Garden thread

Lucky both of you. Our spring was so dry when the fruit should have been thinking of flowering, now we've had no rain for 6 weeks or more so any fruit there is is not swelling. I fear my grape is not going to perform either, our ground has dome real cracks in it. Last year the blackberries all shrivelled on the plants. I'm trying to work out what to do to improve things, extra water butts and probably deep mulch.

I have no idea what tall flower this is, but it blooms every year and sho' is purty.

I have been sort of ignoring the yard and garden this year. My schedule is full with many other fun things. We're about to get some stupid-hot days, and I figured I better get some water out in the orchard. I think I've lost my mimosa tree to the heat, and a neighbor probably lost a tulip poplar. I may wait until spring to decide, but my tree needs some work anyway. It might be better to go ahead and have it removed. Makes me sad.

I took some time this morning before it got hot to do some removing of volunteer cherry trees and cleaning up where some unwanted plants were crowding wanted plants while letting the water run low and slow on the trees. It's still running.

I had noticed earlier in the year the pear trees and plum tree had a very heavy set of fruit. I had done some fruit pruning on the Asian pear a while ago, but not nearly enough. I noticed a broken branch, so decided to spend the morning chopping out excess fruit. The first time I did this it felt weird chopping off a majority of the fruits, but the result is better quality of the remaining fruit, and the branches don't break. I always have more than enough anyway. I focus on any misshapen fruit and then prune out anywhere there are fruits touching. I bet I cut out 500 pounds of fruit. I am lazy this year, so I just left the fruit on the ground to rot and feed the soil. Or the critters. I will have to be on the lookout for yellow jackets though. Maybe I'll make a trap with some cheap cat food if I start seeing them.

I also started yanking fruit off the prune tree. Just by the handful. It started to get hot, and I was getting itchy. I just quit and came in to take a shower - I have to go drive an hour to take care of some errands. I'll get that done and maybe visit a friend or two.

If you aren't familiar with the cat food yellow jacket trap, it's genius. Get a shallow baking pan. Fill it almost to the top with water, and add a drop of dish soap. Set it on a flat surface a little bit away from where you'll be enjoying the outdoors. Take a paint stir-stick and smear a bunch of cheap canned cat food on one side. Place the stick, cat food side down, on top of the pan so that there's a very small space between the cat food and the water. When the yellow jackets come in, they might touch the water on their way to the feast. With the soap, there's no surface tension, and they'll sink and drown. If they do manage to land, they are greedy little kittens, so they take more than they can easily take off with. The trajectory takes them down before up, so they hit the water and drown.

I am not looking forward to getting my water bill this month. I hadn't really done any irrigation until late last month, and I went nuts. Oh well.

@spinnerdell

Thanks for your experience. My tree is probably closer to 40 years old. Or more. I will call in the arborist to work on a couple trees and then see if my very dear mimosa will come back. It's been fighting wooly aphids for years.

Gonna have lots of December peppers and tomatoes!

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Have the USA-ians taken a look at the updated USDA Hardiness Zone map? Reportedly, there's been widespread change. I used to be zone 5 (I think zone 5b, -15 to -10 F), now am zone 6a (-10 to -5 F).

https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/

Yes, we're discussing it in my gardening group. Some bad consequences for us: we now have more ticks and rabbits. Since we have less snow, we have less "poor man's fertilizer." Etc.

I'm still 6B but my friend on the coast went from 6B to 7A. We've been having endless discussions about dahlias, which are hardy to zone 8. I say she should treat them like an annual and bring them in if she wants to keep them. She says some of them have come back the next year and that flower farmers in our area are able to overwinter them. She showed me a video. I pointed out that they are covering them with 4-6 inches of wood chips, which is a lot of mulch, so sure, overwinter them if you are willing to do that

But now she's in a warmer zone, so I'm just going to let it rest, even though it's still not a dahlia-safe zone.

I have some ornamental grass that didn't get enough sun this year so never got very big. It's zone 7 hardy and was sold as an annual. I mulched the heck out of it and expect it to survive. I'm trying ever-bearing strawberries for the first time - that's behind.

I just started this bed this fall. Can't wait to see it next June! This picture is from last month, before the strawberries came in the mail. The dead looking stuff is crocosmia and tiger lily I moved from another bed which didn't have enough sun. I got a bunch of irises from my gardening group, and today got some glads, which I will plant tomorrow. The white bags with no lettering is local manure

I just repotted some leaves from succulents and cacti as they committed suicide. I think I should not take care of plants.