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It’s that time of year again.
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Frost danger is past and it’s time to plant!
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There are two places I could easily spend an entire paycheck… book stores and nurseries. Which is probably why my husband tends to accelerate when ever we drive by them.
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But this trip I made with a girlfriend and okay, I had to go back for a second cart after I filled the first.
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I really should have bought this shirt….
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But I had to show some restraint.
🤣
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More trees were replaced/planted yesterday…. this time as far away from the house as is possible.
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And after all the rain we’ve had, I don’t think watering them will be necessary for a while.
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There’s a reason none of the trees my husband plants in our far back yard live and it’s called clay. While there’s nice topsoil near the house, our property slopes down to the woods and eventually to the banks of a river…. and around here that means clay. Saturated with water in the spring, cracked bone dry in the summer… but that doesn’t deter my husband. No sir.
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Two of these beauties were purchased and planted.
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Marrying an eternal optimist makes for a lot of work.
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Whether theses trees will last any longer than the previous elms, oaks or apples he planted is any one’s guess.
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Hope springs eternal, at least for my husband when it comes to trees.
The three oaks he transplanted a while ago croaked and had to be dug up.
So when we were in the middle of a drought and a heat wave?
He figured that would be a great time for us to plant 10 apple trees.
Holes were dug in ground that felt like cement.
And I had to run the bucket brigade again.
Because naturally he wanted to plant them at the far ends of our property.
But I did find some wild raspberries.
And blackberries.
It took us all damned day.
But trees were planted.
The heat was intense and I told him this was the wrong time of year to plant.
But you know how that went.
Will he water and fertilize and care for these new transplants in this mid summer heat wave?
Hell no.
Say goodbye trees, you’re doomed.
It’s a large thing.
And I have no idea how the thing got here.
I didn’t plant the thing, but maybe a woodchuck did.
The thing has started to lean…
And bloom.
Does anyone know what this thing is?
Yes men, I’m talking about you.
Remember the tree planting miracle I posted about a while ago? When the husband dug up and transplanted 3 maple trees to the far corners of our backyard?
Yes, the ones I had to water everyday because we were entering drought conditions.
Well, that stopped when I broke my toe and I told the other half he’d have to take over the job if he wanted his trees to survive.
Water every day I told him.
Which is what I did, religiously, with his little patch of grass seed next to the baby barn.
Under my watchful eye the seed sprouted…
And is now green…
Thick and lush.
The trees?
That the husband didn’t bother to water because of course I don’t know what I’m talking about…..
Not so much.
After brown?
Came bare twig.
If only he’d listened to his wife…
The woodchucks.
Adorable, but hungry.
And there’s no rhyme or reason to what they’ll eat.
This echinacea?
Stripped to a stalk the same day I planted it.
They devoured it before I could even get a picture, and if you know me? You know that’s fast.
This candy cane Dianthus? Nope. They left it alone.
The exact same plant on the other side of the garden bed?
A mere shadow of itself.
WTF?
So when it came time to replant the bed I had removed the woodchuck chewed mallow from, I went to the experts and got a list.
A list of woodchuck proof flowers they were guaranteed not to eat.
Blanket flower? Check!
Planted two, they haven’t touched them.
(Please note dianthus is on the list and we all know how that turned out.)
Foxglove? Check!
They literally took one bite and ran.
Good thing since it’s the source of digitalis.
Last on the list? Yarrow.
If you’ve ever had deer nibble your gardens to a nub, you know they hate yarrow.
Every critter hates yarrow…. so I planted yarrow.
So…..
Yeah.
The little buggers are screwing with me.
There’s no other explanation.
And look at that belly…
They’re getting fat doing it!
Strange things are happening at Casa River this year.
First, the husband wanted to clean out the big barn ( Okay, he didn’t really. It was just a bit of organizing… but I’m counting it.)
Second, the husband helped me make a garden bed. ( I would have laid money on that never happening. )
And a week ago…
I looked out back….
And saw the husband planting a tree.
Planting! Not chopping down.
Somewhere in America, pigs are flying.
Okay, he didn’t buy them.
And only one of the three stands taller than my knee, but hey.
It’s still a miracle.
He dug them up from the wood line and I seriously doubt he got enough roots to make them viable…. which is why I told him they were going to need lots of water for the first few weeks.
Shall I give you one guess who has to drag that water to the far reaches of our property line because we only have 200 feet of hose and it won’t reach?
Yeah.
I didn’t think so.
Apparently even miracles have limits.
In an effort to beautify his farm, our neighbor grew 100 silver birch trees. He planted a row of them (54!) alongside the road and I must say…. they’ll look impressive in a few years.
Next thing we knew he was planting them down his driveway, on the next door neighbor’s property and along the road on the other side of the street.
Not wanting to be left out, I asked if we could buy 3 to put in front of our big barn.
He said no.
But that he would be over the next day to give us three and plant them.
We love our neighbors.
This half dead flowering plum will have to go.
Spring was late in coming this year, and while our lawn is still trying to recover from some mid May snow and frost and doesn’t look it’s best yet, I had to laugh at the husband’s reaction to having parts of it disturbed.
You know that man in your neighborhood who’s constantly outside raking, picking up twigs, and screaming “Get off my lawn!” at children? That’s my husband. He’s been known to mow the same patch of grass 3 times in one day.
And yes, I bought him that shirt.
I think watching our neighbor tear up and fling the soil around was physically painful for him.
But he endured with stoic silence.
And we all got in on the act.
Say no to free trees?
River's world..... 