He Knew He Was Right

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...

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...

Here is a picture of my viburnum mariesii, which has grown some since I posted in May about my battle wrestling her into the ground. The dry weather hasn't helped, but she's doing fine... I figured it would be as good a subject as any for a test post of the "ShowMe! Photo Blogger" app I just downloaded... Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Powered by ShowMeBlogger.com

“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...