Grafting Followup. 4.25.14

Apple Graft at 2 months.

 Following up on grafts from late Ferbruary.

Deer browsed one of the Asian pear trees, including a nicely growing graft.  *#&$^%$ Deer.

The apple graft is Jonagold.  The rootstock is a sucker that sprouted from roots of an apple  tree that I cut down.  That tree never bore and was susceptible to fireblight, and too vigorous.  I thought it was dead, but now a few years later there are sprouts from the rootstock.  So I grafted a couple.  I removed the wrap today.  It's not clear when to remove.  Too late and the wrap girdles the tree.  Too early and it might not be healed.

This was growing nicely so I thought it might be healed.  Lucky guess, it is.  Nicely healed whip and tongue graft.  Happy.

This is much better than a cleft graft, which leaves exposed open wounds.

Lilac Graft at 2 months.

Not all of the lilacs took.  This one did.  They are in a hard to reach spot.  This is the best photo I could make.  At least this one is growing.  A couple others are in the "maybe" category.

Package Bees Arrive. 4.23.14

Two Packages of Bees

Today the packaged bees arrived.  Italian honeybees.  I installed them in the two beehives.  To each colony, I provided a quart of 1:1 cane sugar:water, and a patty of pollen substitute from Ruhl Bee Supply in Gladstone.

Now it's time to leave them alone, except checking on the queen in a few days and checking on the food supply.

At the bee supply store they had large packets of bee flower seeds.  From those, I think I'm on the right track.  Borage, Phaselia, and others.  I picked up a packet of Limnanthes douglasii.  Give it a try.  Yesterday at Lowes for deer fencing, I picked up a couple of Veronica plants in bloom, also for the honeybees.

Puttering. 4.20.14

Redmond Linden Sapling.  2nd Spring.  

Amanagawa Cherry.  2nd. Spring.

Here is the rest of the weekend.

The Redmond Linden I planted late fall / early winter 2012 has lush rapid growth.  So far deer have not munched on it.  So far.  I can't tell yet if it will have flowers this year.

The Redmond is at least a week, maybe 2, ahead of the Greenspire lindens.

Amanagawa cherry, which wound up in the chicken yard, is blooming nicely.  This is its 2nd year in ground here.  The chickens like to dig under it.  The roots must be deep enough that it's not a problem.

Prairie Fire Crabapple.  Blooming nicely.  I think it will be in peak bloom on wed when the honeybees arrive.  Meanwhile I used paintbrush to transfer pollen from Prairie Fire to the fruiting apples.  This is the 1st Spring, I planted it last fall.

Canary Weigela.  I planted this last summer.  Deer or rabbits munched on it.  It made a nice comeback.

The lilac grafts are difficult to photograph under the larger bush.  Some seem to have taken and are pushing growth.  Not as fast as the parent bush.  Which I guess is expected.  As long as they grow, it's a success.  This one I accidentally stepped on while doing chores and managed to bury it.  Then discovered it later.  It looks broken, but OK.

Peppers are ahead of expectation.  The poly tunnel is the way to go.   I uncovered them today so they get some air.  The Red Portugal has peppers.  Those seeds were planted late December and raised under lights.  The others were started later.  I watered them today and re-covered.  Soon they can stay outside.

The tunnel is not so good for garlic chives.  The tips of the leaves are burned.

Prairie Fire Crabapple.  1st Spring.

Canary Weigela.  1st Spring.  2.20.14

Lilac Graft at 5 weeks.

Pepper Red Portugal in Poly Tunnel.

Peppers in Poly Tunnel.

Bearded Irises. Bacterial Rot. New Order. 4.20.14

Iris Bed.  Bacterial Blight Takes a Toll.

The Last Shipment of Historic Iris Rhizomes.

That Package held a lot of rhizomes.

Disappointed.  All 3 beds of bearded iris are affected by bacterial blight.  Every plant.  A few have died, completely.  This follows another week of rain.  The photo doesn't look as bad as they do in reality.

The irises in the front border were not affected.  That must indicate, the TLC these got was detrimental.  I can't think of any other reason

Since every iris was affected, it's no use removing them and trying to isolate the diseased ones.  I'll continue weeding and pulling out dead fans.  Im guessing about 1/4 of the fans have rotted.  Maybe more.  Most of the leaves are at least a little affected.

Interesting timing for the order to arrive from Old House Gardens.  But they did.  I did not want to plant them on top of rotting iris rhizomes, so gave them a temporary place in what I planned to have as a vegetable bed.  After things dry out, if it looks like the disease rhizomes survive and come out of it, I'll plant them together again.

This is the first time this has happened..  It must be the combination of feeding them too well, plus the rainy chilly weather after a burst of growth.

Asian Pear Grafts and Pollination Effect. 4.20.14

Pollinated Asian Pears.  4.20.14

~6wk Mishirasu Graft.  4.20.14

 I am hopeful this will be the year of a bumper crop of Asian pears on the tree I pollinated by hand.  The petals have fallen.  So far the embryonic pears look viable.  If they continue to swell, in a few weeks they may need thinning.   Excellent.

The 6 week Asian pear grafts are flourishing.  I think I'll choose May 1 as the date to remove grafting tape.  Maybe.  Mishirasu and Shinseiki look as good as the stock's own growth.

The stock, Hosui, was planted in summer 2012.   It was on sale at

2013 Graft on Hosui, one year later.

Home Depot.   I noticed last year it was susceptible to fire blight.  The varieties that I grafted onto Hosui appear resistant.  Now that I know how to graft, I can continue to rework the Hosui into a tree with disease resistant varieties.  And leave a couple of Hosui branches so I can sample that variety, as long as it makes a comeback from fireblight.

This is great.  The tree is nearly established.  By reworking it, I can have a self pollinating, multivariety, disease resistant tree that I otherwise would have had to wait 2 or 3 or 4 years to bear.

~6wk Shinseiki Graft.  4.20.14