Quick Trip

Rose and I made a quick trip out to plant a tree down by the river.  I took a little spruce and tried for a sunny spot on the riverbank.  Cut lots of blackberry vines out of the way, propped up a sagging wire cage around a 10-foot alder, found a T-post buried in the grasses and used it to help prop the wire, dug a planting hole and did the deed!  Two dead salmon in the river.  I cut more vines as I walked back up to the house.  110 trees/shrubs in the ground.

          Reminder to self:  dig the red alder seedlings still in the high school terraces.  Most of these were weed-whacked out by other people, but a few remain.  I can pot them up.  Here at home, my hanging Corsican mint planter is the best nursery for seedling Western redcedars.

          

My Birthday and Since

     I would have said I'd been planting most days since the 3rd, but . . . . On September 3, Gordon and I planted three spruces and an Indian Plum.  Planting companionship was what I asked for for my birthday.  We planted two of the spruces by the tiny creek that drains our spring area, one further along on Three Rivers, and the Indian Plum in a cage on the east side of the small pond up in the woods.  On the 7th, I worked at the high school, weeding and mulching behind the school's main building with Gordon and a few kids from his new Environmental Science class.  Many of the plants they planted last spring died over the summer, but some have made it, and the straw mulch is doing a great job of staying in place and keeping things looking respectable.  It will keep the area wet but not soggy over winter and limit erosion.  The area will be easy to replant this fall and next spring - no more heroics terracing the area, etc.  

      But nothing planted that day or the next.  Yesterday Rose and I planted an evergreen huckleberry up by the little pond, removing the cage around a dead Indian Plum (?) I planted last spring and using it around the huckleberry.  Today she and I went to the county property by the child care center and planted 2 Sitka spruce by the river.  There I pulled out 2 dead things (not sure when planted or by who), and used the stake by one and the stake and cage by another to mark my new plantings (practically in the same holes that I'd pulled the dead things from).   I think the little spruce will like the sun there and be hardy enough to forgo shade and ample water during the summer.  

       That's a bare spot, very gravel-filled, along Three Rivers there.  It definitely needs to have plant cover - to shade the river water (lower water temperature for the fish) and to lessen water speed and soil erosion should it flood through there again.  (A long-ago flood probably caused this low and gravelly spot to form.)  While I was poking around, looking to see how the other plants were faring, I heard a huge splash in the river.  I thought it was Rose jumping in, but I saw she was still digging behind me.   (In the grass, not by the trees!  But, you know, she is bit of a hazard about digging plants up, if I'm not on my toes.  Because, when I enrich the soil where I plant, the richness attracts earthworms and etc., and they in turn attract their rodent predators - moles and all - and those are what Rose is after.) 

      It was salmon in the river, splashing.  As I watched I could see several dark fish shapes, and every so often, one would jump and splash.  The river is low and the salmon are tired

(being dark in color means they are tiring on their journey, even this close to the ocean), so they hardly cleared the water in their jumping, but they certainly made noise and commotion.

Pretty quickly I called Rose away from the area so she wouldn't get the idea to go investigate and hunt. 

      So, I was at 102 plants going into the 3rd, 106 by the end of that day.  Then one yesterday and two today, for a total of 109.  None of this takes into account the death of plants - that fact is staring me in the face as I get out and about and see what made it over summer and what didn't.  At this point, I'm really noticing - and bothered - by all the plants that haven't made it.  I'm sort of putting those thoughts on a 'back burner', though, so I can go on with planting.  I just have to.  Maybe I can develop a philosophy about plant death or even some practical activity to guard against it.  But for now, I'm planting again and that's enough.  

Getting back to work

          Rose and I seized the day.  I took an evergreen huckleberry started from a cutting in 2008, and we planted it on the hill above the tiny, almost-dry pond up in our woods.  It's been raining the last few days, through yesterday morning.  Today is sunny and warm, almost humid what with all the water scattered about by the rain.  And it was real rain, no sprinkle but winter-like and thorough.  
          Tomorrow is my birthday and I'm going to ask for my present to be help with planting a few more shrubs and bushes, and taking some photos to post here.  And I'll pick blackberries if there are any not moldy (rain's legacy), and harvest the basil, our biggest crop this too-cold summer.
There are zucchinis, but they get to an inch or two long and stop there.  The carrots are fine, the beans never made it past the slugs, deer, and moles (tunneling under them, uprooting them), the beets look okay.  Tomatillos are finally beginning to fruit.  Tomorrow I'll check the whole garden. Today it's too hot by this time, 11:30.  Odd summer!

Just Checking In

         So, I was at 101 plants when I quit planting, thinking it was the end of planting (rainy) season!  We have had very wet weather all through June, so I could have kept up for 2 more months.  But there were other reasons . . . .  (getting a job, running out of trees that were mature enough, my planting partner's indiscriminate hunting, etc.).
         My goal for the summer needs to be to get things into pots here - rescue some more alders from the high school, etc.  I will need 264 plants in the fall, if I'm going to plant a tree a day this year.  That's a lot of plants.  It's good for me to do this thinking/planning - and maybe it will be more inspiring than daunting in the long run.  

Planting at the High School

Gordon and his Environmental Science students are planting the hillside behind the high school classrooms.  It looks very much "in-progress" right now - cardboard and terracing planks and stakes very visible, but is impressive to see, as the space is large and the amount of required work quite evident.  They are using almost all native plants, some we have grown here.  

I'm back to work

          I've been gone from this project since 8 April.  I don't want to get into excuses, I just want to get back to planting!  I have been working for the 2010 CENSUS - getting training and giving training, and I got a cold (so no Canyon Day at Reed College) and then some muscles in my back decided to spasm every few hours.  I've been a mess this month, and not even writing novels, short stories and other trash, not planting except flowers a little - some sweet peas and some snap peas - and weeding a lot. 

         TODAY I planted two apple trees - a Golden Delicious semi-dwarf, and a HoneyCrisp - also semi-dwarf.  I planted them in the fenced in Vegetable Garden area in a place that G and I are hoping is not too shady.  Might be.  The fruit trees are safe from deer once they reach 8 - 10 feet tall, though these are safe in the enclosure anyway, I hope.  Then I planted 3 blueberry bushes - two Dukes and a Bluecrop - and a gooseberry.  All of these were bought from Al, who has sold plants at the Plant Exchange the last two years.  (My idea in opening the exchange up to vendors, was to make it possible for people who don't have plants to bring to participate.  They can also "buy" exchange plants with a donation to the child care center (where we hold the exchange).  

          This year, though, the day for Plant Exchange was drizzly and cold (April 17th), and turnout was poor.  So I'm thinking maybe we need to skip a year or change to a spot visible from Highway 101.  I don't think the child care center folks care at all - they don't say thank you or anything.  The best "customer" all day - although everyone was pleasant and supportive - was the grade school age daughter of our local pastor.  She was so excited to be getting plants!!   Her mom is a great gardener, too.

          Today I also planted a lilac (one of the 4 or 5 we potted up as 'divisions' when we moved the bush that was here when we moved in, but which was being shaded out by the cedar tree by our house).  I put it and a mystery shrub in on the outside of the fence that surrounds the blueberry patch, to the east, facing the old chicken house/new tractor shed.

The mystery shrub has a flowering habit much like a delicate hydrangea, but I think I remember being warned by its donor that it is not a hydrangea.  NOT.  Both the lilac and other shrub have been in large pots by our back stoop for several years, being decorative.  

          I'm cleaning up that back of the house space, planning on using all our garage sale handsome planters and any plants that will look stunning in them this summer.  This summer our son and his wife come to the US, and we will be hosting my husband's family's reunion here.  We want everything to look really nice.  One plant I have is a purple ninebark, a gift from my friend L, or maybe a cutting I took from her gift shrub.  I'm loath to plant this ninebark out in the yard - where I won't be able to baby it - as I can't find the other one I had and think it might need to get quite large to survive out there.  

         I'm loving containers with purple and yellow leaves together, purple flowers, pink or orange.  Many of my gardening friends are much more sophisticated gardeners than I am, and they prefer white flowers.  I think white flowers are a waste of flowerdom.  I'm in love with the washed-out purple fading to orange (orange!) of the Erysimum with varigated leaves.  The flower looks like something your grandmother wore (and which embarrassed you terribly at the time, but now you are nostalgic . . .)!!  

           So, I planted eight trees or shrubs today.  And, although the purist in me thinks these should count less than the native trees I plant in natural areas, I have to remember we are converting this house and pasture into gardens and adding many leaves to the 'canopy'.  And the holes are as hard to dig.

           I'll figure out and post the numbers next time.  I know I'm way behind, but I'm not giving up.  

Plant Exchange

          This Saturday I hope to plant trees at Reed College, but NEXT Saturday, April 17, I'm hosting a Plant Exchange here in Hebo, at the Cedar Creek Child Care Center.  10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m.  Rain or shine.  Please come if you can.