Posted by Brad on March 1st, 2010 — Posted in Gardening
The snow has been rapidly melting. We’ve had several days in the mid and even high thirties. Only the largest or most shaded piles of snow remain.
I went out this weekend to survey the damage to my garden plants. Most of them are okay. Some of them have a broken branch or two. One butterfly bush is completely bent over and broken, but that’s not too bad because they grow quickly. My saddest casualty is my camellia bush. It grows so slowly. It’s taken several years to get about knee high. And the snow has broken it.
A testament to it’s desirability in the garden is the fact that it has a blooming flower on it right now. A blooming flower on March 1!
I don’t think this will kill it, but it will take another few years before it fills out again. Dang.
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Posted by Brad on February 28th, 2010 — Posted in Gardening
The robins have visited again.
Since the snow is melting, I went outside to survey the damage to my garden. Things aren’t too bad. There are a few broken branches here and there. The support for my ivy vine totally collapsed, but I was expecting that to happen sometime, so I’m not angry, just disappointed.
Anyway, as I was walking down the back steps, I noticed that there was a lot more bird poop than usual. I really had to be careful to dodge it.
When I looked up at the holly bush, the culprits were confirmed. Robins are the ones who eat my holly berries, and the bush was completely stripped. It was weird to see it without berries, but I guess I’m glad some birds could have something to eat.
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Posted by Brad on February 24th, 2010 — Posted in Gardening
So this may be getting boring now because it happens year after year, but I continue to think it’s miraculous. I have orchid flowers in my bathroom! And I’m responsible for them blooming!
My phalaenopsis is blooming again. The first flower opened two days ago. The next ones will come quickly. And the plant will be blooming until June. Until JUNE, people!
I look at phalaenopsises (phalaenopsae?) whenever I go to Home Depot or whatever. I’m puzzled by the fact that they get phalaenopsis orchids to bloom at any time of year. Looking back in my memory records, I see that mine blooms at the end of February every year. Is it the duration of the light? Is it evening coldness? The plants continue to get cheaper and they continue to have newer and crazier flower colors and patterns, but I like my white and purple stripey flowers. They remind me of butterflies. I guess that’s why the common name of phalaenopsis orchids is “moth orchid”.
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Posted by Brad on November 22nd, 2009 — Posted in Gardening
While I was mowing my yard for the last time of the season yesterday, I discovered that my camellia plant is blooming. I was going to say how shocked I was that I never posted about it before, but I couldn’t find THESE two POSTS about it because they weren’t (until now) in the “Gardening” category, and because I was searching for the word “camillia”. Firefox’s spelling checker solved the mystery.
Anyway, I’m very excited my camellia is blooming. If there are no terrible freezes while my family is here, I will have beautiful pink flowers for the duration of their visit. I may even cut some flowers and bring them in. Camellias make nice floated flowers.
Dang, I uploaded the pictures before I changed their file names. Now they’re misspelled for eternity. Or until the end of the internet.
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Posted by Brad on November 1st, 2009 — Posted in Gardening
There’s been a death in the pond.
I have enjoyed stopping by the pond lately to admire the fish. The water is clearer than it has ever been. The fish are mostly hiding in the submerged plant life. I think it’s their instinct to hide when it’s cold. I have stopped feeding them. The literature says that if they eat, then get cold, they’ll stop digesting and the food can actually rot in their stomach and kill them.
Yesterday when I passed by the pond, I noticed one of the large fish had died. Its body was stuck to the water intake on the pump. I already know that next spring I’m going to have to cull fish from the pond, so one of them dying naturally is something of a blessing. And it is my intention to cull fish with short tails so I can keep breeding for long, flowing tails. The fish that died had a short tail. Yay!
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