Roses and Cats

Cats really like flowers, especially roses.  I'm not sure what it is about a rose that attracts cats so much.  A quick search revealed nothing so I'm not the only one who doesn't know.

Our current cats were very interested when we received some roses recently, even standing up on their haunches looking like they were begging to have a treat.

Our previous cats were so used to eating a petal or two for a treat that they could tell when you walked in the door if you had a petal hidden in your closed hand.  If I dropped a petal it would hardly hit the floor before a cat was on it.  They nearly inhaled them.

Of course these flowers did not go to the cats due to being from a florist.  As most know, pesticides are a constant worry for store bought flowers so they actually went outside (the flowers not the cats) so they would be safe.

We used to have rose bushes in front of the old house but we haven't added much to the new house yet.  We though we'd be in the previous house forever but things happen.  The plants we had stayed there for the most part and we get to start over.  We'll probably get roses at some point in the future since they are such a nice flower to have around.  We already got the daylilies and the fig is coming back but that's been about it as far as planted plants that we have chosen.  Still planning on doing a garden at some point but that's still in the planning stages.

Cherry Blossom Season, Japan

It's cherry blossom season in Japan again and one of our friends sent us some awesome pictures from the Nagano prefecture which is Northwest of Tokyo on the coast near the Sea of Japan.

The cherry blossoms sweep across the country each year. So while you will have local events surrounding the blooming of the cherry trees, you will be able to see it at different times starting at the south and spreading North up the country.  So if you miss the blooms down in Kyoto you still can catch them up in Sapporo if it hasn't been too long.

Interestingly, although the cherry blossom is important in Japan, even being a symbol used for the police, some find the pear blossom to be even more preferred.  Pear trees have a white flower while cherry trees have a pink flower so it's probably more what color someone likes better.  Either way you get a lot of petals on the ground.  Another friend once sent us pictures of a river that had been covered with cherry blossoms.  The boat was cutting through the sheet of pink. It was surreal.

Lemon Mint

We got two kinds of mint that I put under the fig tree.  Mint can be hard to get to grow sometimes but when it does it can take over.

On the plus side it can help keep some bugs down like fleas. We haven't had a problem with fleas as of yet but it can't hurt to prevent them in the first place.

The mint shown here, I believe, is lemon mint.  I could be wrong but that's what I'm told we were given.  The other mint we have is spearmint.  These have spread out a little but still not very far. 

The fig tree is still coming back nicely and has several shoots now.  Taken off two leaves so far and not a lot of change. Will wait a bit longer before trying it again.  Maybe it's not quite big enough to send enough to that sprout to make a difference.

The green onion is blooming nicely. Several poof balls of flowers have opened up and some fairly large ones.  Also planted a red onion among the green ones.  It was sprouting anyway.

I was able to remove a lot of weeds recently.  The best time to do weed removal is right after a good rain or possibly during a rain if it is late and will get dark before it's over.  Instead of having to fight the weeds to pull them out, most of them came out fairly easily if not immediately.  A couple of the harder ones to pull were the dandelions.  They have a tap root that can go down for a while even on a relatively small plant.

Blackberry Bushes

We moved in a year ago now and the front tree came with the house.  Now however there is a blackberry bush, vine, something, growing under it.  Blackberries frankly grow on a glorified groundcover.  They sometimes get a little height on them but more often they need something to grow on so they have support to go vertical. Back home, southeast Texas, they grew everywhere but mainly along fences where they had the support of the chain link fences typically used.

Unfortunately another of the plants trying to grow up near the tree they planted is another tree with some wicked thorns on it.  Not sure really what it is (was hopefully) but I pulled it up as best I could with a plumber's wrench.  Better to grip the thorny trunk with.  Will see if the thorny tree tries to come back and will also see if the blackberry bush ends up making any berries.  As you can see, there are already flowers growing on it but the rain and high winds we've been having might just prevent all that from coming to anything.

The day lilies are springing back way better than expected at least.  Wasn't sure if some of them we repotted into the large pot of dirt were even going to survive but they're the best ones so far.  No flowers yet but the greenery is off the charts.

Hoping to get some raised beds put in some time soon as well as an herb area.  Might be in the raised beds and might not.  Wil see after I put together a yard plan.  Not going to go the route of the haphazard way I did it last time.  Such a sprawling mess and not maintainable.

Other of note in the yard:  The green onions are flowering but not unexpected.  The rosemary was unfortunately a casualty of the winter weather as was the pineapple plants that had gotten so big over the summer and fall.

Spring Fig Growth

As you can tell the fig is finally growing this season.  There are currently 5 shoots and if you look closely at the image you can see a sixth possible location at the base of the freeze damaged area.  The temperatures got super low over the winter and severely damaged most of the plant.  Fortunately though I was able to get it acclimated to the soil and it was able to root well and settle in.

The cold damage is clearly visible here as the bark can be seen split up the sides.  These branches are dead but the root system is still good.  You can also see a mint plant growing right up there around the base of the tree.  Wasn't sure how hardy it was going to be but it's spread quite a bit.  There are 2 kinds that we planted but I really couldn't tell you what they were.

Something I learned while at the previous house in Arlington was to encourage growth to pick the lower leaves.  Will try this later today to see if it helps on such a small plant.  It doesn't have much to work with at the moment so I'm going to go slowly with only 1 leaf on 1 shoot.  Probably this front one in the picture since it has some nice leaves growing in already.  That back one i think might be in trouble if I did it to him.  Of course if this works like I'm hoping it does then they will probably all have a bit of trimming before it's all done.  I will want to remove the dead limbs before too long as well so bugs don't start thinking it's a dead tree to break down.  Also limit access to the more tender insides.

The fig tree is just the beginning of what we have growing in the yard though.  There's more in pots and up front that will be shown shortly.

Spring Plumeria

The plumeria is bouncing back as you can tell.  The lone leaf is still there but it now has 4 more to keep it company.

These plants really are good at being dormant.  You can see the dark bottom of the plant where it was when it was bought last year.  Then the tannish area above it where it grew last summer/fall.  Now the green area on top is the new growth since it came to the office.

I should probably bring it back outside so it can take full advantage of the spring / summer sun.

One of our friends used to have over a dozen of these in pots and she'd take them out of storage every year to have them grow more.  Some were over 5 feet tall.

A coworker at the office confuses the chocolate tree with coffee.  I can see the confusion, although they don't look anything alike.  Would be neat to have a coffee plant also though.  They're spindly compared to the trunk a cacao tree will eventually have but who wouldn't like to have a little home grown coffee?

What plants do you currently have growing  in your garden/pots?  What would you like to be growing?  Do you have a plant wish list?

Wallapini Gardening

 

Recently my wife sent me a text about a sunken greenhouse.  This looks like a good idea especially since the HOA's main concern is that things don't stick up over the fence line and make the neighborhood look bad from the street.  This would make the greenhouse significantly lower and in turn make the HOA happy.

On the down side though there are some factors that may make this less ideal.  I looked up some information on what goes into making one of these and came across a site specifically on helping people decide if this was the way to go for them.

First off you need to consider the land.  North Central Texas land in general has a lot of clay which makes an issue for drainage of this kind of structure.  The solution they propose for clay is to put in French drains to get the water out.  This could work if the drain had somewhere to go.  Our lot is pretty flat and thus doesn't have anywhere to go really.  I'd have to run a pipe all the way around the house to drain out the front near the sidewalk and that would be to the lowest point inside the greenhouse.  That point is not the floor level but below the cold sink which is needed to regulate the cold air inside the greenhouse.  Apparently within a greenhouse (supposedly warm) there is often a cold air that sinks to the lowest point and can possibly keep your plants too cold if they are the lowest point.

Second concern I though of was what to do with all the dirt that has to be dug out.  Where do you put it?  The site assumes you have a bit of land and are able to choose an appropriate location.  Pretty limited here but some of the dirt can go into planters after construction.  Again clay, so not ideal.  A possible idea that just came to mind, make bricks.  Not sure if it's the right clay but I haven't dug down to see.  Another idea is to use the excavated material to berm up around the outside.  This would make the insulation twice as tall as what was dug out.  More building a hill around the greenhouse for insulation.

Third, it's labor intensive to build.  To do this properly and not give up in the middle I'd need help making it.  Friends would probably help some but in the end it probably means hiring some help to finish it.  Also renting a truck and possibly equipment to dig and haul stuff.  Gardening is not for the lazy.  It takes time to do a lot of it and persistence to keep it going.

There are many more concerns than this when deciding to build but these are some of the first thoughts after reading a page on Wallapinis.

Sean’s First Snow

This is the first time our cats have seen snow.  They were born in the winter but there wasn't much snow to speak of last year.

This year we got 3-4 inches of snow at one time.  Nearly a week later we were still seeing snow in super shady spots along roads and by buildings even though the temperatures reached well above freezing.

Some of the flakes we saw were well the size of half dollars.  For those of you who might not realize money comes in a hard form, and not just your parent's plastic, that would be about two and a half fingers wide.

This picture was taken at the start of the snow fall.  As you can see, the houses in the background are just starting to get some snow accumulation on top of their roofs.

That corner you see would be a good spot to put a garden shed, leaving a 5 foot walking area around the side and back for maintenance and mowing.  Five feet is about as narrow as you usually would leave a mow strip so that it can both be accessed and be able to have enough light to actually grow grass between a shed and the fence.

Maintenance room is one of those things I really hadn't thought much about when laying out our first house backyard.  But then again it already had a shed that was hard to get around.  The previous owners had put it caddy corner to the lot footprint and the north corner was a mere two feet and way too shaded to grow anything but saplings which were a huge problem for most of the time we lived there.  I should have taken a week or more off just to clean up the backyard but so many thing take up time we never got around to it.

This time we're master planning the yard so that we can make the most of it.  The fig tree is a prime example being several feet from the fence to give it adequate room to spread out.  Fig trees in our area can get pretty big pretty fast and I'm hoping to train it well so we can get plenty of figs in the coming years.  This snow should help it acclimate well.  I checked it after the thaw and the branches still looked amazing.  So many things we've learned since then and we're going to be implementing a lot of new things going forward.