He Knew He Was Right

Unlucky: slipping on some wet leaves and nearly falling backward Lucky: grabbing a low branch and gaining my balance Unlucky: realizing that it wasn't a branch but a poison ivy vine Lucky: tossing it to the side before it touched the rest of my arm Unlucky: having the vine swing back and smack me in the face Lucky: having the presence to catch the vine in the same hand Stupid: pulling the vine so as not to have to worry about walking into it again Comical: how moronic I must have looked tangled up in the damn thing Effective? Just took a cold shower with some old poison ivy wash...

A few years ago, using my Scandinavian Forest Axe, I felled a cottonwood that had an 8"-diameter trunk and stood over 20-feet tall. That was pretty cool. I've also precisely dropped a couple of 30-feet-tall maples with my chainsaw, guiding them to safe landings. Again, it felt kind of cool, and was certainly a relief when nothing got damaged, myself included. Then there's what I've done with the forsythia , but that is an ongoing effort. Nothing, though, has given me the satisfaction that I took from my fight while planting my viburnum mariesii, chronicled in this wordy post . It's flowering now: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've posted pictures of it before. As far as plants go, though, it's simply the best $170 I've spent outside. Two neighbors have asked me what it is, and one just looked at it and told me that I should get into landscaping. I thanked him, but it is the shrub doing all the work. Now anyway...a helluva fight occurred in that very spot two y...

...my woodruff is spreading, and overwhelming my pulmonaria, which I believe I've already explained here is a type of lungwort...

With all the snow we've had so far, and a brand new pair of skis to boot, it pains me that I have only hit the slopes once this winter. Or, maybe the pain comes from a few rounds of clearing the driveway, the steps, the walkways, the deck, etc. Just the same, here are some pictures from around the lot. I didn't take any after the storm that cut short my Christmas visits to family. That one dropped something like 15 inches around here. The ground was still mostly covered when we got hit with about six inches last Thursday night. I snapped this one after that: Here's a similar picture with a fresh foot on top of the snow that was already there: Moving behind the house, here's one of a junco (which for years I had been mistaking for chickadees), one of many birds that hang out near my deck, and obviously undeterred by a little snow on the handrail: Tomorrow, I'll be shoveling the rest of the deck, but at least I can get out if needed: And, I can get to the gr...

1) I let mother nature blow them away. Coincidentally, this made the neighbor's list of the top 10 most hated ways other get rid of leaves... 2) I crush small handfuls in my hands. You know which leaves I mean: the ones when you open the door and a bunch of them are packed into the corner of the door frame, just waiting to get in the house. If they're dry, and a broom isn't handy, I just grab them, rub them together in my hand, and toss them to the side. That's right; I let them know who's boss. 3) I sweep them out of the garage, the basement hallway, the kitchen, and any other place into which they've made their way. 4) I rake, and I rake, and I rake. Ok, enough of the enviro-friendly leaf disposal stuff. I have a lot of trees, and sometimes I just need to bring out the big boy toys... 5) I use my leaf blower (gas; not electric) to move them into a small wooded area on the side of my lot. Overuse of this tool, though, was also noted on the neighbor's most h...

Well, a few people have been asking me where the foliage pictures are, so I thought I would share some fall shots from the yard, taken before the leaves really started covering it. First, though, here is proof of the old adage that you can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. I finished restaining the deck a few weeks ago. I'm glad that's done as it looks considerably better than it did a month ago. But, I won't be happy until I have a new one. Or at least do something about the rails. Why it was built with four rails on one side and three on the others has been bothering me for some time. Further, those four rails are all 2X6s while the other sides were made from 1X6s, suggesting that the last side was probably made from leftover wood. Still, if I take the picture emphasizing the nicely turned maple a bit better, the imperfections on the deck don't quite stand out so much... Here's one of my burning bushes. Travel prevented me from seeing them in their dee...

The rhododendron is the one shrub that has probably interested me longer than any other, largely because of a huge one we had in the backyard of the old family home. For most, its appeal is the flowers that bloom in May, but I think I liked it more as a winter shrub and indicator of cold weather temperatures. Evergreens in general provide some signs of life when all other plants are bare of such evidence, but there is something fascinating about the way the leaves of rhodies start to curl up to let you know that it is cold outside, or really twist up to let you know it is very cold. Their appeal to me increased as I got into photography, and noticed several frequently recurring shots in photography magazines that I wanted to duplicate. One was of a moose standing in or near a lake with a mountain backdrop, another was white birch trees ablaze with golden foliage in late autumn, and the other was the rhodies under a canopy of monstrous trees in the Redwood National Forest. I’m still try...

I've taken down more trees here than I ever thought I would. Mother Nature has knocked a few over, old age got to a couple, and some poor landscape design (planting big trees too close to each other) and troublesome shedding have led to the demise of others. My intention is to plant at least one tree for each one that comes down. I'm a bit behind in that regard, but I will get there. Some of the trees I have planted and described below are coming along great, while the progress of others is slower. I'll apologize here for some of the weak pictures: green trees don't always stand out when photographed against other green trees or shrubs--many of the pictures were taken only so that I can check growth over time. Further, I don't always take a picture of something I plant--it's just not something I think to do. Still, I think they all help tell the story. Among the very first trees I planted was a white (paper) birch. Few trees make me think of northern New England...

“It is a good shrubbery. I like the laurel particularly.” Yeah, that’s a good shrub, but my viburnum mariesii, which I purchased and planted last year, is a great shrub: The folks in the nursery talked it up well—flowers in the spring, nice symmetrical shape when covered by leaves in the summer or bare in the winter, remarkable foliage in the fall, and the always-important deer and insect resistance. It sounded like a no-brainer. My only reservation was the humongous root ball I'd have to get in the ground. I gave it a little shove in the nursery and was able to rock it, and so figured I could coax it into the hole I had dug after it and several other big plants were delivered. I very much regret not taking pictures of that hole, the root ball, and my ensuing battle with both, but I’ll try to explain my challenging few hours with them here. To start, I actually wanted to see what it looked like in another spot in the yard; however, when the delivery dude showed up, where it en...

I’ve been planting stuff left and right since I moved in here. Plenty of grass was removed mainly to make mowing easier, and also because I heard one too many times that my yard was simply too green. So, I’ve tossed in everything from bulbs to trees, trying to get some non-green color outside from spring until my maple trees take over with awesome foliage displays in October. The first things up are bulbs—I’ve buried dozens of daffodil bulbs, along with some hyacinths and narcissus bulbs, because, well, deer and rabbits don’t eat them. Yeah, they’re nice, they add color, and they're a general announcement of spring, but they’re not really unique. Next to light up are the forsythia. I’ve dedicated a post to that already, so I’ll gloss right over that here. A few other things that get color, however, are shown below. Pulmonaria, also known as lungwort: Sounds nice, eh? Well, when I bought them, the little stick in the pot labeled some “Gaelic Sunrise” and others “Gaelic Sunset”--tha...