Cheapskate Rural Dweller: pruning

Showing posts with label pruning. Show all posts

Cooling the Chiles Amid the Wind Damage

We had some high winds last week. Some people lost power and a few trees were knocked down. Our damage was limited to a couple of broken ribs in this old patio umbrella.

Our top producing plant in the garden, the hot chile plant, gets a little rangy this time of year.

Time to cut it back...I cut the plant to half its height.

Then, I tie up up to a stake to keep it upright.

After that, I notice a couple of good chiles on the Anaheim chile plant. Those will be helpful in this week's cooking.

That, some deadheading, mowing, and other trimming fill our compost can over the brim.

The yard looks better when done, could probably stand to use a sweeping but there's no more room in the can.

Maybe next week.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Repelling a Chinese Invasion

I don't grow them but my neighbors on each side of me do. That would be the Chinese elm.

They're pretty trees but their seeds go everywhere and make stubborn seedlings.

Those weeds can be tough to pull out with their deep roots. I've got this one next to the driveway, so I need to get it out right away.

The hoe just isn't getting it done. There's something hard underground that bends the blade.

I dig in deeper and find it's not a seedling but a sprout coming up from a thick root. I get the loppers and cut each end.

After fighting for several minutes, I get it out. Just look at the size of that root.

Darryl
Copyright 216 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Passages

I've been avoiding cutting back the cara cara orange tree while it was producing fruit but it's been blocking access to our back yard.

Now that we've harvested the fruit, it's no problem. Just use the walkway as a guide.

Just in the nick of time as the next crop is starting...the flowers will soon be open and looking for bees.

All done and now the walkway is clear.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Another Front Coming Through

The front yard rose garden is a bit played out.

We've pruned it but its time to give it a little boost. I added some bone meal to all the roses after pruning.

Now, I'm going to put a bag of mulch on.

After pulling the weeds, I dump a bag of GroMulch.

After raking in, it's ready for another season. Next up, do something about those rocks, and the front yard is done.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

...And Prune 'til Done

Now that the backyard roses and grapevine are pruned for the coming season, it's time to move on to the front.

The front yard rose garden has really suffered the effects of our prolonged California drought. Not so much from lack of water, directly, but from the effects of it.

The deer, driven by an extreme lack of water and food up in the hills came down and used our front rose garden as a feeder.

My Julie Newmar rose? Completely gone, killed off by the hooved invaders.

The rocks hiding my grass barrier have been knocked about by the venison hordes.

Oh well, it's ok. They were desperate and I was looking for a place to put a new rose I want to plant.

In the meantime, loppers ahoy...it's time to prune.

There we go. Still have to fix the rocks but that will come later.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved
Darryl Musick

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

The Price of Beauty

A well-trimmed tree is a work of art. My neighbor has hers pruned every couple of years by her gardener. This weekend, the crew showed up and did their magic.

The Japanese elm looks magnificent. Feathery, open, airy, without looking chopped.

The next morning, however, I go out to my patio and see this. Seems like my walkway bore a bit of the brunt of their work.

No worries...when the gardener showed up for his regular Wednesday mow and trim, I pointed it out. He was over with a leaf blower immediately afterward.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Resuscitation

Tomatoes are annual plants. At least they're supposed to be. I look out the laundry room window and I see that the hanging cherry tomato plant is gone.

I go out to uproot it but...what's this?...there are some new green leaves coming out.

Instead of uprooting it, I give it a haircut.

How To Train Your Dragon

Our dragonfruit plants grow like crazy. I've given over this corner of the yard to them, where they intertwine with our aloe plants.

We only get 4-8 fruit a year off of them, though, so last night at the local farmer's market, I found the grower who sold them to us and asked him how I could get more fruit.

Very simple, he said. Cut them back one third. It's March, do this and you'll have lots of flowers in May.

Easy peasy...some pruners, cut at the closest joint to one third of the way down (it's a cactus with thorns, leather gloves are a must), and that's it.

Cuttings in the waste bin, now just to wait until May to see what happens.

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.

This Vine Needs Our Support

It's time to start gardening again in our back patio. I let it go a bit fallow this fall, we had some home improvement projects we needed to get done, and now it's time to get back into the dirt.

While we were successful in keeping the birds away from a good portion of our grape crop this year, the trellis I built for it years ago is straining under the weight of this now mature vine.

It's listing a good 20 degrees and the crossbars have become detached. The wood is still good thanks to the decision to use redwood when I originally constructed it. Redwood is pretty resistant to rot and I use it when I can, especially in a wet gardening environment.

Pretty simple in execution, I just pull the wood out of the ground, trim up the grape vine a bit, and use a mallet to hammer them back in as deep as I can get them. Then, just screw in the crossbars and I'm done.

The plumeria is a great grower but it goes in some directions I don't want it to go. I've trimmed them up and tried to point out the way I do want them to go. We'll see what they look like this summer.

I've already pruned the front yard roses. Easy job as the deer have been keeping them in check for me. I've only got a little room left in the green waste bin so I can only prune one of the backyard roses this week. It'll be Mr. Lincoln.

That's it for this weekend, next week I'll see about tilling in some amendments for this year's vegetable garden.