to see the female flowers.  There are a few.  I'm hoping they will start to appear as the male flowers come into full bloom.

Maraval Chestnut in bloom.  6.26.2020

This is one of the chestnut grafts.  It's interesting that these grafts are blooming in their first year.

Graft of Precose Migoule chestnut on Marissard seedling chestnut tree.  6.26.2020

These are a nice summer squash. They are very good sliced, coated with little olive oil and seasoned salt, and cooked in the air fryer.

Grafting Update. 5.11.2020

Most of the apple trees that I grafted this winter are here, on north side of a raised bed.  5.11.2020

 This year I wanted to create a mini-orchard of apple trees, grafted onto miniaturizing rootstocks.  The resultant apples will be normal size and flavor, just on miniature trees.  I can manage those trees without a ladder.  In general, when full size they will be 5 to 7 feet tall. Some apple cultivars are quite vigorous.  For those, I grafted onto the very dwarfing "Bud-9" rootstock.  For apple cultivars with a little less vigor, I used "Geneva 222" rootstock, which is still quite dwarfing but not as much so as Bud-9.

These trees will be in containers until this winter.  I can give them more TLC this way, and move them into shade if the summer is too hot.

I also did some more iffy experiments, grafting pear onto related species that might result in miniaturization.  I don't have experience with that, although you can find it on some websites.  I grafted pear onto aronia, serviceberry, and Chinese and Black hawthornes.  Also onto Winter Banana, which is an apple variety that supposedly is compatible with pear, so I grafted the Winter Banana onto either Bid-9 or onto an established apple tree, Winecrisp.  So far, it looks like the pear on Winter Banana on Winecrisp is taking, but maybe not too enthusiastic.  Ditto for the pear on Winter Banana on Bud-9, even less enthusiasm, and Pear on Chinese Haw.  The others don't appear to have taken.

To keep some Winter Banana, I grafted that onto a Jonagold Tree.  I thought the description sounded interesting.  I also grafted Winter Banana onto some Bud-9.  By the way, Bud-9 is short for "Budagovsky 9" which is a cold hardy Russian origin rootstock.  Winter Banana is an apple, not a banana, but somewhere along the line, someone thought it was yellow like a banana, or something.

This is a whip & tongue graft of "Winter Banana" apple onto a Jonagold tree.  5.11.2020

This is a graft onto a Winecrisp apple tree.  I grafted a "Winter Banana" interstock, with a pear scion.  5.11.2020

I also grafted all three of the chestnut cultivars onto the tree that I bought a few years ago, that was a seedling of Marissard.  Buying the Marissard seedling was a mistake.  Seedlings are unpredictable, may never bear, and if this tree is like its parent, might be pollen sterile.  Also seedling chestnut trees can take 10 years to bear, while grafted cultivars might bear in two or three years.   But it's too big to give up on, and who knows?  Maybe it will have decent chestnuts some day.

I decided to graft onto this tree, scion from my other three young, grafted cultivars.  Two of those trees have already produced first and even second year chestnuts, and the third has made male flowers with pollen.  The challenge is, I read that chestnut grafts often don't take on other chestnut rootstocks.  I used scion that I collected from Marivale, Marigoule, and Precose Magoule.  I had to climb on a ladder to graft these.  It looks to me like all took.  There can be delayed incompatibility, but so far, so good.  They are even producing male flowers.  The photos below show three of the grafts.  These were all whip & tongue grafts, wrapped / bandaged with 3/4" strips cut from zipper lock freezer bags and the exposed scion wrapped less tightly, with parafilm.

In the long run, it might be best to order some scion of other types to graft on other branches, and remove most of the top from this tree, other than the grafts.  We'll see what it does this year.

Chestnut Graft.  5.11.2020

Chestnut Graft.  5.11.2020

Chestnut Graft.  5.11.2020

Chestnut Tree in Bloom. 6.21.19

This one is Maraval.  Last year, this tree was the first to bear, having two chestnut clusters last year.  This year, there are about 10 female flowers.  Hard to say because they are so small and so high on the tree.

Precose Migoule also has a couple of female flowers, and lots of male flowers.

The very small Marigoule is vinally growing nicely, and has a few catkins of male flowers.

The Marissard seedling has no flowers.  Nice looking tree, but no flowers.  It's probably a mistake to buy a seedling, even if it's named.

The plan was to have them close enough together to pollinate each other.  But with the small size of the trees, and the small numbers of male flowers on the trees that just started making them, I have tried to hand pollinate using catkins of the other tree.  Unfortunately, doing so I broke off one of the two potentially bearing branches of the Precose Migoule.  That was going to need pruning anyway, but a few curse words were said.

First Taste of Maraval hybrid (European X Japanese) Chestnut. 10.16.18

 There was one other burr on the fledgling chestnut tree.  This notified me of its ripeness, by falling off.

Those needles really are sharp like needles!

So with a grand yield of 4 chestnuts, we made an X cut in the flat sides, roasted them at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, and ate them.

With peaches, plums, apples, and cherries, I look at the first year of bearing as just enough for a taste, and I'm happy with that.  The next year, most of my fruit trees have made about five to ten times what they did the first year.

If that's the case with these chestnuts, that will be a nice crop next year.  If not, then I'm happy these trees are growing to become nice shade trees

Young Chestnut Trees Growing Nicely. 6.4.18

Chestnut Precose Migoule Grafted Tree.  6.4.18

 The young chestnut trees are looking good now.  Last winter I planted a grafted tree of Precose Migoule from Burnt Ridge Nursery.  I had asked them for a tall tree, and they had bent over the top instead of cutting it off to fit into the box.  That solution was perfect - I straightened it up, resulting in a 6 foot tall tree.  I splinted it for a few months, but now it's standing straight on its own.  Interestingly, and very rewarding, this tree has a tuft of flower buds on top.

Of the others, the grafted Marivale is about 8 feet tall now, early in it's second season in my yard.  It also has a tuft of flower buds on top.  The little Marigoule, which was only about a foot tall and only grew a few inches, so I moved it to make way for the Preose Migouly, is actually growing nicely, about a foot of lush looking growth so far.  And finally, the seedling from Marissard is growing well too, but no tuft of flower buds.

That last one was my mistake.  I didn't realize, looking in the catalog, that it was a seedling tree instead of a grafted tree, so the possibility of bearing nuts is way out in the future, and it's unknown if it will be a pollinator. Some catalogs offer seed-grown trees from named parents, but those are not the same as the parent and don't bear as young.  But otherwise, the 3 grafted specimens are looking good.  I'm interested in whether the flower buds will bloom - they seem to be taking their time, and so far they all look male.  That's OK, the trees are very young and I didn't expect nuts yet.

Small Marigoule Tree.  6.4.18

I am keeping these trees in tall double-fenced cages, wire fencing for strength and plastic fencing for the finer mesh, to prevent deer from pulling branches through the wider openings in the wire fencing.  So far, these fences are doing their job, and there is no deer damage.  If the trees continue to grow at their present rate, I think the cages can be removed in 2019 or 2020.

Chestnut Marissard Seedling Tree, 6.4.18

Why the ideas of "native" and "invasive" need to be reworked. 12.19.14

These are some of my semi-random thoughts.   I try not to be too contrarian, but I also think we have to think for ourselves.

I saw this was in my unpublished blog from 2014.  No idea why I didn't publish then.   The thoughts are still what I think.

Many websites and authors express strong preference for growing native plants.  The thought is, native plants are best adapted for a particular local area, and plants that originate elsewhere, by definition lack certain properties, such as being adapted to the local provenance, soil, climate, water conditions, temperature, and insect populations.

American Chestnut.  Source Vintageprintable.com

I really love quintessential "American" plants and trees.  It's a reason I like the idea of growing Pawpaws and American persimmons.  And, American linden, some maple species, and some native orchids.  And, if I could, mayapples, morels, chantrelles, tulip poplar, and others.


But what, in most urban suburban, and rural settings, outside of actual wildlands, exists of the original conditions?  Those are the conditions that American plants are best adapted to.  The temperature?   Climate zones have migrated.   Climate change is remodeling the climate condition everywhere.  So once native plants are adapted to a former, often gone, condition.  In general, local climates are warmer than before, but there is also shift in rain patterns.  The soil?  Much is gone.  In the highly modified lands of urban, suburban, farm, former farm, and logged forest, phenomenal amounts of topsoil are gone forever.  Much blew away in the dust bowl, and in farming practices.  Forestry, logging, and farming, resulted in washing away a big fraction, sometimes most, of the original soil.   The remaining soil is populated with trillions of earthworms - highly beneficial to the gardener and farmer, but causing a paradigm shift in the soil structure, nutrition, texture, water holding capacity, and presence of protective layers of undecomposed leaves.

Looking around populated areas here, what remains of original species of trees and plants?  The vast majority seem to be gone.  Instead, the yards and gardens contain plants from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and many hybrids and human-modified plants.  The grasses are foreign.  Many of the trees, if not most, are foreign.

In wild places, there may still be mostly original species but again, the climate itself is different.  The soil is different.  Even the air is different - increased CO2 may change growth of some plants, more than others.  The water is different - the more acidic pH of the water means the soil itself is more acidic.  Plants that are adapted to a local soil pH, texture, nutritional constitution - those may be local, but no longer adapted to transformed environmental conditions.

Dead American Chestnut.  Source:   vintageprintable.com

In addition to changes in soil, climate, some species have been erased - a "cleansing" from the local ecosystems.  The vast forests of chestnut were killed off by Chestnut blight, and no longer exist. The vast forests of Elm were killed off by Dutch Elm disease - they also no longer exist.  Bison, gone.  Passenger pigeon, once present in the billions, gone.  Ash, on the way out.   If each member of a forest or prairie, is an essential part of the fabric, then that fabric is already permanently changed and cannot be regenerated.  Not even if the few members of the erased species can be re-engineered, or re-hybridized, or re-generated, to be resistant to the introduced diseases and changed environment.  Then there are the introduced insects and mammals, which are probably here to stay as well. 

There are indications that the North American forests and prairies have long been more like gardens and farms, than wild forests.  Native Americans transformed them by burning and planting, and their ancestors destroyed the megafauna to the point of extinction.  Megafauna - mastedons, wooly mammoths, sloths, tapirs, bison species, pronghorn, giant beavers, horses - were part of an ecosystem, interacting with and affecting plant growth, keeping some in control, controlling others.  Removal of native predators, means deer have proliferated to the point of being an invasive species, even when native - destroying palatable plants, and leaving unpalatable ones in place. 

Megafauna are thought to have lead to proliferation of pawpaws and persimmons.  Later, it was Native Americans who planted them. Now, it's us.  Both of these species range from the Southeast to the Mississippi basin, nowhere near where I live in Pacific NW.  So here, they are exotic tree species, like apples, peaches, pears, figs,  most plums and most cherries.

I know, there are lists of harmful exotics.  Especially, highly invasive ones.  In the southeast, that's kudzu.  In the Northwest, it's English Ivy, Himalayan Blackberry (actually, European), and Buddleia, Tansy ragwort, and others.  Some of these are really harmful, replacing other species and crowding others out, or toxic, like giant pigweed.  We don't think of it, but our lawn grasses are invasive species.  The dandelion, ubiquitous, and probably harmless, even beneficial, is invasive.  And probably can not be eradicated.  In our yards, many more - but maybe more annoying, as opposed to harmful on a vast scale, like Hyacinthoides, Bishopweed, in the Northwest, may fill a niche, and have a role where others don't survive.  Especially Hyancinthoides, which deer leave alone.

Pawpaw.  Image source:  vintageprintablecom.  Pawpaws don't look much like this.

 I have read that native pollenizing insects also are best adapted to the native plants, and not to exotics.  That may be true.  There are philosophical, as well as scientific, reasons.  But insects evolve fast.  That's why we have an ongoing chemical war against insects in factory farming - they evolve to resist each chemical that is sprayed against them.  I suspect they will also adapt, and many probably already have, to the different flower shapes and colors, different pollen types, and other characteristics of exotics.  Certainly, I have watched many pollinating insects devour nectar and pollen from nonnative alliums like Chinese chive, shallots, onions, and from buddleia, apple, non-native plum, non-native cherry flowers..

In the typical American garden, farm, suburban yard, locally derived plants can be nice, and have a clear role.  But there is no reason to avoid plants from the world's vast resources of centuries of importation, adaptation, genetics, and breeding.  Plants from elsewhere will often be better adapted, more useful, and more suitable to the highly changed and changing ecosystem.  

Young Chestnut Tree Follow-up. 10.31.17

Grafted Maravale.  10.17.17

Grafted Maravale.  10.17.17

Grafted Marigoule.  10.17.17

 I have the chestnut trees tucked in for the fall/winter, with an arborist chip mulch and good fencing.  The fencing is a double layer, 5 feet tall, welded steel 4 inch by 2 inch mesh, with fine pastic net 1 inch by 1 inch mesh so the deer can't pull the leaves and branches through the stronger but larger mesh.  If they grow as well next year, as they did this year, they should only need the fence for another year, maybe two.

I'm being extra diligent because deer are becoming a bigger problem - increased population, fewer food sources, no predators, no hunting in my area.

There was a big difference in vigor and establishment.  Two grew about 3 or 3 1/2 feet, one grew a few inches.  That was Marigoule.  I moved it to a different spot, where it doesn't matter as much if it flourishes.  I have an order in for a replacement in the spot where it was.  That is already set up with fencing as well.

Seedling of Marissard.   10.15.17

New Load of Arborist Chips. Mulching Young Trees and Borders for Next Year. 10.14.17

 We had a large, old, dead tree cut down.  The arborist had a truck load of chipped tree branches, including those from our tree, so I asked for them to use as mulch.

It will take several truck loads to haul all of them.  So far, I've mulched a major section of the woods edge border, which I spent the last 18 months cleaning up and planting with trees, shrubs, and perennials.  It was fairly clean already, but with about 4 inch thickness of arborist chips, should not need any significant maintenance for most of 2018.

Chestnut Tree, One Year Old.  Double-Fenced, Mulched, and Ready for Winter.  10.12.17

That's a major step in reducing my workload next year.  Many of the things that I planted there, were unwanted plants and shrubs that needed a new home.  Some were sizeable.  I didn't want to buy things that might not do well, or more likely, be eaten by deer.  Deer are the major limitation to what I can grow.  At this point, I just want to get trees growing above deer browsing height, and stick to the ornamentals that they don't like to eat. I know they won't eat the dwarf mugo pines, crocosmia, gladiolas, ferns, Helleborus, daffodils, or hyacinthoides.  Not sure about the Rhododendrons.  I'm watching for deer damage to the Dawn Redwood, but so far they have not taken a liking to it.

I also mulched the year old Chestnut trees.  They still need some hardware cloth to protect from rodents, then they too are set for the winter and for 2018 as well.

Fall/Winter Projects. A New Deer Cage for Young Chestnut Tree. 10.8.17

Maraval Chestnut Tree in Deer Cage.  10.7.17

Things are winding down for the gardening season.  I am starting some maintenance and improvement projects to help next year go better.

The make-shift deer cages mostly worked for the young chestnut trees.  Minimal damage.  However, I wanted room to grow for next year, potentially the last year or next-to-last year they will need deer cages.

This year, some parts of my orchard had major, disappointing, set-backs due to failed deer cages and more aggressive browsing.  I think there are more deer this year, and saw a group of five in a neighbor's yard this week.  There are no deer predators now, and hunting is not  allowed.  I don't know what will happen as the population increases above what the ecosystem can handle.  Meanwhile, with a hot dry summer, and probably more hunger and thirst, they ventured into tree and plant varieties that they would normally not eat, and they were more aggressive about getting into barriers that they would normally not bother with.

I usually use standard welded wire fencing, holes are 2 inches by 4 inches, and height 4 feet.  That was usually fairly secure, but then deer learned to grasp leaves that stuck out through the fencing, pulling to rip off branches much further in the cage.  In some cases, branches were pulled off the trees, leaving big wounds.  One tree was completely destroyed.  Deer also reached over some of the fences to chomp down branches that emerged above the cages.  So, I changed some of the fences to plastic fencing with 1 inch gaps.  That prevented leaves from sticking out through the gaps, but the material was too flexible, and in some cases the deer pushed the fencing down, giving access to entire trees to eat the tree.  I want to be more prepared for next year, and avoid more disappointing damage if possible.

Maraval Chestnut Tree in Deer Cage.  10.7.17

Two of the new chestnut trees put on roughly 4 feet of growth this year, growing from about 2 feet tall to a little more than 6 feet tall.  I cobbled together protective fencing as they grew, which mostly worked but didn't feel stable.  I used the heavier metal fencing, and added either chicken-wire fencing, or plastic 1-inch mesh fencing, as a second layer of protection.  Anticipating next year's growth, I wanted wider, taller fences, so built a new one yesterday for one of the trees.

Now it has stronger fence posts to prevent knocking the fencing over.  The fencing is 6 feet tall, and is 2 layer, with both the sturdy, wide-mesh metal, and the narrower mesh plastic.  As the tree grows next year, I may need to add a bit more, higher, level, but I think this will be good, for the most part, for protection in 2018.  After that, I think these trees will be tall enough to dispense with the fences.

This was the chestnut variety Maraval.  Next, I need to to the same for the Marissard seedling that grew as much, and the smaller Marigoule that I moved to a new location last week.

Edit 10/8/17:  Now Marissard seedling is also in a new, larger, double-fencing cage too.  I hope these work.  It's really disappointing to check on trees and discovered that a year of effort, or more, has become a salad for roaming deer.

Marissard Chestnut Tree in Deer Cage.   10.8 17

Updates. 8.26.17

Blueberry Pie.  Mid Aug, 2017.

 I haven't been keeping up on the garden blog.  With historic high temperatures, no rain - expected this time of year - and deer issues, I haven't had the time. 

I'll come back and add some text later, but here are photos from the past couple of weeks. 

The blueberry harvest was great.  The difference between this year and previous years, was bird netting.  Made all the difference in the world.

I wondered if there would be sweet corn, due to the slow and irregular germination.  Plus rabbits eating a lot of the plants.  Now, there is a good harvest of sweet corn.

Sweet corn, beans, chilis.  Mid Aug, 2017.

 The beans that I recovered from 15 year old seeds, last year, are doing quite well.

Peppers are doing great in their cement block raised beds.  They do have deer protection fencing.

Two of the chestnut trees that I planted late winter, put on 3 to 4 feet of new growth.  The other one put on about 3 inches.  I'll sort out the varieties later.  They are well protected by deer fencing.

I wondered if I planted the onions too early.  They did amazingly well.  Huge onions.  The biggest were Ailsa Craig.  Growing from seeds, and planting early, definitely worked.

Sweet Corn, various planting times.  Mid Aug, 2017.

Russet Potato Harvest.  Mid Aug, 2017.

Chilis in cement block raised bed.  Mid Aug, 2017.

Chestnut tree, first year, mid Aug 2017.

Chestnut tree, first year, mid Aug 2017.

Ailsa Craig onions.  mid Aug, 2017.