Late April Bloomings

Yard work is well behind, we had to be sick and had to shop for and pick up a new vehicle, but there is always next week, God willing and the creek don’t rise. I want to expand the garden across the back of the yard and incorporate a heather garden and a rockery in addition to the herbs and perennials that are planted there already. I was also thinking of a small Japanese style garden, but I was reminded by a wise sage that constantly removing leaves and twigs from the raked gravel will surely shift me out of my Zen state quite quickly.

Some late April arrivals or some other flowers I might have overlooked.Alpine Campion -   Lychnis Alpina Snow FlurryArabis “Spring Charm”Lilly of the Valley – I plan on getting some Pink Lilly of the Valley.     Dicentra – the red is ‘luxuriant’  and I think the white is ‘formosa’The front garden has some holes which need fillin’. We had 2 large swaths of Snow cap, but one group died off, hence the hole.Creeping Phlox – all we have is blue. One year we ordered more creeping phlox and when they bloomed, they were the same color as what we already had.Snow Cap    Coral no, English Bluebells   Coral Bells – more next month. We have pink, PINK and whiteish. Lilac – almost all spent, not as smelly(in a good way) as they were a few days ago. That’s OK, this will allow us to smell the Sweet Woodruff planted at the Lilac’s base.

April Flowers

In my quest to capture something blooming in my yard every month, here are some photos of April. Sorry that’s not April, that’s the Butter Lamb wishing you a Baaalated Happy Easter.

Muscari - Grape Hyacinth Hyacinth (from previous Easters) Scilla - Siberian Squill, with Sweet Woodruff  Tulips Sweet Woodruff Periwinkle Clematis (Nelly Moser), If it don’t bloom this year it will be banished. Most of the Alpines in the troughs and pots are in bud so any day I should have some photos of Alpines in bloom. Unless it rains, or I have a relapse or I work late or something.

A Fistful of Koban*

I was sick all week, but not sick enough to stay home. I was sick Monday to Thursday, but I was sick sick on Friday and Saturday. Just wiped out. Saturday consisted of getting up briefly for some important function, then it was back to my comfy chair. Maybe I should have stayed home earlier in the week, then I could have done something this weekend out in the glorious weather. I’m sure the dog would have came out and supervised and been very happy. Being sick was not all bad though, I left work on time each day in mostly beautiful spring weather and watched Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa on Thursday. Yojimbo is a samurai movie in which the lone Ronin (independent contractor) plays two feuding families in a small town against each other. Short synopsis: Things go Mulberry’s way, things don’t go his way, then things go his way. Some of Kurosawa movies were remade, this one was remade by Sergio Leone, starred Clint Eastwood and was titled A Fistful of Dollars. So how happy was I, when trolling through the TV channels that I came across “A Fistful of Dollars”. Yee Haw! It was very interesting to compare the two films and see how closely A Fistful of Dollars followed Yojimbo. Clint plays two families in a small Mexican town against each other. Short synopsis: Things go Mulberry’s Clints’s way, things don’t go his way, then things go his way. So much alike, no wonder the lawsuit against Leone was successful.

I had also watched 2 other western themed films Saturday, Support your Local Sheriff and Support your Local Gun Fighter. Both staring James Garner. Not serious movies, just very entertaining. And remarkably, I watched each movie in its entirety.

I have no problem starting to watch a movie at any point, or stopping at any point. I’ll just catch the beginning or end some other time. Plus each scene in a good movie should be enjoyable in itself, like a mini movie. I think I enjoy the interactions between the characters, rather than where the story is going or the big picture. Big pictures are usually over my head. I’m not a big picture kind of guy.

* I don’t recall what unit the Ronin was given in the movie Yojimbo and had no luck searching for the information. The Koban gold coin was first introduced in the 1600s, well before the setting of the movie.

Espalier

Pronounced es-PAL-yay. It’s[sic] French. Why do think I have this outrageous accent, you silly king.

Took a class in March at the New York Botanical Garden on Espaliered Fruit trees. Espalier is the S&M method of forcing plants to grow in one plane in a form that you choose. The class was taught by Wayne Cahilly, he spoke about selection of the right tree, selection of the right area in which it would be planted and he covered all the technical aspects involved in training the tree. One area we did not cover in class was the construction of the supports, but this was covered in the handout and in additional documents provided on a CD.

Since it takes awhile for the plant to reach the desired form, he suggested to have a written plan and then stick with it, unless something bad happens like a branch breaks or buds don’t form where you wanted them to.

The reason for growing the plant in one plane is for economy of space and getting a head start on the growing season or to prolong the growing season. Another reason would be for the esthetics.

A large portion of the class covered basic pruning and Wayne explained how the plant hormones work. Cytokinin is a bud growth stimulant generated at the root tip and sent up the stems. The Terminal bud generates a growth retardant called auxin and sends that back down, this is what causes the other buds on the branch/stem to chill out, but when the auxin is received at the root it is decoded as a root growth stimulator, which then sends more cytokinin up to the terminal buds. Oversimplified, but easily seen how removing a terminal bud will cause other buds to break. All this depends on season and plant, etc.

The main espalier forms are

1. single cordon, one main trunk trained vertically.
2. horizontal cordon, branches trained along a horizontal structure, may be one or more tiers.
3. vertical cordon, one main trunk that splits and is trained horizontally with branches trained up vertical supports after a specific horizontal growth. Horizontal distance depends upon how many vertical branches there will be.
4. palmette verrier – a twist on the vertical cordon, main trunk remains growing in the vertical.
5. fan – shaped like a hand held manual fan.
6. informal – do anything you want as long as there is only 1 plane.
7. Belgium fence, multiple plants planted and interwoven, intersecting at 90 degree angles. The intersections may or may not be grafted together.

The main points of the class were, have a written plan and follow it.

Some examples of horizontal cordon espaliered fruit trees at the New York Botanical Gardens.This is an example of purchasing the plant and trying to adjust it to the structure you want to grow it against. The horizontal branching off the main trunk are not even close to the horizontal fence supports.    Yikes, here is an example of how not to plant a shrub. This photo was NOT taken at the New York Botanical Garden. I wonder how I will be blamed for this?

Here are 2 pear tree at the Cloisters in Manhattan, they are located on the lower level outside the Medieval Art collection. They both are trained up against the walls of the Gothic Chapel in the palmette verrier form.I plan on training a Chinese witch hazel, I had thought of having it against the garage, but not sure about how difficult it will be to paint behind the plant. Here is the plant, I put it in a pot to see if it starts to grow and how many branches it might have. Initially I was going to do a vertical cordon around the window of the garage, but I think I will wait and see what the plant wants to be. I purchased it from Michigan bulb and it came bare root. I am looking forward to the blooms and scents in February when nothing much else is alive. I also stuck some miscellaneous tree shoots  from the yard into a flower box last year and I think I will try to make espaliered bonsai trees. I think 2 maples and a beech?