It's been exciting watching the trees and weeds "wake up" enough for me to begin to identify them. The bare tree in the backyard has turned out to be a lovely deciduous magnolia. There are many blooms on the north side, and I think that is because that is where the sun strikes it most. Many crossed branches and a perennial vine growing through. It looks healthy, but definitely can use some TLC.
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Deciduous Magnolias in their full glory. |
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Center of a Deciduous Magnolia. |
The Driveway Trees, as I call them, are currently nearing peak bloom; however, as I snapped these pictures last week, they were just barely starting to bloom. Some tiny red leaves are also emerging. This is definitely not a "Smoke Tree" - but I don't know what it is, yet. My $1 used book store Trees of North America field guide is going to get a work-out!
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Blooms are barely as big as my thumbnail. |
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Driveway Trees. |
Adding to the delightful surprises of Spring - woodland daffodils! Somewhere along the line, someone loved this place enough to plant a clump of daffodils at the edge of the woods.
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Never truly Spring until the Daffodils have sprung! |
Tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and willow & hybrid poplar cuttings have been outside during the day both yesterday and today. Some didn't make it inside tonight because of - spiders! One jumped out at me while I was situating a tray back onto my shelf. Sorry, panicked and killed it. Another on raised it's pedipalps at me when I went to pick up a tray. I was paying more attention to that tray, after having panicked at the one in the house. I left that tray alone. It's supposed to stay in the high 50's tonight, so probably everyone should have stayed outside, anyway. Gave all the plant babies a good drink of water. Some are in, some not. Going to dip into freezing territory at night later this week, however, so I will need to do something to de-spider them before bringing all of the plant babies inside. Currently 56*F at 11:30 at night.
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Warm tomatoes are happy tomatoes. |
Planted out trees! Yay!
Row 2 - September Wonder Fuji Apple - a slab of rock - Granny Smith Apple
This list of trees does vary somewhat from the original plan; however, one needs to be flexible and take advantage of pricing and specials. Ordered 5 trees to start. Both for budgetary reasons, and because the ground is not really ready for tree planting. These are planted in the least optimal conditions: separated, in the middle of an open field, no wood mulch, pretty much water logged pure clay. We did choose the highest points in the field to plant them, and I did plant clover and peas around them. Hopefully I will be able to get a load of free mulch/compost from the city this week, and mulch around them. I will be planting daffodil and maybe garlic in a circle around each tree this fall, as well as providing them with beans for nitrogen fixing during the summer. Beginning of the food forest...
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Doesn't look like much now, but just you wait a few years! |
That does look suspiciously like Red Georgia Clay under that mulch of weeds...