weather in the garden # 139

69° up towards 80 today

Congratulations for the award, Marilyn.

yes - congrat's marilyn.

I've pretty good about bringing in a bunch of blooms once a week for Cindy.

Thanks, friends.....Aren't you the nice husband, Bill! I've been cutting the dahlias to bring in.....the ones I've grown from seed are so nice this year....my ones grown from tubers, not so much! Another sunny, 80-85 day today....wish it would last for another few months....OK...all year!

71° going up to 80.

Mid 80s here....enjoying every minute!

69° going to the mid 80s. Bright sun.

Weather is beautiful in low 80's but the ground is sooo dry! Today i see that watering was not enough for the miniature pinus strobus, sea urchin. Most other things are holding on.

It was a bad year to plant new shrubs....just too dry! Today will be sunny & 85.....lovely, but nothing is blooming due to dryness.....

75° up to low 80s. Even the goldenrod has fewer stalks which shows how dry it is.

Yes, my goldenrod is only just now starting to show some color, and some sedum buds are brown. Blooms are very late this year. Leaving shrubs in their pots wasn't a good solution,so the collection is editing itself! I totally understand the appeal of non-native pines, and cryptomeria, because they are all doing great! Even atlas cedar seems to think this is nothing compared to Morocco.

It was 86 by this afternoon. A casual stroll through the garden gives a visual demonstration of the areas with highly amended soil and mulch vs the quick jobs.

We must look crazy to the neighbors who ordered thirty trees put in last spring. It's been a two week project to excavate an area that had been a dump, obviously. The plant threads don't pointedly discuss what trees grow well over rocks, cement fragments, coal, and hard yellow sand. I'm putting my bet on the spruces, since they are from the Rockies, but obviously the roots need some place to spread. To protect the peonies, I am leaving a shelf of rock on their side. If I ever become knowledgeable enough to start a serious gardening blog, I will call it "Gardening is not pretty." This particular project started because of the encroachment of the neighbor's giant Norway maple over our blue spruce. Now that we are moving the tree zone farther from the fence, there isn't any good dirt here, so it is crowbar and pickaxe territory.

Norway maples.....don't get me started! Grrrrrr.

yes. too many of those around.

When your project is finished, Rosemary, it will be delightful......The land I live on once was an apple orchard......trees slope down, behind the farm below me is the Naugatuck River, once the most polluted river in NE....I'm not worried about the rocks, although they are plentiful, but the chemicals that were used on the apple & pear trees a hundred years ago......Cloudy right now, but should become sunny & 75 later today....no rain in sight!

73° It will be below 80 today. Comfortable.

Still no rain. Sunny and 81, weather works fine for moving the plants that are wider than the reports claimed.

Thinking about chemicals in the soil as I dig, too. Marilyn. It's been more than 50 years, so some leaching and breakdown of chemicals ought to have happened. Mainly we are bringing soil--in! I may have said our site had the greenhouse and part of the apple orchard back when there was a farm here . Another young couple downstream from us with actual river property had their soil tested and indeed they found a lot of DDT and plastic derivatives in the soil, too. Plastics created the rationale for leveling the elementary school where my kids attended. Someday, I want an irrigated tower for planting edibles, consistent with the usual big dreams.

DH helped remove a lot of the rocks in the dump site, so the new spruce to make up for the norway maple shade is likely to get a home soon. At least that particular Norway maple looks rather well formed and healthy from my kitchen, even if it has wrecked the ancient row of lilacs, and now the 25 year old spruces in front of that are lopsided. I agree with Carrie, Norway maples are pretty nasty.

Their roots get in the way as well. A line of them has ruined one of the iris beds belonging to a friend in Concord.

And they break and die. My house was built around 1950-5, and every house on my street had a Norway maple in 1994 when we moved in. Now they are one by one being replaced with Bradford pears which are probably as bad. But the Norways are illegal to sell or propagate in Massachusetts, I think. Our Norway maple was cut down by the city as being dead, and they haven't replaced it with anything yet. Our full shade yard was converted into mostly sun. Yay!

The next door neighbor's maple looks awful, though. It's cracked down the middle. Maybe he has to call it in. (I called them and asked them to cut ours down. They did it a year later.)

Sounds familiar. There is another Norway maple that has been dangling its dead branches near another secion of our yard. Where a bunch of them fell in another neighbor's yard, they are sprouting up again.

True, the roots are a problem, but I feel no compunction about cutting them whenever possible. Guess our underground rock piles have something good to say about them, also. Sad to hear they could hurt iris beds.

Lot line roots.

69° but only going into the low 70s.

Very nice weather with a slight breeze, low 70s after upper 60s in the morning. Planting one tree has become a major project. Now that the rocks are out of the hole, we are hauling soil and compost up the hill to mix with the local sand...it will end, though. DH is replacing two window wells as well as assisting the hauling. This digging is what marriage it about?

Ain't that the truth?!! Hehehe

It was chilly in Goshen ...66 for the high. It was 71 when I returned to town about 4:30....we were celebrating 3 birthdays, including my sister's 80th......She takes after my Mom, she looks good for her age!

You bet she does!

It was 54 when I walked with Nicki this morning.......first time I've worn a long-sleeved shirt this season! Heat should be back by Wed.

59° Only forecast for the low 60s.

Brrr! My newest tree, and last for the season, won't get sent from Oregon until the weather stays cool for its journey. They said it might have to wait until late October to insure successful traveling.

Late Oct. isn't a good time for planting here. We just got our peony from OR which are always planted in the fall. We will have to work at it.

Cloudy & chilly this morning....high predicted for today is 68.......

Why do you say October isn't a good time for planting? As long as there are 6 weeks before hard freeze, I think it's ok.

Does anyone know why things are sweeter after frost? I mean beets, cabbage, carrots, those kinds of things.

62° If we plant late especially iris plants they will heave over the winter. bulbs are ok

Perhaps it is an old wives tale, but I heard things like beets and squash are storing their food supplies for the winter.

Many conifers are fine planted in October. If you store dirt and dig a hole now, it is even possible to plant a live Christmas tree in January. I prefer early October so trees can start to root, though. If we get a decent snow cover, the plants will be watered. Of course peonies can be planted until when the ground freezes, pretty much.

How come your ground is not frozen in Jan.? You are not that far away.

Oh, the veggies don't KNOW they are about to be harvested; they think they are reproducing. Makes sense. I always expected it to line up with reasons for sap running in February, and it just didn't.

Oh yes, my ground freezes too. I'm saying it is possible to dig the hole in November, store the dirt in a warmer place and plant a live Christmas tree in January. For a while some of the local farmstands and nurseries were advertising this, but I don't think it caught on.

I think the cold turns starch into sugar.....so your root veggies are sweeter.....

We use Christmas tree branches for munch; enough trees here without planting new ones. It is just 60° this morning.

Great sleeping weather....should be another dry, sunny, 75 degree day.....

98° sunny. supposed to be our high for today.