Herbs.

Today I bought starts of a few herbs. These are hardy enough to plant now. They'll have head starts on any I grow later, from seeds. German chamomile. Grows larger than Roman chamomile. I planted 2 of these in the end of the vegetable bed. Annual. Roman Chamomile. More prostrate habit. I planted these in the iris bed. Perennial. Thyme. In this case, a variety called "Lime Thyme", with a lime fragrance. I planted 2 of these in the iris bed. Ning likes using thyme in roasted root vegetable. Also rosemary, which I already have in a different area and will transplant to the iris bed. Lemon balm. I bought these to plant under the beehive. I read that lemon balm is attractive to honey bees, and lemon grass oil is used to attract bees to a hive. I could have dug up plants from home for the Battleground place, and still might. These are already nicely packaged in containers, so will be easy to plant.

Filbert in bloom

Filberts are blooming. The long, pendulous catkins are the male flowers. The tiny female flowers can be seen by their rich red stigma and style. Filbert and Hazelnut are the same thing.  These are trees I moved last fall. Guess I didn't kill them.  They look quite healthy.  With a fall, winter, and early Spring to settle in and grow roots, I imagine they will be fully established this year.  Maybe some nuts.  Probably for the squirrels.

Tree Planting Feb 16, 2013

One more tree. This is a Flowering Cherry.  Marked down to $20 from $59.99, a nursery left-over from last year.  I wasn't going to add more ornamental trees this year.  I gave in to temptation.  The price is what got me.  This is "Amanogawa" which is listed as fragrant pink single to semi-double flowers, growing to 20 ft tall and 4 to 5 feet wide with columnar habit.  It must be 12 ft tall already.  Maybe it will give more pollen and nectar to either the honey bees or the mason bees.   As a left over from last year, I expected it to be root bound which it sort of was.



Not too bad.  A few big roots at the sides.  I cut the ones against the edge.  I did not dig into the root ball.

 I used secateurs to make about 6 slices down the sides, cut off all winding roots, and cut off the bottom roots.  Not perfect but I think good enough

. Planted.  I added some Plant Success, mycorhizzal inoculant, while planting.  This tree has many flower buds.  I think it will be very pretty this Spring.  By planting now, it will have a chance to acclimate and settle in long before Summer.  There is a competing leader with a narrow crotch.  I will cut it off after bloom.  Might as well get as much flower as possible, this Spring.

Winter Planting. Grape Vine and Anemones.

I saw this grape variety at the local "Everything Store". Remembering, Buffalo is considered a Concord-like grape that bears in this cool summer area, unlike Concord. The plant looked OK, so I bought it and planted it today. Other plants in the grape / kiwi row have been harassed by moles, so I planted in a chicken wire basket. WA State extension lists these grapes as potential table grapes for this area:

Buffalo – midseason Concord type, blue
Canadice – early pinkish red (I have Canadice, the grapes are small and I'm not crazy about the taste) Interlaken Seedless – early white, vigorous (I have Interlaken, I like this one)
Jupiter – early, blue, large berries
Lynden Blue – very early blue, seeded
Mars – medium early, blue
Neptune – medium early, white
Reliance – early, red, table and juice
Saturn – medium early, red
Van Buren – blue Concord type, early
Vanessa – early red
Venus – early red (I think this is wrong. I have Venus, it's good but they are blue. I like Concord-type grapes better)
NY 78.836.06 – selection from Geneva, NY breeding program

I also planted these Anemones. I've read that anemones are both deer and rabbit resistant. After reading that Muscari are deer resistant, I planted quite a few this winter. Rabbits have eaten them all off. I'm guessing it's rabbits. We'll see what they think of Anemones. Soaked for 2 hours per label instructions, and planted in the tree circles.

Beehive Kit. Top Bar Hive.

This is the top bar beehive kit from Beethinking.com. I bought the kit at their shop in Portland a few weeks ago.

Nicely made. Much easier to put together than I thought.  Halfway there.

Not in it's final spot. I might apply a finish to the legs, to protect from rot. Otherwise it's all together and ready to go.  Front has a plastic window.  Open the shutter to view the bees and honeycomb.

Open top.  The to bars just sit in the frame, no assembly needed.

Charlie helped throughout.  He's very proud.