Fall Project

This remarkable fall has been wonderful!  Yesterday it was 77 degrees [normal is 55-ish] and just the latest in more than a week of warmer than average days.  Today and tomorrow should be the same and then it will drop all the way down into the mid-60's for a few more lovely days.  We may be back to "normal" by Christmas weekend.

I have not wasted this wonderful weather miracle.  Everything [no, really, everything] has been deadheaded.   You know it's done, when you wander from bed to bed looking for something to cut back!  Bed are now mulched that have not been mulched in years; all the root suckers removed from the shrubs; the cutting garden top-dressed, and a fall project completed.

A "Kitchen Garden" has been on my radar for several years.  I collected pictures and plans; i thought and thought about what might work; i drew several sets of plans.  And, finally, a class assignment in one of my horticulture classes pushed me over the edge and i finally did the work. 

This was my "old" veggie garden - a raised bed (36 sq. ft.) set in the middle of the flattest, sunniest part of the yard.  The shed is to the left and the edge of the carport to the right. [All the other photos are taken from the other end.] It was the only viable place to grow veggies.

Staked out and grass killed - we lived with the stakes for a couple of weeks - adjusting them until we were comfortable walking around it, and then i killed the grass.  

There will be two layers of fencing - first a wire mesh (above) to keep the critters out.  It is buried three inches into the ground.

This may be my favorite part.  There will be a six-inch planted border all the way around the garden.  In the "front" it will be annual flowers - some are already seeded in.  In the back it will be okra, and down the sides it will be lettuces and other greens.  It will give me an additional 26 sq. ft. of growing space. 

The master builder in the family made two new raised boxes for me - a total of 72 sq. ft. - and i put down a bale of pine straw for walkways.

The nearly done garden - with the pots it's slightly more than 100 sq. ft.  White picket fencing all around and in each corner will be a big blue pot - you can already see one with herbs on the right and one with blueberries on the left.  I think peas on a tuteur in the right far corner and more herbs in the left far corner.

All that's really left to do is to finish mixing the soil and start planting!  I can hardly wait. 

Secret Life

Since Labor Day I have been living a secret life ... and hiding it from you.  Hiding my secret life as a coed.  Well, maybe not quite a "coed", but i am back in school. 

The Virginia Community College System has a strong emphasis on one- and two-year professional training in a zillion specialties.  This is not the traditional college-transfer stuff, but rather preparation to go into the work force in just one or two years.  

[Full disclosure:  my first two jobs out of grad school were in the VCCS system, so I am a fan!]

Entrance to campus

Fortunately for me the local CC specializes in Horticulture, among many other things.  The Hort program is centered on their western campus, which is about 30 minutes west of me, but their central campus is only 5 minutes away and some of my classes are held there, too.

In September I started in "Principals of Horticulture" - a survey course - and "Landscaping Plants I" - woody plants.  For this semester we have studied trees and shrubs that bloom in the fall and winter, as well as the conifers.  I've learned something nearly every week, and, I have loved every minute of it. 

Four greenhouses for propagation and winter storage

Once a week I volunteer a few hours working in the greenhouses and demonstration gardens.  I've been doing things like weeding, planting pansies, digging out dead annuals, deadheading perennials and cleaning up inside the greenhouses .... in other words, exactly the same things that I have been doing at home ...  well, except for the greenhouse part!

A demonstration space with conifer garden behind it

Cleaned-up perennials in demonstration beds

  

Winter beds ready for covers

and, covered

My favorite view of the demo spaces

Exams are the next two weeks and then I can register for Landscaping Plants II.  Once I have finished that, I will move into the landscape design classes, and maybe a bit of flower arrangement.

I can hardly wait!

Let's Not Forget .... either Paris

My plan for today was to tell you about school, but then life intervened in the form of bombings in Paris and the "Paris of the Middle East" ... Beirut. 

While we have been focused on the awful events and tragedy of Friday night in Paris, if you live in the U.S. you may not even know that on Thursday [yes, the afternoon before] there was a bombing in the main marketplace of Beirut.  Forty-five were killed and nearly 240 injured.  In a country with a population of 6 million, that's a big number.  [France has 67 million population.]

We need to broaden our focus and mourn all of our lost brothers and sisters - and not just the Europeans.  Yes, the French have been long time allies and friends, but so have the Lebanese.  In recent years we have not been as close, but i well remember the stream of students in my dad's engineering classes in the 50's and 60's.  Within the past ten years Mitchell sponsored the immigration of a Lebanese family.  Their sons are like our adopted sons.  So, it saddens me that we tend to forget that part of the world. 

I'll just say that we need to find ways to get along; to live together in peace; to allow others to disagree without resorting to killing them.  We need to honor the dead and support their families in these terrible days.

You might want to join the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, chorus and principals of "Tosca" in singing "La Marseillaises" and if you know it, the national anthem of Lebanon.  

[Ok, so i couldn't figure out how to imbed the video.  You're smart and the Google will help you find it.]

 Peace.

Trimming the Tree

Normally, tree trimming is one of my favorite activities of December - just around the corner!  It involves lights and ornaments and the magic of the season!

Every few years, however, it means something completely different.  The power company sends crews - sometimes goons - to clear vegetation back from various lines.  Unfortunately for us, the rules changed several years after we purchased the house and are now much stricter, so it is often a battle with the crew chief.  [If they keep good notes, then i am surely on their "watch list" because i have zealously guarded our trees - even when that means getting in the face of some young guy with a chain saw and no knowledge of trees!]

This neighborhood was originally farm land and there are many heritage trees - trees that are much more than 50 years old,  like the 80-foot tall water oak that I can see from the desk as i write this - and many of them are now in the way of the lines.  Methinks that the trees were there first!  We are lucky that none of ours spread into the protected area, but if one is not vigilant the crews will cut everything in sight.

I was lucky this year that there was an arborist on the crew, and he and i were able to come to an agreement on what would be trimmed and what left alone.  It seems strange to me that they routinely take out branches that are lower than the lines.  Do they really believe that limbs will fall up?  Nonetheless, my elm only had two small branches shortened a couple of feet. 

I hope to be able to trim a little and make the top of this crepe myrtle more rounded without pollarding too much.  There was no reason to touch this tree.

My next door neighbor was not so lucky.  They cut five feet off her crepe myrtle and left it with a flat top!  We all know how dangerous falling branches are from crepe myrtles ... not!

They did give me a gift, tho.  They cut back the boundary hedge behind me.

Before - You can barely see part of the roof of the house and some of a lovely oak above the hedge.

The ligustrum hedge that separates us from the rear neighbor has been a mess for years.  It is on their property, but I keep our side sheared as best i can.  They have not touched it in years, so it was about 16 feet high and at least 8 feet thick, with honeysuckle and creeping euonymous all thru it.  

It took three "passes" to cut down the top from about 16 feet to about 8 feet.  And, then they sheared the other side, too.

It was rather fun to watch them work, and it will be great once if flushes in the spring.  

I'll shear it back once in February before it starts its new growth and then a second time after it blooms and then it should be set for a year .... well, on this side.

After - what an improvement!

I love it that now I can see the oak behind it, and that my Emerald Arborvitae stands taller.  [It's nearly invisible in the "before" photo.] Still a great green backdrop to my garden, but things no longer 'get lost' in the hedge.  Now, if Santa would just give them someone to do it annually ....