Buds. Pollinating. Bud Grafts. 3.10.15

Crimson Pointe Plum.  3.10.15

Peach and Plum flowers for pollinating.  3.10.15

 Many of the plums and peaches are in full bloom.

Unkown Battleground plum.  Mid to late bloom.

Unknown #2.  Scattered bloom.

Crimson Pointe Plum.  Full bloom.

Toka.  Early, almost full bloom.

Oregon Curl Free Peach - Early, almost full.

Charlotte Peach - Early, almost full.

Q-1-8 Peach - Early.

Hollywood Plum.  Full bloom.

Shiro Plum.  Full bloom.

Methly Plum.  Only 3 flowers on the tree.

Genetic Dwarf Peaches.  All full bloom.

Stanley Plum.  Buds eginning to swell.

Gage Plum.  Buds beginning to swell.

Sweet cherries.  Buds beginning to swell.

Tart cherries.  Barely noticable swelling.

Apples.  Buds swelling.

Asian Pears.  Buds swelling.

Pawpaws.  Buds beginning to swell.

Persimmons.  Barely detectable growth bud swelling.

Mulberries.  No noticable swelling.

Shan Zha (Chinese Haw) - see photo.  I don't know if these are flower buds or new growth.

Shan Zha buds, almost open.  3.10.15

I cut stems from the genetic dwarf peaches, Hollywood and Shiro plums, to take to Battleground as pollen sources.  I used artist paintbrush to transfer pollen from those to peaches and plum flowers.

Many of the bud grafts from July 2014 are opened and growing.  They are a bit less vigorous compared to other buds on those trees.  I cut back the stems to about 1/2 to 1 inch above the growing buds.  It's a long wait, from July to March, to see if they took.

It's interesting that some of the bud grafts are blooming, such as the Hollywood, pink, buds on the unknown, white flowered plum tree.   I noticed several such buds bloomed.  I think it's OK, the stem growth will follow.

New sign for the yard - Washington State Backyard Wildlife Sanctuary.  I had to fill out an application form describing the places in the yard where wildlife can find shelter, the trees, potential pollen and nectar sources for bees and butterflies, no-spray area, some native plants although by no means all.  Now signs up on both parts of the yard.

Hollywood buds on unknown variety of plum.  3.10.15

Toka plum in bloom.  3.10.15

 On bud grafts - it looks like plums did the best.  The couple I did on peach tree did not take.  Only 2 of about 8 on lilac took.  On cherries, hard to say because not all buds are swelling.  Some have fallen off.  I think all of the plum buds took.  Some are growing, some have flowers.

Backyard Wildlife Sanctuary

Starting up overwintered plants. 3.8.15

Overwintered geraniums - dry.   3.8.15

Geraniums cleaned up.  3.8.15

 I took the planter box of geraniums, out of the garage.  These were overwintered without water since about early November.  There is some lanky growth. 

I pruned off the dead leaves and some of the lanky stems.  Watered.  It's now on the deck next to the house.  They should make a comeback in a dew weeks.


Meanwhile, the geraniums I overwintered in the sunroom bloomed for most of the winter. 

The advantages of overwintering geraniums are:
*After the first purchase, subsequent years are free.
*There are usually some stems for cuttings.   Geraniums are easy to start cuttings in a glass of water.
*The resultant plants are much bigger than bedding plants at the big box store.  They can be a sizable shrub in a few years.  Very colorful.

The disadvantages:
*They don't look good, for a few weeks.
*Sometimes they don't survive.  But they usually do.
*You need a place that is dry and frost free to store them dry.  Or, a sunny place to keep them growing.

Geraniums overwintered in sunroom.  3.8.15

Joe Pye Weed. Start from seeds. 3.5.15

Joe Pye Weeds to stratify.  3.5.15

I read that Joe Pye Weed seeds need to be stratified.  I bought the seeds via mail order.  This plant is considered an excellent bee and butterfly plant.  I placed the seeds on damp paper towel, in zip-lock bag.  They should be in fridge for 2 or 3 weeks, then planted.  I have a few left.  If there is a chance, I can plant those outside.

Spring Tree Blossoms, Puttering. Container Fruit Trees. 3.7.15

Bonanza Peach in bloom.  3.7.15

Honeybees enjoying a sunny spring day.   3.7.15

 Today was sunny and warm.  Last week there was frost almost every night, but low was about 29F.   I don't think that is low enough to kill the plum flowers and peach flowers.

The Italian honeybees have been actively foraging.  I have not yet painted the Warre hive.  Need to do that soon.

The forsythia was grown from a cutting, then I moved the large bush to the Battleground place 2 1/2 years ago.  Nice display.

The Crimson Pointe Plum is columnar shape.  It makes a nice early showing of the flowers.  The fruits are good, small, but last year there were none.  The lowest branches were eaten by deer, but they don't browse about about 4 to 5 feet.

The Hollywood plum starts are growing.  The laburnum has not started growing yet, and the Forsythia is still blooming.

Forsythia.  3.7.15

Crimson Pointe Plum.  3.7.15

Trees and shrubs from cuttings, 1-2 years old.  3.7.15

Potted trees.  3.7.15

The potted trees were the new apricot variety, "Pixicot", listed as genetic dwarf.  I potted this tree, intending to grow in container and keep inside if blooms occur during frost days.  The Arbequina olive has flower buds.  I potted it up to a 2-gallon container.  The plan for the olive, is to spend winter in the sunroom and summer outside.

Planting Bare Root Trees and Shrubs. Raintree Order. 3.7.15

Whip-and-trongue graft on Pawpaw.   3.7.15

Container grown pawpaw "Mango".  3.7.15

 Thursday night, the order from Raintree Nursery arrived.  I kept it in a cool shaded location until this morning.

I am a big fan of Raintree but this time around it was a mixed bag, to say the least.  In the long run, I imagine the trees and shrubs will all grow.

The Pawpaw "Mango" was nice.  Container grown.  I read that bare root pawpaws don't easily grow, if at all.  Small starts are usually required.  So I expected small.  I was interested to see this one was a whip-and-tongue graft.  I read that pawpaws are usually chip budded.  Nice example of a good whip-and-tongue.

The roots were not wound around and around in the container.  I was gentle, which I read is important for pawpaws.  I planted it, surrounded it with a hardware cloth protector, and watered it in.

Sweet Treat Pluerry was disappointing but I think will be OK in the end.  Most of the branches were broken off near the trunk.  The remaining couple of branches are on the same side  There was evidence of growth cut off or  broken off at the trunk, so I'm not sure there are viable buds there.  So I cut off the broken branches.  Probably will tie up the top branch to vertical, and prune back once there is growth and I can see where the buds break.

The Pluerry did have an excellent root system, which is as important as a good top.  If not more so.

The apple tree was sold as a 4-variety multigraft.  It was nice this was 5 varieties.  I'm going by memory, if I recall correctly the varieties are Akane, Jonagold, Summerred, Chehalis, and Beni Shogun Fuji. Excellent root system.  It has a good chance to take off and grow.  Looks very healthy.

The bonus plants were, 3 red rugosa roses and one highbush cranberry.  The rugosa roses looked OK.  Small, but as a bonus I can't complain.   The highbush cranberry looked more like it was hacked back, than pruned. Still, once I pruned it, it looked pretty good.

I read highbush cranberries are a type of viburnum, and not really cranberries, but taste and look like them.  The rugosas should have some good rose hips for cooking, so they are also an edible plant.  Both are considered deer resistant.

Back to the Sweet Treat Pluerry, this tree is a complex interspecific hybrid, mainly plum with cherry second, and some peach and apricot.  How it turns out here will be anybody's guess.  It is not listed, which plums, which peaches, apricots, or cherries.  I hope the peach contribution does not make it susceptible to peach leaf curl.  Should not, but that is an issue with the Peach-plum hybrid, "Tri-lite".

This time around, Raintree's order was not packaged well, the newspaper wrappings were dry, so the roots were dry.  They reported they would send the shipment a few days after my first  query, then a few days after my 2nd query 2 weeks later, then it was shipped another week later; the shipping company did not give an expected date until the day it arrived.  So there was good, bad, and ugly.  Now they are planted and ready for Spring.

Pawpaw roots.  3.7.15

Planted pawpaw.  3.7.15

Sweet treet pluerry - on delivery.  3.7.15

Planted Sweet Treet.  3.7.15

Sweet Treet roots.  3.7.15

Apple tree roots.  3.7.15

Highbush cranberry on delivery.  3.7.15

Pruned Highbush Cranberry.  3.7.15