What's blooming? 4.11.16

Most of the apples are finishing blooming. The Prairie Fire Crabapple, now in 3rd leaf, is looking great. Most branches are above deer browsing height. This tree puts on a real show and appears problem free, so far. The earliest bearded irises are blooming. This means, blue colors and smaller size, in my collection. They look the best since planting 4 years ago. The house came with a gigantic lilac bush. It needed some renovation, cutting out old dead trunks and a little thinning. It has responded with a big show this year.

I started carefully collecting pollen from the one pawpaw flower at the pollen shedding stage, and transferring pollen to flowers that appear to be at a receptive stage.  The stigmas are receptive before pollen is shed, and when pollen is shed the stigmas are no longer receptive.  With down-facing flowers on small trees, it's tricky.  The variety "Sunflower" is clearly first, but has flowers at many stages.  I transferred pollen both to earlier stage "Sunflower" flowers, and to earlier stage "NC-1" flowers.

Flowers of "Prairie Fire" Crabapple.  4.11.16

Crabapple "Prairie Fire".  4.11.16

Giant old lilac bush.  4.11.16

Lilac Flowers.  4.11.16

Iris "Eleanor Rooseveldt".  4.11.16

Iris germanica  4.11.16

Pawpaw flower with pollen.  4.11.16

Owl box. 4.11.16

 Barn owls are known to eat significant numbers of rodents.  A single pair of barn owls can eat 2,000 rodents a year.

I hear owls in the distance, and occasionally seen them overhead.  However, my area is  developing rapidly.  I don't know what that means for owl habitat, but probably not good.

Last year I bought this owl nesting box.  It would not be complicated to make one, but I wasn't up to it.  Then it sat in the garage for a year.

I set it up on an old basketball hoop stand that came with the place and has been sitting around for years.  I removed the backboard, and lashed the nesting box onto the hoop.  Without the backboard, I was able to move the box back on the hoop for better center of gravity.

This turned out to be a very easy job.  Plus it's portable.  This is in an easement, which if I'm lucky will never get used - long story - but I can't place anything permanent in the area. 

Now to see if a pair of owls finds and uses the nest box.  That might be a while, if ever.

Apple Blossom Time. 4.7.16

Standing next to NorthPole Apple.  4.7.16

 Here are the current blooming apples in the Vancouver yard.  This is all of my varieties there.  They are all early.

The NorthPole apple is about 15 years old.  It's a nice shape and appearance.  Difficult to find photos of such an old columnar apple tree. 

The newer Northpole is a graft I did on rootstock sprouts from an old apple tree.  I think this is dwarf or semidwarf rootstock, but I'm not sure.  Northpole is off patent, so it's OK to use as scion.

The other apple trees are on M27.  This is too dwarfing for me, but this year they look like they will be productive.  I played the bee and collected pollen from the pollen fertile varieties - Northpole, Liberty - and transferred to each other and to the pollen-sterile Jonagold.  I love the Jonagold apples, hope I get a good crop this year.

No photos now, but at Battleground the other columnar trees, Scarlet Sentinel and Golden Sentinel are also blooming, as is Queen Cox. 

Jonagold on 27.  4.7.16

Liberty on M27. 4.7.16

New NorthPole Apple, at 2nd leaf.  4.7.16

Protected Raised Beds for Pepper Plants. 4.7.16

Pepper Plants in Raised Bed.  4.7.16

Protected Raised Bed.  4.7.16

I planted 18 of the pepper plants into the building block raised beds.  Initially I have planted seeds for cold tolerant plants,  but they haven't done well.  These are the peppers that I started from seeds in Jan.  Most are blooming, some have small peppers.  The sunroom becomes too hot now during the day - into the 80s and sometimes 90s.

I planted the pepper plants.  They need protection from cool nights.  I had some old Remay nonwoven fabric from a previous year, constructed frames from old metal fenceposts and bamboo.

I can keep the  beds open during the day when I am there, and close up again at night.

When the Remay goes, I will need something to keep rabbits and deer out.

Male Ginkgo biloba flowers. 4.7.16

First flowers of male Ginkgo biliba tree.  4.7.16

This Ginkgo biloba is the beautiful tree in my Vancouver back yard.   I have posted numerous times about this tree.  Almost 20 years ago, my Dad collected ginkgo seeds, one of which grew into this tree.

I've often thought it will have a better chance of surviving our moving away, if the tree is male.  Female ginkgos have fruits that many people object to, because they are stinky.  The males are nicely suitable for picky people, because they have no stinky fruits.

The male flowers are sort of a catkin.  The female flowers have a swollen terminal aspect that becomes the seed.