What have you done today in the Garden?

This is very very beautiful and peaceful. What a lovely job! Well done Pac.

 

Today I finish reading about the last of my perenial seeds and add the notes to my journal for 2023 seed starts. The last is my Leopard Plant, which is nestled amongst some large rocks up beside the house, and has miraculously survived for 10 years now. It gets covered with a tremendous amount of snow from shovelling and the roof slide, so it is very well insulated. Perhaps that is partly why it survives. I'm hoping/pretty sure it is not a hybrid, and that perhaps I can grow some from seed in the spring.

About an inch of snow fell last night ( the cool tip of the atmospheric river that Daniel had) so once the sun is up I will try to get the greenhouse door open and wiggled around. I'm still hoping to move some dirt around in there today or tomorrow.

 

Looks great DHR. Everything back in order and cleaned up from the rain.

 

We have a ‘Atmosphere River’ The weathermen have so delicately labeled . Lots of rain, wind and hopefully no flooding. Boy the last day before we turn our clocks back. It 11:am and still dark cloudy and cold. Winter is arriving with a bang..

 

Very beautiful Sjoerd. I really enjoy how you've incorporated them into the garden. I think they look whimsical.
I'm hoping to make one from willow and red dogwod boughs this spring to replace the log one that used to be at the lower vegetable garden.

Lonicera...I looked that up. Is that a vining honeysuckle? or Black twinberry honeysuckle??? I was surprised to see the black twin berry as a shrub/bush that grows native here and I wrestle with from time to time. The robins enjoy it in the fall.

 

Hoi Mel, cheers for your favourable comments.
Your plans for making arches sounds good. Oi lurve a good orch.

The Lonicera’s I use are the vining sort. I have them on three arches.
I use them for several reasons, but the fragrance is very nice. Mine have slightly different fragrences.
I do not know the Black Twinberry one.

 

@Pacnorwest and @Sjoerd , both beautiful gardens!

You can both come over and work on mine now

 

Daniel.. thank you what a nice compliment. It’s so important for like minded gardeners to connect and receive garden compliment from our piers. Daniel you have a lot to teach me . Your a very talented gardner.

 

@Pacnorwest and @Sjoerd you've both worked so hard with your gardens and Lotti.

 

@Daniel W you do so well with your seed saving.

 

Chuckle Daniel. I first must do the other six arches. Thanks for the compliment. That means a lot.
Ta Loggie.

 

It might not look much different, but the number of overhanging branches I took off next door's silver birches, with my long loppers, even after laboriously reducing them down with my secateurs, was enough to fill the green bin.





Still some right at the top, but I'll leave them for now.
At least I won't have the catkins and leaves with which to contend, from the tree at the right-hand end of the line, as it's died. It's hard to see, but there's some dead branches to the left of the middle of the photo.
This garden wasn't watered during the dry spell. I watered mine, so the other trees would have got some water from below our garden. This one is next to our garage, so would have got none.



As usual, there will be some work to do on one of our two acer palmatums.
This one is looking a bit scruffy.



The number of dead branches, like this one, might give rise for some concern, but it happens every year.



But they are always replaced by new growth at the top.



Every few years and this will be another one, I'll put a net over the top and tie it down, to get the branches to adopt the dome shape I like and also reduce the spread to make it less dominant.
Some branches won't respond to the treatment, so will be pruned off and others may have to be wired to fill in any gaps, in late April.

I'll take the net off once they've "set" which will be early April.

We've had it since it was a baby, in 1986, it's the one nearest the lamp, the other one died.





We've had our moments with this acer.

We had a "frog pond" for decades. It started to leak twenty years ago, so I removed the perimeter stones, added a new liner and re-cemented the perimeter.
Since then, the acer slowly started to force up the perimeter stones.

A year ago, I decided to get rid of this pond. Several years before a hedgehog drowned in it, although there were rocks at one end for small frogs to get out. We didn't want the same thing to happen again to our hedgehog.
After removing the perimeter rocks, this is what I found between the two liners.



I carefully removed the sand and replaced it with a lot of ericaceous compost and topsoil. Then replaced the perimeter rocks to form a bed for cyclamen.
The acer was none the worse for the disturbance in August.

 

@Doghouse Riley you could write a book about caring for Acers. Nice job!

 

Thank you Logan. Sometimes I feel like saving seeds is almost a lost art. Around here, I don't know anyone else who starts many of their own plants, let alone saves their own seeds. It's nice being able to talk about it here. I feel like saving my seeds feels empowering - I can grow the varieties that work in my garden and climate, year after year. Some seem to adapt and grow better as I save the best of each generation for next year.

I just shelled the first batch of bush green beans, which I had brought inside to cure. The crop was late, so I wondered if these were ripened enough. The pods had lost most of their greenness.

This is after a couple of weeks indoors. The pods are now dry and crunchy.



The beans shelled out easily.



I counted as I went along. I need roughly 70 seeds to plant a full raised bed. This batch yielded about three times that.



I haven't saved bush bean seeds before. I think these were either Blue Lake or Contender - I grew both and can't tell them apart. There are more drying now, as a back-up plan.

21 years ago, we bought some pole bean seeds at a Chinese market. They were a large, flat pod type bean that are used in Northeast China. Each year, I save the last of that crop. So they have had 21 generations to adapt to local conditions. They are unknown variety and I have not seen them in catalogs. The green beans look like this. They have different appearances.


The dry beans look like this.



Without saving the seeds, these would not be available here. I passed these on to my helper, who came from that part of China. Some have been passed on to other gardeners who came from the same part of China.

 

My two cents on your question Melody. Last Spring I transplanted a dormant five year old redcurrant bush. It did fine and bore lots of currants. I stuck some of the prunings into the ground in the tomato bed, and with no extra care, they rooted and grew a little.