Wood pile again

I did finish moving and stacking the firewood and spreading the mulch.

From TTH20081231

From TTH20081231

Hedginess

I love the woods in winter because you can see in and through them. When they're leafed out in the summer they're just a solid mass. My back yard is planted all around with trees and shrubs, some with winter berries, some with colored stems.

Red twig dogwood (Cornus sericea 'Cardinal')

From TTH200812

I planted these first around the base of my big pine tree. They didn't do well, maybe because the tree sucked all the moisture out of the soil. I moved a few to the back yard hedge and gave these to my neighbor. They're planted along our joint lot line. He was surprised to find that they grew about 8 feet in one year and is eyeing them nervously. I told him if he gives up on them to let me dig them and give them to a friend who is planning hedge in a wooded area.

She has some dreadful neighbors who actually cut down a mass of trees and laid out a road on my friend's property. They've erected a fence and now want to plant it thickly with fast growing shrubs. These are incredibly easy to propagate. In the late winter, just as the buds begin to swell, you cut a bunch of long stems, bundle them into fascines and bury them in trenches. They sprout all along the length of the stem. These are supposed to be great for erosion control on stream and pond banks. I suggested that she include plenty of pokeweed so the birds will eat the berries and then poop purple all over the neighbors' house.


Viburnum trilobum (Cranberrybush viburnum) and more Red twig dogwood

From TTH200812

I have three kinds of viburnums in this back hedge. The dentatum berries are gorgeous, gun metal blue, and get eaten as fast as they ripen. Th nudum are beautiful when they are ripening, shading through green, pink and dark blue. They dry to raisins that hang on and get eaten slowly. The trilobums are the showiest, starting out bright red, freezing to a rust color and hanging on through the winter. They'r a food of last resort for the birds and get eaten by the returning flocks in late winter.

Viburnum trilobum

From TTH200812

Ilex verticillata (Winterberry Holly)
I think I love winterberry the best of all. I have at least half a dozen cultivars. This one was a surprise with its pale orange berries. Only the female plants set berries and there are two major groupings with different bloom times. You have to have male plants with bloom times that match. The Forest Farm hard copy catalog has a very helpful chart. Request one here.

From TTH200812

From TTH200812

From TTH200812

Compost hump

I've moved the black compost bins behind the new shed and piled the extra in a hump. When I have a minute I will cover the hump with burlap, InterBay mulch style. The moist dark is supposed to promote the growth of micro-organisms and the barrier protects your larger wormy things from predators. I gave it a try last year and it did produce lovely compost.

From TTH200812

Pruning

I have one huge old apple tree in my back yard and have planted a variety of smaller fruit trees. The apple kept growing out and over the porch roof, threatening to damage the shingles and clogging the gutter.
Last summer the peach tree was so loaded with peaches the weight nearly tore it apart. I had an arborist come out to see if my storm-damaged elm could be saved and had him give me an estimate on pruning everything that needed it. They came yesterday and I took the morning off to watch and try to learn. He was great about explaining what he was doing and encouraged me to give it a try on the smaller trees next year. I have a couple of books on pruning but had remained pretty timid about it. It really helped to see a live human perform on live trees.

After Pruning shots

Peach tree

From TTH200812

Apple tree

From TTH200812

From TTH200812

The tree guys cut up the big branches for me so I now have three baskets of applewood chunks for smoking. I think they give the best flavor of any smoking wood.

From TTH200812

My old electric smoker finally burnt out with a bang and a shower of sparks. I bought this cabinet style smoker to replace it. I have an irrational fear of propane that dates back to Girl Scout camp and old Coleman stoves and lanterns which were notorious for blowing up in your face. Maybe next summer I will get up my nerve to buy a gas canister and try the smoker.

From TTH200812

Firewood

I have a woodstove in the basement that I light when I'm working down there. It's also the only back-up heat for my all-electric house. I have burned up almost all of the wood I had on hand and couldn't find anyone who would deliver less than a cord. A cord is a lot of wood when it's piled in the driveway. I've moved about a third of it to the back yard now and will pick at the pile as the weather permits.

From TTH200812

A small amount is stacked right outside the back porch door so I can grab it and drop it down into the stairwell.

From TTH200812

The rest has to go behind the new shed.

From TTH200812

Minou the mighty hunter regularly patrols my neighbor's woodpile so I told her she was to have her very own. She spent one entire afternoon staking out a spot in the bed on my side of the fence with his woodpile on the other. I don't know what she was hunting and don't know if she caught it but she was very absorbed in the enterprise.

From TTH200812

Cat, Interrupted

From TTH200812

Mulching

It took about 4 hours to spread mulch on the newly planted front foundation bed and the bed of blueberries at the end of the house. I was OK while I was working but my back and legs seized up that evening. I went over to a friend's house for dinner and didn't think I was going to make it out of the car and up her walk. A scotch and some wine helped.

From TTH200811

From TTH200811

From TTH200811

From TTH200811

November

It's looking more and more wintry. The bright colors have faded to tans and grays, punctuated by some red berries and stems.

From TTH200811

From TTH200811

Laurel Hell

I've planted this bed with mountain laurels and native woodland ground covers. Kalmias grow slowly but I hope they will eventually mound up and make my own little 'laurel hell'.

From Through the Hedge

Mountain Laurel - Kalmia latifolia

From Through the Hedge

Goldenseal - Hydrastis canadensis

From Through the Hedge

Wild Ginger - Asarum canadensis

From Through the Hedge

Virginia Snakeroot - Aristolochia serpentaria

From Through the Hedge

Jack in the Pulpit - Arisaema triphyllum

From Through the Hedge

This fall I added more native groundcovers:
Virginia snakeroot, Aristolochia serpentaria
Rattlesnake plantain, Goodyera pubescens
Allegheny spurge, Pachysandra procumbens

Autumn colors

Itea virginiana 'Henry's Garnet'

From TTH200811

Viburnum nudum 'Winterthur'

From TTH200811

Winterberry, Ilex verticillata, an orange berried variety.

From TTH200811

More winterberry and coral honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens. This native, non-invasive honeysuckle gets red berries too. It scrambles up over the winterberry shrubs and makes a nice tangle.

From TTH200811

Red twig dogwoods, Cornus sericea 'Cardinal'. This variety gets cherry red stems in the winter. I had originally planted it in the front yard under a big pine tree. It never did well there so I gave some to a neighbor and planted some in the mixed hedge in back. We've both found it gets much brighter color in full sun.

From TTH200811

Fothergilla, two varieties, one the species and one Mt. Airy. Can't beat this for brilliant color.

From TTH200811

The Shed

Here it is in all it's concrete floored, vinyl sided, non-leaky roofed glory. I moved in here in 2001 and the shed needed replacing then. It never rose to the top of the priority list because there was always something more important and because I knew this was going to be a big job. There isn't enough clear space at either side of the yard to have a ready made shed hauled in and I knew I was going to need the old one taken down, the cracked concrete dug up and a new foundation poured before building could begin. I had one picked out at Lowes but they and their installers aggravated the life out of me and I ended up calling the contractor who has done all the previous work on my house. This is the shed that Burt built.

From TTH200811

From TTH200811

Inside it has shelves all along one wall. I'm going to add hangers for the tall garden tools. There's even room for the garden cart.

From TTH200811

From TTH200811

Behind the shed
I had them build me a canoe rack so I could finally get it up off the ground. I can't tell you how many times I've had to drag it around the yard to get it out of the way of garden projects.

From TTH200811

The new cart tracks to the back yard:

From TTH200811

The contractors used a front end loader thing to move materials to the back yard. There was some inevitable damage to the lawn. I have some grass seed to sow if it ever rains around here again.

I don't seem to have many pictures of the old shed, probably because it had become such an embarrassment. Here's a shot from last winter that includes the tarp I had to stretch over the roof. The big spruce had knocked a hole in the roof so I nailed up plywood from inside and the tarp outside. Not pretty but it got me through one last winter. Do note the door hanging on my a shred. I tried screwing the hinges back on but the wood was so punky they wouldn't hold.

From First snow of 2008

The new shed is 12 by 12 feet, much bigger than the old one. The mower and garden cart fit nicely. It has floor to ceiling shelves along one wall and I was able to move all the garden clutter off the back porch, making it much more habitable.

Front foundation bed

While I was home this summer recovering from the double knee replacement I had time to sit and contemplate the front bed and consider how little it pleased me. I had originally planted it with a variety of deciduous azaleas in yellows and oranges and then underplanted it with wild columbines and wood poppies. The result was a mess. The azaleas are leggy and ratty looking except when actually in bloom. The underplanted perennials made weeding a real chore. This fall I dug everything out, moved the azaleas to the back of the house and the columbines to the corner and bought a selection of low growing shrubs, most of them broadleafed evergreens. I'm very pleased so far with the effect and will see how they do over the winter.

Before

From TTH200811

Things in pots

From TTH200811

Leucothoe 'Girard's Rainbow'
I like leucothoe though it has a reputation for getting a bit messy with leaf spot and scorch. We'll see how these do.

From TTH200811

Winterberry 'Red Sprite'
A low growing, deciduous holly. I have some of these along the fence line in the backyard too.

From TTH200811

Abelia 'Kaleidoscope'
Small pinkish flowers on variegated foliage. These were just humming with bees at the nursery.

From TTH200811

The dark green shrubs are inkberries, Ilex glabra 'Shamrock', a dwarf cultivar.

From TTH200811

Beau thinks it looks much better now.

From HOC200811