Cassin’s Finch

A little bit blurry, taken from behind my home office window this morning, but this beautiful male Cassin’s finch made a quick visit to my backyard.  Click on the photo to get a better view of the rosy red head, throat, and rump. He’s a stunner!

Dragon Tree: Branching!

Following up on the last post, here is a photo of my mature dragon tree (aka Dracaena draco), branching. The beautiful branching habit of this incredible tree provides the structure for its dome-shaped canopy. Click on the photo to see how each earlier branch spawned at least 2 new branches, and so on!

Dragon Tree: In Flower!

It’s that time of the year again, when my beloved, mature dragon tree (aka Dracaena draco) is in flower. A few of these flower spike are now dotting this tree. Presumably, branching occurs when the tree flowers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracaena_draco

Rose Hips

My Sunblest rose is producing an impressive amount of rose hips! Here is one example. I’m hopeful that it will ripen into a shade of red or orange because I’m curious about using them in tea and possibly making jam (if I have enough for the latter, that is!).  An added benefit is that rose hips are very high in vitamin C.  More information on rose hips and their uses can be found here: http://www.uvm.edu/pss/ppp/articles/rosehips.html

This particular rose plant is very prolific so I’ve decided to not deadhead this plant for the time being to build up my (hopefully) usable rose hip supply. I’m excited! What a lovely additional use for roses!

CONSUMER  ALERT UPDATE: I’ve not used any pesticides on any of my roses or other plants, so no worries about poisoning or toxic issues if I use rose hips for my consumption.

Pear Tree: Fruits Emerging!

One of my two 3-in1 pear trees is beginning to fruit, about 3 months after I planted them! Wow! This is really a nice surprise since both pear tree saplings did not show very many leaves or other activity. These two photos are of at least 3 fruits from the same one tree. My other pear tree sapling does not yet show any signs of fruiting.

To be honest, I didn’t know what I was been looking at until I had the fruits in front of my face! I didn’t know that pears grew like this. Lesson learned! Since each of my pear trees will produce 3 types of pears, I’m not sure which ones these are. I can’t wait to find out!

Roses: To Cut or Not?

I just finished this round of deadheading my roses. I have several roses blooming, all beautiful. But for me, it’s a bit painful (and I don’t mean the thorns this time!) to cut my roses in order to have cut flowers in my home. I have some roses that would look great in a vase, with their long graceful stems. But I just prefer having my roses (and other flowers) live their entire life cycle in the garden.

I’ve cut a few roses to give to a friend in the past few weeks, because they bring her so much joy – it’s great to give to others. It’s all about preference. One of the best gifts I was ever given was a gift of a rose plant of my choice. It’s still blooms today!

Fruit Tree Propagation: Update

After nearly two weeks, I’m sorry to report that my attempt to propagate a Nagami kumquat tree from a sapling’s sucker was unsuccessful. I’ve read how difficult it is to attempt this, but felt I had to try.

Undaunted, when either of my two kumquat trees is more mature and freely fruiting, I’ll try to propagate from the fruit seeds.

In the meantime, a coworker, who shares a love of gardening, gave me the cores of two Fuji apples, both with seeds that appeared to be germinating. I’d stored them in the refrigerator and planted them today in a container. I’m curious to see if something springs up in that container!

Tomato Container Garden: Seedling Update

I’m happy to report on the progress of my tomato container garden started last month.  Although it took a little bit longer than expected, a healthy 10 out of 21 containers show seedlings! Just another 11 to go!

HOW TO: What I’ve been doing is watering the containers 3 times per week, on the “flat” setting so that the soil gets moist but not soggy. I planted the seeds close to the surface of the soil so did not want a more forceful setting, like “soak” or “full” to force the seeds down deep into the soil, reducing the chances of germinating.

Each mature tomato plant produces several pounds of tomatoes so I’m prepared to be eating tomatoes out my ears and sharing with friends this summer. I can’t wait!

CONSUMER ALERT UPDATE: The non-fruit parts of tomato plants are poisonous if ingested. More information on toxic plants can be found here: http://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/ce/king/poisplant/tox-com.htm

Garden Design: Installing In-Ground Outline

Literally, from remnant lumber boards! As mentioned in previous posts, I like to think of my garden as rectangular sections that I create by installing lumber boards directly into the ground to create a can’t-miss outline. As shown in the photo, I dug a shallow trench measuring the approximate width of the board.

You don’t have to do it perfectly – if it’s a little crooked, you can move the board (since the soil is now loose to allow you to do this). Or, you can leave it as is!

I started this project a little late in the day so will be continuing it on next weekend. The soil in my backyard was mostly loose from previous watering, but the last bit for the section pictured was simply hard soil. I soaked the small area with a bit of water a few times, allowing the water to seep through and dug a little bit each time until I reached the desired depth. This is the “length” part of the rectangle that I’m working on – I’ve a few more boards to install and more digging. After that, I’ll install the “width” part.

This is a type of project that I can do myself, at my own pace. The labor, for me, is not too intensive, provided that I’ve sufficiently watered the soil to loosen it up enough to make it easy to dig. It saves my back, but it does require a little bit of time. The result is worth it to me:  having multiple nicely planned, themed mini-yards within my backyard (as much as that’s possible!).

Nagami Kumquat Tree: Propagation

Opportunities abound! Each initial seeming gardening “disaster” is an opportunity for me to learn and potentially expand my gardening universe! I recently planted my 2 Nagami kumquat tree into the ground. Today was unexpectedly very windy, and a sucker or shoot growing from the side of one of these trees snapped off.

Normally, suckers are removed since they can compete with the plant for nutrients, which affects the productivity (fruiting) of the tree. It seems nature took care of that for me!

I decided to see if I can propagate this kumquat tree by way of snapped-off tree sucker. I don’t know if this will be successful, but if it is, I’ll have a third kumquat tree, which would be most welcome!

HOW TO:  With garden shears, I made a clean cut of the broken-off end of the sucker. I then ran a little tap water on the cut end and dipped the cut end into a small plastic bottle containing  powdered rooting hormone. I tapped off the excess rooting hormone. I placed the sucker into a potting-soiled filled container and gently tied it to a wooden stake. I added enough water to just moisten the soil.

It is my hope that this strategy will be successful. If so, I will try to grow this kumquat tree in a container for the time being and compare its productivity to that of the 2 in-ground grown trees.