Some Nice Flowers. 5.5.17

Laburnum.  5.5.19

White Lilac.  5.5.19

Tree Peony.  5.5.19

Bloomerang Korean Lilac.  5.5.19

Flowers blooming. 5.21.17

Iris but I forgot the name.

Red Peony

Snowball bush.  Gorgeous.  Viburnum "sterile".

One of the irises that survived in my iris bed.  "Gay Parasol".

Weigela.  I think it's "Wine and Roses" but I'm not sure.

Colors today. 4.26.15

Meadowfoam.  Limnanthes douglasii  4.26.15

Mountain Ash.  Sorbus aucuparia.  4.26.15

Ning's flowers.   4.26.15

Shan Xha.  Crataegus pinnatifida.  4.27.15

Ning's Tree Peony.  4.27.15

Crimson Maple.  4.27.15

Viburnum opulus "Sterile".  4.27.15

Camassia

Lilac "Bloomerang"

Meadowfoam.  Limnanthes douglasii

Mulberry "Illinois Everbearing"

Persimmon "Saijo"

Peony. 5.24.14

Nice flowers this year.  I don't know the variety name.  The plant is 15 years old, and has been moved once.

A little progress.

As discussed, the Stanley plum and Montmorency cherry are in the ground now. I cleaned up about 200 more square feet of front border. Probably 1,000 square feet done, 500 to go, my wild guess. Moved a couple of roses and a peony to more convenient spots. There was also a cluster of Chinese chives that I saved from my parent's yard a few years ago, that I had grown from seeds 40 years ago. Moved them to a slightly better spot where I can keep an eye on them. Another case of Darwin at work - I did my best, but if they don't survive this move, the've taken their place with the dodo bird as far as my yard is concerned. I think the roses will make it but digging up the peony involved slicing through some huge tubers. It was unavoidable. My guess is it will sulk for a year then resume former blooming.

Pulled away a lot of the creeping phlox. The idea with that groundcover was it would keep weeds away. Instead, it sheltered crabgrass and other grassy weeds. So I'm pulling it all up.

I gave the blueberries and rhododendrons a scoop of Whitney's organic acid shrub fertilizer, and mixed with the compost mulch.

Roses have an inch of growth. Chinese chives are a few inches tall. Pussy willow is blooming. Stone fruit buds are swelling. As I type it's raining like crazy.

Monday off, with chores

I forgot that I had today off, and went to work. After insisting that I was scheduled, I looked at the schedule and... oops.

So I came home, cleared some more grass-invaded border, hauled a truckload of prunings and brush to the recycling & composting center, and returned home with a half cubic yard of composted yard trimmings. Moved two roses into a better spot. Neither had great roots, but they should be OK. This will be a "Darwin year": where survival of the fittest means they either make it with the care that I can give, or they don't. No pampering for fruits and roses and shrubs that don't thrive. Even so, I surrounded the moved roses with compost, then did the same with the night-planted Indian Free peach and Almaden Duke cherry. Placed circular concrete aggregate border around 2 miniature apple trees (Liberty and Jonagold), clearing / weeding the center and adding a couple inches of compost. So no more grass invasion, or at least minimal. I'm gradually installing edging to prevent grass invasion along the entire front border, but it's a lot of work pulling out the old grass, so it takes time.

What else.... moved a yellow shrub peony to a raised location, above a retaining wall. It only grows to about a foot tall, and the flowers, while very beautiful, huge, and fragrant, droop and can't be seen unless the viewer is on their knees. This is a weird peony, not big enough to be a "tree peony" but with woody stems that add an inch or two per year, not dying down like other peonies. It's nice as a cut flower. I'm convinced it's an intersectional, a cross between tree peony and herbaceous peony, much like this one - Garden Treasure. (Wow, these cost a fortune! It came with the house, I'm too cheap to pay that much or a plant!) Peonies don't like being moved, but it's been moved before and did OK after a year of sulking. This peony sends out underground stolons with new stems, so it spreads laterally instead of vertically. I cut off a couple as a gift, maybe they will survive too. The main plant was also given a liberal ground covering couple of shovel fulls of compost.

Oh, planted 2 half-barrels with the new Seascape day-neutral strawberries. That's about a dozen plants, so I need to figure out what to do with the other dozen.

tree peony

Fortunately, I had the branches tied to posts. Without support, branches broke with only one or 2 flowers. This year it would have killd itself from the weight of the flowers.

Tree peony is the national flower of China. Ning is quite happy with it.

Other Garden Chores today

1. Emptied the 9 month old compost container. Filled it with the summer cleanings, which are mostly from the chicken coop. Not that compost bin is ready for winter chicken coop cleanings.

2. The compost was layered on the chinese chives which have been growing in a 1/2 whiskey barrel for 2 years.

3. More was layered on a rhubarb plant in the front yard, and on some Chinese chives in the ground in the front yard. As these become more established, I am hoping that they are more vigorous and need less care than the containerized plants.

4. Pruned Tree Peony. The buds are swelling, so it was easy to see where to prune.

5. Chopped garden bed cleanings. Most were gladiolus and crocosimia stalks. These went onto borders without further processing. The Tomato plants went into the bottom of the compost bin that will be blessed with chicken coop materials through the winter.

Yellow Peony

Unknown variety - found growing among weeds 5 years ago. Fragrant, but the flowers hide among the leaves so it's better as a cut flower. As with the rest of the yard, 100% organic.