Yard and garden Update (7/12/2009)

When we returned from our annual Lake Superior vacation last night, we were not surprised to see our second boulevard elm gone due to Duth Elm disease. The remaining stump is visible in the lower right of this picture. Also notable is the shade pattern in early afternoon. The remaining elm is shading the garage where the Man cave is located, but the bedrooms to the left and the flower bed in front of the house are now in pretty intense sunlight. Ilene wonders about the hostas which had been planted there when the front yard was very shady.

The perennial garden, below, has a good number of blooms as we head into mid-July.

The red cana lilies are starting to bloom and the marigolds are blooming strong.

The veggie garden and new grass are doing well.

Tiger lilies are now blooming in the back south bed.

Yard and Garden Update (7/5/2009)

Ilene uses potted plants as an accent in some of the "whitespace" parts of the yard. Today we feature a number of these plants with others to have their turn later in the summer.

Outside our front door...

On the southside of the garage. The black plastic is the 20' edging strips for the bed expansion project.

On the patio...

On the back step....

Yard and Garden Update (7/2/09)

We got the sad news today that we are losing another elm to Dutch Elm Disease. Ilene had noticed some elm leaves in the yard last weekend and today one of the city arborists was cruising the street looking for telltale signs of the disease: dying branches. The arborist thought that the recent hot weather had caused the tree to draw in the fungus through its roots from shared root space with the tree we lost last year. The marked tree should be cut down within the next week, leaving us with one elm. While sad, this is not unexpected given the proximity of the trees. We had thought about systemic fungicide treatments last year, but they are expensive and the effectiveness is debateable.

The picture below shows the tree, but it is hard to make out the dying branches in the top center. This tree provides our front yard much shade from the hot summer sun and will be missed. We will likely select a faster growing tree like a sugar maple to replace it vs the slower growing burr oak we chose to replace our other elm.

The climatus on the south side of the house is blooming.

The netting which protected the grass seed we planted over Memorial Day weekend was removed this week and the new grass mowed for the first time. Thus taking us from the "before" picture below...

to the current scene with healthy grass and veggie/herb garden below.

Yard and Garden Update (6/28/2009)

We had some nice evenings to enjoy the yard and garden this past week. I did spend one evening removing about 15 gallons of sprouting/rotting elm seeds from our roof gutters. As we got into the weekend for some flower bed expansion projects, rain came and interfered with progress. We are expanding the front yard bed and the south backyard bed (shown below).

Ilene layed out the new extent of the bed with a garden hose. The new boundary was made possible by the removal of the swing set. She then sprayed the grass inside the new boundary so it wouldn't become a weed in the new bed.

We lined up a friend with time and a trailer to do the roto-tilling with a rental machine. The rain this weekend and last left our Fargo clay pretty cloddy and difficult to work with. Every few feet the machine had to be stopped and the tines cleaned. Later this week, once things have dried out a bit, our friend will be back to roto-till peat moss into the hopefully drier soil. We had hoped to get the extensions planted, but have run out of time with the wet soil delay. The goal is now to get the edging installed and continue developing the soil with organic matter so it is ready to go next spring.

The veggie garden is doing well and is providing some greens and herbs for cooking. The grass planted a month ago, in the foreground, is also doing well. We will need to lift the fabric which had been protecting it. We were also pleased that our maple and new burr oak survided a brief, but intense thunderstorm last night which saw winds of over 50 mph.

Some petunias..
and another current bloom.

Yard and Garden Update (6/21/09)

It was a rainy this past week and stormy 20+ miles south of Fargo. Parts of the watershed had over six inches of rain, tornados, etc. We actually looked a bit dry yesterday on a beautiful solstice weekend Saturday. Today we had nusence rain in the afternoon with about 0.1 inches. There was a break about 3:30, so daughter L and I went for a bike ride to survey the flood resulting from the heavy rains south of town.

The Red River is supposed to crest tonight at 28 feet which is 10 feet above flood stage. This is considered moderate flooding which can be readily handled. The main casualties are the parks, bike paths, and golf courses along the river. Many had just been cleaned up and reseeded from our big flood (crest at 42 feet) earlier this spring. A highlight was seeing a wild turkey on the Minnesota side of the river after riding across the 12th Ave N toll bridge.

This week's feature blooms are poppies and pictures are from guest photographer, daughter T.

Yard and Garden Update (6/14/09)

Ilene was busy with Vacation Bible School and I was out of town this past week, so only one project to report.

Ilene is expanding the size of two flower beds: the one in front (shown here) and the one on the south side of the back yard. Her technique is to mark the expansion area with a garden hose and then spray the grass to be converted to garden with round up. Soon a friend will come with a tiller to work up the soil and work in some peat moss. Edging is planned which means I will be called in for spade work.

The perenial bed has irises and daisies and petunias in bloom, Oh My! (The petunias in the window box are annuals.)

The new bed, where the spruce trees used to be, has a dahlia in bloom with kale in the foreground. Veggies are up as is the newly seeded grass.

The front yard has purple allium (past prime) and bleeding hearts in bloom. Hostas are visible near the bleeding hearts.

This is our new 7 foot high burr oak which was planted about 10 days ago. It can live hundreds of years and won't start producing acorns for about another 30 years or so. Peak acorn production will be between ages 75 and 150. Initial growth could be about a foot a year.

Yard and Garden Update (6/8/09)

Cool and ....

Fill in the blank and that describes much of the week. The early days were warm along with Thursday, when the four of us had lunch at Ribfest. We had "Cool and near frost" on Wednesday when it was 37 F for the last drive to school for the academic year. It was "Cool and breezy" on Friday followed by "Cool and showery" on Saturday.

Because of the rain, I don't have pictures for today. We got our new burr oak early in the week, the grass seed is sprouted, and stuff has grown. Hopefully pictures will follow next weekend...

Yard and Garden Update (5/31/2009)

This summer I think I'll try posting once every week or two on our yard and garden, typically by Sunday night. Last week's post would be #1 in this series and this is #2. Yesterday was a great day to be working outside in the yard: about 70 degrees in the afternoon, light wind, and no mosquitos. Rain had been forecast for today, so we hadn't planned any yard work. We haven't had rain, but 87 degrees and a 20 mph wind would have made it less pleasant than yesterday.

I'm not posting pictures of several of my projects: continued remedation work at the old swing set site, replacing a 24" rubber disk with edging and soon mulch at the base of the maple tree, finishing assembly of our new grill.

Planting was a big theme this week. This included our new veggie garden. The patio blocks, formerly under the swing, are now between rows of veggies. The two chicken wire cages enclose sweat peas. Last night I got to wrestle the tightly wound chicken wire and have some hand scratches to show for it. Tetnus shots were a topic of conversation for the family, but I was able to be an example, having gotton my latest diptheria/tetnus shot in January.

The raised flower beds include a row of marigolds followed by blue salvia, followed by canna lilies.

Jack-in-the-pulpit is blooming, next to a maiden holding amathyst from a mine near ThunderBay, Ontario.

The fern peonie is blooming next to a little house made by daughter L in art class. This plant is an heirloom as my parents and mom's mom had then in their garden's as well.


Bleeding hearts and the little blue flowers are nice by the back fence. Crab apples are past prime while lilacs are still pretty good. This week we'll continue watering the seeds and watching for shoots to emerge.

Why My Body Aches: Yard Work

OK, it might have something to do with a lack of exercise over the winter, but this weekend featured a couple long days of work. Today it was rainy and spent mostly indoors. Saturday and Sunday, though, were beautiful days to be outside. We got lots done and have a bit more to do.

My day outside started at 7:15 with some recycling. No big deal.

The backstory of the next task starts a year ago when we gave away our swingset to a family which had two, now three, preschoolers. However, they had wanted to wait on taking delivery of it. We had build the swing from a kit circa 2000.

Some friends from church came and helped disassemble the swing, trasnported it to its new home, and reassembled it. When the swing was down and loaded, Ilene and the girls had blueberry and cranberry/orange/chocolate chip-to-die-for scones and coffee ready for us on the patio. This was the first of several meals and snacks on the patio this weekend, including burgers on the grill and pork chops on the grill.

Underneath the slide tower were nine concrete blocks which were removed and replaced with sod from another area of our yard. The little shovel in the foreground was used to scoop out sand over landscape fabric which had been under the blocks: about 10 gallons worth.

Some of the blocks ended up in this stepping stone path. The existing stones had sunk, were overgrown with grass, and some were cracked when a big truck drove over them when we got out utility pole replaced several years ago (we had the fence out at that time and, noting that wood peckers had chipped half way through the old pole, asked to get a new one). My task was to dig out the old blocks, raise the level with sand, and then replace with blocks from under the swing set tower. The leftover blocks will likely become stepping stones in a new garden.

Our other backstory from a year ago involves the two tall spruce trees in the picture above from May 2008. Branches were dying and we had concerns about long term health and aesthetics of the trees. When we had our elm removed last fall due to Dutch Elm Disease, we made arrangements to have the spruce removed.

That left a large gap in that area of the yard, plus we missed the privacy the trees gave our patio. It probably didn't help that when the trees came down, our first view was of a middle aged, heavy, shirtless man (not me!) on a ladder a few houses down.

This is final result of the weekend with more work to follow. Starting at the fence, we have five emerald gree arborvitae which will grow tall and thin. We had considered techny arborvitae, even though they are more hardy, opted for something more aestheticly pleasing. Around the arborvitae is brown mulch. The first band of soil is our new vegetable and herb garden which still needs to be planted. The white is mesh cloth covering new grass seed and the remaining soil is where we ran out of grass seed.

Another issue we tackled was old tree mulch behind the raised beds, around the shed, and around to the east side of the yard.

New landscape fabric is being put in where needed along with new mulch. The blocks on the raised beds are in transit from the old swingset to the veggie and herb garden.

So this is the view from our bedroom window today: our "sentries", the arborvitae, lilacs in bloom, raised flower beds and shed, and then blooming crab apple tree. This is also a new, but much more pleasing, vista created with the removal of the spruce.