I cut these a couple weeks ago to bloom indoors. It's a welcome preview of Spring.
After they bloom, I'll keep them in water to see if they grow roots, as in last year's project. If they do, they can be planted to extend the forsythia hedge I started then.
The flowers are a little sparse at this point, but should fill in. There are lots of unopened buds.
Pruning continued today. I cut out all of last year's fruiting blackberry and raspberry canes, so all that remains is new growth. I shortened the canes, raspberries to 5 feet and blackberries to about a foot of secondary growth on the 6 foot primary growth. I dug out all of the useless varieties of blackberries - Prime Ark Freedom and Arapaho, just keeping Triple Crown. I made the blackberry bed smaller now that there is only one cluster. There is room for another if I add it.
It seems like kind of extreme pruning. However, I think it's not that different from the recommendations, This years' crop will tell me if I did OK.
I knew there was a reason I pitted all of those pie cherries!
When I pitted them, I premade the filling and froze it. That way all I needed to make was the crust.
I wondered if these needed stratification. I guess not. First seedlings emerged in three days. That's fast.
Gloriosa Daisies are Rudbeckia hirta, similar to Black Eyed Susans but perennial (although Black Eyed Susans apparently can be annual, perennial, biennial) and have more fall colors (center tends to be golden / brown / ochre / brick red, outer parts of petals are yellow) to the flowers. I'm glad I tried without stratification.
Such tiny seedlings. I think they will grow quickly and probably more will germinate.
January can be a good time to prune apple trees. They are not actively growing or producing apples, so we get a good look at their structure. Many other farming / gardening jobs are on hold although there is always something.
My apple pruning goals: Try to keep the branches at a height that won't be easy for deer to reach, but I can reach without a ladder. My fruit goals are to have various varieties ripening from summer through fall and into early winter. Not bushels of fruit at a time, but rather bowls at a time.
This is what started as minidwarf Liberty Apple, now at 22 years old has overgrown some of the dwarfing effect of the rootstock. I bent higher branches horizontally to let them fruit within reach. I cut off all vertical shoots, a few buds after their origins. In front of Liberty is the columnar North Pole, with McIntosh flavors but larger and sweeter. I just cut the top and prune side spurs to keep them about
a foot long. Those were a few weeks ago.
Another NorthPole. Both North Pole apple trees are on minidwarfing M27 rootstock, which gives small, very slow growing tree but keeps the size manageable and maintenance easy.
Also Golden Sentinel. Also columnar. It's had some bark problems, seem to be healing but I'm leaving two healthy looking lower shoots in place as potential replacements. If the existing top doesn't produce this year, I'll cut it off and let the vigorous young shoots take over. I think it's on M9 dwarfing rootstock, but I forget.
There is one more apple tree to prune in this group, a large multigraft with Akane, Summerred, Fuji (Beni Shogun early variant), some Pristine shoots (early early very good disease resistant, sparkly good flavor), more Jonagold, and a red flesh from Home Orchard Society that might be descended from the variety Grenadine.
Then there will be the three front yard apple trees, and that's all. I very good that Im this far along on the apple tree maintenance.
