ClusterMap: Readers since July 2010

2 Aug 2010 to 23 Oct 2010@03:09GMT: 3,385 visits.

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A few late fall flowers, and kitchen garden produce

Late summer planting of Roma bush beans. These are very good stir-fried with mushrooms, garlic, and peanuts, along with some stir fry noodles. Yum!

A few last roses showing me they're still here. They are mostly such a mess, I'm looking forward to pruning them back this winter. Weeds took over. That is largely the job of kitty cat, who decided that the mulch was the worlds biggest and best litter box, stirring up all of the mulch with weed-seed-laden soil below, and fertilizing as she went along. Still no solution for this challenge.


Nice Dahlia. It's survived many years in that location. I thought it was dead, but there it is.

I keep saying it over and over, but best pepper crop ever!

More schlumbergeras

There is such a thing as having too many Schlumbergeras. Over the years, I've thought "that's a cool looking one, it's small, what's one more" or "Let's see if that will grow from cuttings" and they've added up. Still, when in bloom they're very dramatic and fun.

That salmon colored one again, close to full bloom. Discussed before, it's grown from cuttings.

This white one I separated from a red flowered Schlumbergera. Originally, I bought the red+white combined pot because I wanted the white one. It has fewer 'trunks' because half of them were red. Maybe next Spring I'll cut it back, taking cuttings for a thicker planting, and start it over. Should still get bloom next winter.

This one might have to go. The flowers always ball up and look somewhat mushy. One time I can excuse, but it happens every year. Maybe I can find a home for it. Very dramatic red color, anyway.

A Spider

Spiders are our friends. I happened on this beautiful web, glistening with morning dew. It's maker lurks in the center, waiting for unsuspecting insects to land on her web.

Time to move shrubs and trees

We've been talking for a long time about moving this lilac. It was next to the grape arbor. We planted it as a bare-root specimen about 8 or 9 years ago. It's grown too large for its location.

It's fall, heading into the rainy season before winter comes. Now is a great time to plant trees and shrubs. By moving them now, they get a chance to replace lost roots before the hot summer season. They get a bit of a head start and are more likely to survive the process of moving.

I did not take photos of the digging and moving process. I pruned the lilac shrub, removing about one half of its growth. It's still a large shrub, despite that amount of pruning. I dug a trench around it. Not easy - the ground was very hard. The roots were not deep, probably due to the hard ground. I think most of the roots were in the upper 18 inches of soil, or so. Any torn roots, I pruned with a pruning shears to remove ragged edges, but otherwise they were left intact. Of course, a few were lost to digging.

As such a large shrub, it now looks like "it's always been there". Interesting.

I drug the uprooted bush, using an old vinyl shower curtain to smooth the way. I dug a whole in the new location, moved it into place, back filled the soil, and gave it a very good soaking. Even though this is Pacific Northwest and the rains are about to come, I did not want it to suffer dry conditions at the roots, and the ground is only damp to about 1 foot so far.

Lilacs usually take several years to bloom from a small bare-root plant. Most of ours seem to start blooming 4 or 5 years after planting. This is a mature lilac, and I did not want to lose the potential for lots of flowers soon. They bloom from the tops of strong stems that were produced the previous summer. By pruning it back, I probably removed most if not all of the potential blooming stems for next spring. There may be a few to give us a taste, I tried to keep some. If it settles into place, I expect it to bloom in the following Spring on growth it makes early next summer.