Spring clean-up came in earnest this weekend at Daisy Hill farm. Everything will be downhill from here as my least favorite yard chore; cutting back our ornamental grasses, is done for the year. I know, I know, there are all kinds of shortcuts and tricks for this job including lassoing grasses for the last round-up (see Holly’s March 8 post), duct-taping them, and cutting them down with hedge-trimmers or a chainsaw. Unfortunately, between our winter snow beating them down and our dogs using them as their own personal jungle playground, standing the grasses up neatly to await a trim just isn’t an option. … Continue reading this article “These are a few of my (least) favorite things…”
Mystery sparkler exposed
I really liked the answers you brave few came up with for Friday’s photo. I could absolutely see how each one made sense – but unfortunately none of them were correct. It’s actually a raindrop sitting on top of an expanding larch bud:
This turned out to be much trickier than I anticipated. I promise the next one won’t be.
(And no, the raindrops do not magnify sunlight and cause the expanding needles to burn!)
Mystery sparkler
What am I? (There are two distinct entities.)
Answer and a complete photo on Monday!
Sunday addendum:
No guesses yet…maybe it’s too tough? Here’s a more revealing photo:
It’s That Time of Year
This time of year is tough for folks who do work with plants. It’s the happiest time of year because the world is turning green again, but it’s also the busiest time of year because we need to be inside teaching, outside planting, and also on the road since spring talks are finishing up. Honestly I’m having trouble finding an hour to myself to work on writing up papers and articles.
That said, let me leave you with something that’s been bugging me the last few days (based on an article I read a few years ago). … Continue reading this article “It’s That Time of Year”
What to do when it’s still raining?
It’s almost May…and it’s still raining. Even for our normally wet spring climate, this has been an unusually soggy year. I’m also blaming the weather on my 3rd or 4th cold so far this year, which has knocked me flat for the last 6 days (which was why I had no Friday puzzle posted). So in between blowing my nose, hacking my lungs out, and generally feeling sorry for myself, I started looking over 10 years’ worth of photos of our home landscape.… Continue reading this article “What to do when it’s still raining?”
Who you gonna call?
As I noted last week, this has been a long winter in Michigan – OK, Jeff, no chortling from the frozen tundra of Minnesota… Most gardeners in this area have only been able to do their spring yard and garden clean-ups in fits and starts as the weather allows. We’re finally warming up a bit this week but now strong storms are in the forecast. One of the things gardeners will want to do is to size up any winter damage that has occurred since they put things to bed last fall. … Continue reading this article “Who you gonna call?”
Harvesting an Experiment
This has been an exciting week for me. On Monday we started cleaning off 72 rootballs of various tree species that had been planted 5 years ago for a study. These trees had been planted in containers and become potbound at the nursery from which we received them. We treated them in one of three ways. Either we did nothing (in other words we just dropped the pot bound tree in a hole), we used the standard methods that Universities recommend for slicing potbound roots (Four deep slits down the sides and a deeply cut X across the bottom), or we cut off all of the circling roots by cutting the pot bound root system into a box shape.… Continue reading this article “Harvesting an Experiment”
Pause for effect…
Spring (in either hemisphere) is an incredibly busy time for anyone even remotely associated
with horticulture – a frenzy of growing, selling, buying, planting, and
information-disbursing. If gardening were this wildly popular year-round, there might even be some money to be made. For us Hort faculty, spring means field trips, student plant sales, cramming even more plants
onto an identification test (heh), tons of consumer questions, research projects coming and going, and many many speaking engagements.… Continue reading this article “Pause for effect…”
Mortal Kombat – garden version
Soil solarization is regarded as an environmentally friendly alternative to pesticides for controlling nematodes, weeds and disease. Sheets of plastic (generally clear) are spread over the ground and solar energy heats the soil underneath to temperatures as high as 55C (or 131F). Since the soil environment is usually insulated from temperature extremes, the organisms that live there are unlikely to be resistant to heat stress.
This is a practice best suited to agricultural production, where monocultures of plants have attracted their specific diseases and pests. … Continue reading this article “Mortal Kombat – garden version”
There’s no flowers like snowflowers…
A short post from our ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ file. This what we work up to today at Daisy Hill farm 
If anyone has seen Spring, please e-mail it some MapQuest directions to Michigan ASAP!