The Wrath of the Grapes

Now that the backyard roses have been pruned, it's time to move on to the grapevine. The leaves have all fallen off so this makes it a good time to cut.

Basically, I just want to cut all the branches from the level of the bottom of the lower crossbar on the trellis down.

Loppers hit the thicker branches...

...while my clippers hit the old grape clusters that have long turned into raisins.

There, that's better.

A sweep of the patio and this weekend's gardening is done.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Gloomy Days for Gardening

It's cool and gray on the patio today but it's dry. Good time to prune and clean for the upcoming season.

I'll start with the roses here in the backyard, then to the front next time. (my pruning tips are here)

The loppers cut into Angel Face...

...while Moonstone is done.

Next time, the grapevine and sweeping up this mess.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Surgery for a Rose

This years I've decided to push my garden chores back by a month. Last year, I pruned the roses over New Year's weekend. This year, I've waited until now. The Moonstone, pictured above, got tired of waiting and started the season without me.  He'll just have to start over.

The same with Angel Face, which already put out a bloom.

Time for me to fish out my loppers and finish off the job.

That's it. Job done.  All the roses front and back are now ready for another season. Hopefully the deer got their fill last year and they'll leave them alone for this season.

 

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

The Lavender Lost...

Our lavender plants are well established and provide much beauty and fragrance to our yard and patio.

Vigorous growers, they produce scads of blooms and grow to nice, large orbs of purple and green.

Earlier in the season, I'll cut back the blooms to encourage a second one.

Late in the summer, though, the plant is spent and it's time to cut back.

This is a good time, too, because once the flowers are gone, so are the ever-present bees who might get a little riled when you stick a big pair of loppers into their midst.

Chop, chop, chop...and now the garden waste bin is full.

I'm done for this year, the plant now has plenty of room to fill back up. Just need to sweep up this mess and I'm finished for today.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

The Rosy World of Our Patio

While the front yard roses are just starting their first bloom of the year, the backyard blooms are done.

It's time for the first deadhead of the year.

At the top, 'Moonstone' and it's unknown yellow companion display dozens of spent flower. Chop! Off the go.

Mr. Lincoln is also looking a little peaked. Much better after a much-needed haircut.

Not to be outdone by the roses, our spicy hot red chiles are getting a little rangy. Cutting it back to the new growth with help it produce another bumper crop...we've still got hundreds of dried chiles from last year waiting to be used.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved.

Lining Up the Lemon

Our Meyer lemon tree started off as a sapling only twelve inches tall. How it's grown over the years.

I've pretty much left it alone, just trying to let it establish itself in our tiny, three-tree citrus grove.

I think it's had plenty of time now. I'm going to trim it up to get it to start growing in the shape I want it to.

The loppers make pretty easy work of it, just chop a few of the bottom branches.

I'm not going to touch anything on top in the big producing area. I want fruit this winter so, for now, this is the shape I'm going to be happy with.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved.

Shearing and Sanding

Continuing the pruning of the roses highlights this weeks chores. 

Above, you can see Mr. Lincoln halfway through the process. That dead-looking plant next to it is a pot of baby's breath. It comes back each year but I doubt there's any mix left in that pot.

Yep, pretty empty. I just pulled the whole thing up but I bet it will come up anyway from the roots that grew through the bottom of the pot.

Here's our Peace tree rose after pruning.

Another project I started is to sand, stain, and varnish this little table my wife bought for $5 at a yard sale.  

My neighbor, Scott, is a mosaic artist and he's coming up with an insert that I'll install in the middle. It'll become a cocktail table on our patio when done.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

 

This Plant Cleans Up Real Good

My bougainvilleas seem to be real popular among visitors to this blog. I don't blame you, they're very beautiful and, if contained, can be pretty easy to maintain.

This week, it's a quick and simple chore for the bougainvilleas...just a quick haircut.

These tropical plants get shocked each winter even by our mild Southern California winters and end up with a lot of rangy, dead-looking wood. When the plants come back from their shock, it's a good time to trim up the worst of it for nothing more that asthetics (the dead-looking wood is actually alive but will still be rangy when it comes back).

Once I know that the plant is growing vigorously again and won't get shocked by cutting, I just snip back to the first growth I see on the stem. 

Once I'm finished, I have a pretty and neat looking patio plant.

You can also see this plant in background of last week's Cocktail Hour video at my other blog, The World on Wheels travel blog.



Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserve.

Adventures of the Vinedresser

It was just two short weeks ago that our grape vine was completely barren at the depths of its dormant season. It was the perfect time to install wildlife netting on it before any leaves grew out.  Now look at it, full of life, already showing little grape clusters.

A chore I need to perfect is pruning for good production. Prune too much and you're likely to lose your entire crop. Not enough, and you get tiny fruit.

I'm still looking for the right balance. This year, I'm going to experiment with a new method. Grabbing the branches, I look for three clusters growing close together.

I'm nipping off the smallest clusters so the plant can put all its strength into the bigger, more robust clusters.  I continue across the vine, cutting of maybe half a dozen small clusters.

Also, I want to keep the bottom half of the vine bare, like a tree trunk, so any little growths like the one above are also pinched off.

I like to keep the vine trained to the narrow space of my trellis so any ranging branches that I can bend without breaking, I weave into the center part of the structure to keep the plant under control.

Lastly, the ruby red grapes are very susceptible to botrytis, a fungus, that causes immature fruit to split open and go bad before ripening. To combat this, I am sprinkling sulphur dust liberally across the soil, trunk, leaves, and branches to kill any spores that might think about growing. I'll hit the bottom half of the plant again when the fruit is ripening.

Now, other than watering and feeding, I'll just let the grapes grow as undisturbed as possible for the season.

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Hey, Bud...Haven't Seen You In Awhile

Sometimes I surprise even myself. Just as I predicted last week, our grape vine had bud break this week. Got that netting on just in the nick of time.

Grape vines are the deadest of dead looking plants with they go dormant for winter. If you don't know better, you'll think you've lost it. Reminds me of the last scene of that great wine movie, "A Walk in The Clouds," when, after the vineyard burns, the hated son-in-law redeems himself to his wife's father by finding the green cambium under the burnt skin of the vine.

It's always a pleasure to see the brilliant new green leaves of the grape vine when it starts another year's worth of growth.

In addition, our plumeria is also pushing new growth out of the end of its branches.  Won't be long before we'll have those lovely, fragrant blossoms sprouting out of these plants.

That means our short little winter is really over.

With the warmth, it's also time to put our phaleanopsis orchid back on the outdoor bench. On the left is what is was looking like in December, when it started showing signs of cold-shock. Every leaf with even a tinge of yellow was lost. The two big leaves on the right are the two tiny leaves in the center of the picture on the left. Everything else is new growth.

We're looking forward to seeing how this plant does in 2013 too.

I meant to post this picture with the bougainvillea pics from last week but better late than never. Our red bougainvillea is really showing off this week. I think it's time to trim a little of the dead wood off of it.

Finally, I did a severe pruning of the camellia in the hardest to reach corner. If you're asking as my wife did, it's because I don't want to prune this one again for a looooong time.

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

A Rose by Any Other Name is Still a Chore

I love roses. They take very little work...just an occasional deadheading and some fertilizer...and provide a rich bounty of beauty.

Still, there is one big chore I must do each year for the roses. That's pruning.

 

I'm an early pruner, even here in Southern California, but January is when I have time to do it, and it's just late enough that it doesn't seem to have any impact on the plants.

Above is my front yard rose garden which has been sitting pretty much untouched since September. That is when I deadhead and feed them for the last time of the year. Then, I just let them sit and develop their own inner food to get them through the winter.

Now, it's time to get to work. I usually break this up into two days. One for the front yard, the other for the backyard. Today, I start on the front.

You'll need some loppers, hand shears, and...since roses have some really nasty thorns...a good pair of leather gloves. That last one is the most necessary of the tools.

I practice what I call the "bare root plus" style of pruning. That is my roses will look like I just planted a bare root rose that I bought at the nursery when I'm done, plus a few leaves that I leave on for some basic photosynthesis.  I cut the big canes down to the first set of leaves...just above that leaf.

Next, I want to remove the dead stems from the center and the spindly stems from the entire plant.

When I'm done, a plant that starts out looking like this...

...ends up looking like this. Notice how the center is cleared out. I kind of shape it like a bowl and that it looks a lot like a newly planted bare-root rose.

Once I've got all the plants pruned and cleaned up, it's time to prep the soil. I pour a layer of mulch over the entire garden.

Then, I sprinkle on some bone meal to help feed. Last year, I also had a mildew problem in this garden, so I'm sprinkling in a layer of sulfur dust, a natural fungicide, to help combat that problem. After that, I put another layer of mulch on top, 4 cubic feet of mulch altogether.

When done, I water in.

The rose garden is done and already to grow spectacularly for another year. It won't be long before I'm posting the pictures of the first blooms of the year.

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved