Transplanting and Unintended Forsythia Cutting. 4.27.2021

 I'm growing a forsythia hedge along the fence.  On the other side is a gravel road built on an easement.  Since that was done, there is an unwanted view of ugly property as well as loss of property on my side.  I thought about buying Leyland Cypress, but they are evergreen, so I have concerns about flammability.  Plus Leyland Cypress grow so huge, which I'd rather not.  There are other choices, but Forsythia is fast growing, grows a thick hedge, pretty flowers in Spring.  Starting from cuttings and small bushes is a bit slower but better than nothing and cheap.

To plant the hedge, I probably need about 10 or so.  On the sides of  the gate, I also planted lilac starts.   I found two small Forsythias two weeks ago at Tsugawa, $11 each.  I have trimmings in water to start.  Low effort, not sure they will grow and I doubt it.  I can try some cuttings with rooting hormone as well.  Finally, I have two starts that I started to air layer on the original bush, yesterday.  This will probably root.  I left another stem for the same purpose to try today.

Meanwhile, while trimming the original Forsythia, I noticed this small bush growing next to the larger one.  Doubtless, it was a pruning that was dropped and took root.  I dug it up and planted in the hedge space.  Given how dry and hard the soil where it was, and the thick grass, now it's in a lot better condition and should take off and grow nicely.

Planting Squash, Pumpkin, Zucchini Seeds. 4.27.2021

Last night I planted squash family plant seeds.  Zucchinis, winter squash, and pumpkins.  I finally learned to write the year seeds were bought, on the front of the seed packet.  These are largely known good performers - Pink Banana Squash, Red Kuri Squash, Galeus d'Eysines Pumpkin (Squash), plus last year the Illinois Squash was good.  Not sure about the variety Gete-Okosomin,,  Nativbe American variety which has a. probably false, legend of the seeds having been found in a clay ball in an 800 year old archeological site.  The Zucchinis are heirloom types, so I can save the seeds.  The one exception is "Sure Thing" hybrid which I bought last year and didn't plant.

This year the plan is to cover flowers to avoid insect pollination, and hand pollinate so that each variety is "pure" so that I can save my own seeds.

Some flowers. 4.25.2021

 Some nice Spring flowers are blooming.  In addition to lilacs, there are the apples of course.  And this Prairie Fire crabapple, that I planted about 8 years ago.

Someone on the old GardenWeb site said it wouldn't grow here.  Obviously wrong.  I don't believe everything I read.

An Iris germanica and some Camassia.

I like the Camassia because they are native, and because deer and rabbits don't eat them.

Some Hyacinthoides.  In town, these are invasive.  Here at my country place, they have a hard time establishing.  I think herbivores eat them.  A few clumps survive.

An Iris florentina, in the woods border.  It gets almost no care - no watering and only weeding when I can.  These, and the I. germanica, are much earlier than most bearded iris.

 

Potato Plants, Grown from Seeds or Planted Early from Saved Tubers. 4.25.2021

In about February, I planted sprouted potato tubers that I had stored in the garage.  These were mostly very small tubers, which is why they didn't get eaten.  They were mixed varieties, mostly a yellow flesh, a russet, and I'm not sure.  There were some frosts after that, and I did protect them by covering with a tarp, when that happened.

 

 

The plants are various sizes.  A couple did not grow, but most did.  Some are quite vigorous.  One feature of planting in trenches, is that moles sometimes dig across the trench wall, burying growing potato plants.  I don't recall seeing that before.  As they grow above the sides of the trenches, I'll fill the soil back into the trench.  That way, voles don't get at the growing potatoes, and they don't need much if any watering, and I don't have to haul soil in to hill them up.

Since I planted some more potatoes last week, which have not yet emerged, it will be interesting to see if these are earlier or larger, compared to potatoes that I planted much later.

 

Here are the Clancy "True Potato Seed" potato plants that I planted in trenches a few weeks ago.  There were also a couple of frosts, which I treated as with the other potatoes.  Also, a few buried by moles, but not many.  I uncovered a couple.  These still have the fencing in place, that I used so the tarp would not smash the little plants.  These are actually almost as big as the potatoes from old tubers that I planted weeks earlier.  Bigger than some.  Some are smaller - there is a lot of variability.

Notching to Encourage Branch Growth. 4.25.2021

 Akane is an excellent apple with a good "Jonathan" flavor, bears well, every year.  Unfortunately, I had let my Akane apple tree grow taller than I wanted.  I could have cut back the top, allowing new, lower branches to grow.  That would have meant no crop this year.

So I cut notches at points below buds where I want new branches to grow.  In a year or two, I can cut the bigger branches as the new lower branches fill in.

Now I'm thinking I should notch above those additional buds, for more branching.  

I never did this before.  Looks like it works just fine.