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Gardening

The Miss Kim lilacs made up for the sad showing of the big lilac bush, attracting Swallowtails every morning.
Last spring I traded a neighbor a bundle of Boulder “Mindy” iris for this nice orange variety.
These are the Mindy.
Lemon Cupcake Land, from our days in Cupcake Land, Kansas.
Pond Iris are doing well!
Miss Kim’s and red rose all being quite showy this year.
Redwood addition for the pergola upholding the Wisteria. A 10′ post set in concrete, with a 2×8″x12′ plank, supported by two five foot sections of 2×6″ plank. Then multiple coats of linseed oil/thinner mixture.
Next are nine 2×2″x4′ spanners for the Wisteria to climb across. The hummingbirds helped me with this part.
The original section is around 10 years old. Out on walkies with Carmine 14 years ago a nice house on the way back from the park had Wisteria plantings for free. We took two, and this one survived. It has never bloomed; I thought this would be the year, but maybe now with the addition it will be inspired for next year.
Lucky is already much cooler, as I trained some vines about 5′ out over the new section.
The lilac bush bloomed white with subdued scent and the leaves are sparse and tiny; throughout the neighborhood lilacs are are all normal.
The interwebs say it is due to heat shock from our hot spring, or possibly September’s week over 100 degrees.
The cherry had a normal bloom, and is now beginning to carpet the ground with petals.
Today’s jerb is full service for the Ficus. It didn’t really fit in the sunroom this winter and has overgrown the deck.
The sideways-ness is from multiple years of being blown over in summer squalls, coupled with under-rotating.
The patient is doing fine.
The root ball is reduced down to the core by loosening the soil with a little steel pick, then the ol’ Ginsu knife cuts through like a foot through a watermellon.
Potting soil, coconut coir, perlite, and earthworm castings blended to my custom mix. Should be much better than last time’s yard dirt and garden soil.
This is the biggest planter that can fit through the sliding glass door for winter, but the Ficus still overpowers it and will fall over, or just spin out of, the containment. So today I drilled some holes and ran bolts with welded hoops (leftover from an MFA mold I tossed out), and tied the Ficus to the planter. Prior to surgery I tied the trunks together midway up with the red rope, and at the bottom with green velcro tape; this stabilizes everything so she doesn’t rip apart her roots.
Stood upright and the crazy overhanging branches stand up straight. Now it is even taller!
After getting out the ladder and doing quite a bit of pruning. I should go shorter, but how much more can she take?
Next all the ferns and other plants can find places. The Ficus is on the E side this year, as the morning sun was rough on the ferns last year. This way everything should be in shadow by 10am. The ferns are up high enough, and far enough back to keep out of direct mid-morning to afternoon sun.
50# of stone sits on the Ficus’ planter to keep it grounded from wind. The little Jade is tied with hooks and plant tape, as are all the other plants on the deck. The wind takes it as a personal challenge, at worst toppling everything while we are in Montana. Next I’ll hook up all the water lines- which all need rethinking for the new configuration.
Crabapple.
Crabapple skirt touches the ground.
Japanese Flowering Cherry
Service Berry tree at year four in the yard; the boldest color spanning many back yards.
Service Berry
Pampas grasses bound up for winter, so this week’s snow doesn’t lay them flat.
Pond is turned over for winter, with salt water softener added to keep the fish healthy.
Hunga Tonga- Hunga Ha-apai is mounted to the wall between the Bean Whole coffee roasters. Jed is planning on painting the black gas line behind the mask white. At night the backlighting will look great from outside through the front wall of windows.
View from the common area of the Neighborhood Hive in Sugarhouse.
The latest Aeromod to the truck is this “floating” bar of mudflaps running the length of the back of the truck, with a 6 inch gap to the ground (unloaded). The low pressure a truck drags behind it will push all the way to the front, proven in wind tunnel studies. This low line in the back is nearly as effective as a similarly (impossibly) low bumper in the front. The bar is a custom weld job from scrap metal I had around, fitting into the hitch mount (or in tandem with the ball hitch), and has two loose-fit stabilizing pins in the bumper; in this way, additional to the mudflap’s flexibility, some tip and give is allowed when backing up our steep drive. The truck also drops a lot of big ranch mudballs that explode onto the highway, so this keeps other drivers and their windshields safe.
Night time thunderstorm with rain and the poppies begin to bloom.
This bunch must be anticipating tonight’s storm.
Purple Bearded Iris and purple Columbine.
Boulder, Colorado in Montana: Shazbat variety.
Ohio blooming in Montana.
A proto iris and a bearded iris, for taxonomic comparison. The skinny yellow iris were split from our pond in Coatsville last year (?), and the purple was also from SLC original to the house’ 1940’s owner- in a giant root bound mass that would put up just a few blooms. Now they are the entire South bed along the ice house, in the front bed, and up on the hillside bed (and still in SLC as well).
Boulder, Colorado blooming in Montana. The Nanoo Nanoo variety.
Lilacs have a few blooms remaining.
Original to the ranch butter and cream iris with some of the original to Coatsville purple.
Butter and Cream being showy.
Matching columbine volunteered among the P & C iris.
These giant white iris had 4 rhizomes among the SLC purple- all blooming now. They hadn’t bloomed in our 10 years at the house, out in their root bound purple patch.
Another emergent: micro clover is finally emerging. I spread it into the lawn last summer in a big way, and a bit more this spring. It will help revitalize tough patches like this, bring nitrogen into the soil for the grass, push out weeds, and amp up the drought tolerance.
After last summer’s springbox waterline fixes to the yard and house, I added this inline high-pressure filter for the yard. Now every little thing that slips past the cage up at the top of the line doesn’t jam up the sprinkler heads.
I also built this new high footing for the water bird.
The water bird is joined by this super-jet, with a 50′ range and 360 degree rotation- so it waters a 100 foot circle, and can even water from the front yard over the hedge and into the back poppy patch.
Crabapple blooms.
Orb is entirely skinned in ocean; new oceania was created yesterday and firmed up overnight.
South pole with pole.
Another 8 hours of art time are absorbed into the Orb…
I added two transparent “windows” today as well, cutting the fiberglass ball and skinning with clear & color panel created yesterday.
Layered edges with the new window panel overlayed giving a sense of depth.
The edges around the door are cleaned up, and skin-thin at top to allow paper to be slid inside.
Center is a clear-edged seam cover from a trove created yesterday. All too wide, and most are not color-correct; so a do-over tomorrow, then wait til Saturday before they are ready.
Kwanzan Cherry is just starting, and will be slowed by a 3 day rain/snow storm.