The Compost Bin

Walking around my yard this weekend I noticed a lot of interesting things that led me to an exciting conclusion. The groundhog was wrong!

Besides seeing these daffodils poking through the ground the one thing that really convinced me that Punxsutawney Phil must have his wires crossed was that I saw his cousin WW3 this weekend. WW3, also known as Woodrow Woodchuck the Third, came out of his winter hole in my neighbor’s property and was wandering around our yards.

WW3 is the third generation of woodchuck that has tried to turn my vegetable garden into an all you can eat buffet. Because of this critter and its ancestors, I now maintain a careful watch of the fence perimeter around the garden, always on the lookout for any attempts to burrow underneath.

His grandmother, The Big W, who lived underneath my old tool shed, met an untimely death trying to cross a nearby road. I cheered when I saw the road kill but little peace was enjoyed by my tomatoes. The next generation swiftly dug in and resumed the war right where The Big W left off.

WW2 was a different type of chuck and brought the battle to the high seas. One day while I was at work, I received a call from my wife.

Image via Wikipedia

“There’s a beaver in the pool!” she yelled. I immediately knew she was talking about my nemesis, WW2. “I think it fell in and it can’t find the stairs to get out. It’s already done two laps.”

With victory in my grasp, I instructed her to, “Go get the pool net and hold him under the water. If you can do it, the carrots will write songs of your braveness for many seasons to come.”

“Are you out of your mind? I’m not going outside. Look, he finally figured it out and found the steps. He’s out now. “

“Curses.” I thought to myself. We were so close to ending this conflict and yet so far.

Fast-forward to 2009, almost a decade in and still the Woodrow family continues to give my vegetables nightmares.

And since I know my enemy well, I don’t think he would have come out of his hole unless spring was about to get sprung.

When the pot is labeled "Sun Annual" that should mean that the plant would love to be planted on the Sun, right?

Oh well, I guess I forgot to water these guys. I could really use a sprinkler system.

In a few more days, these guys will have opened up and there will be an explosion of yellow all over my yard.

Daylilies are great because not only do they look good, but they can be split every year to make even more of them. Most people use a shovel to split daylilies but I like to use a large serrated bread knife. I started using one to split my Hostas and just decided that it's the right tool for the job.

Oh you know what? I just remembered that the last time I posted a picture of these guys, someone told me that they were regular lilies and not daylilies. They were marked daylilies when I bought them but they could very well be lilies. I have some Stella D'oro's on the other side of the house and the greens are definitely different.

Well whatever they are, I like the way they look and I split them every spring with a bread knife and that's good enough for me.

After years and years of nothing happening with my Climbing Hydrangea, I decided to go with something a little more reliable in the flowering vines department.

You see, I had such high hopes for the climbing hydrangea that despite my wife's suggestion to get a few of them, I told her boldly, "We'll only need one honey. This entire arbor will be covered with flowering vines in a few years and we'll have to trim them to keep them in check."

Well 5 years later and I have a 6 foot vine that hasn't flowered yet. And even though it's a nice looking green plant, it still looks kind of funny growing up one side of my arbor.

Not being a gardener to shy away from failures, I decided it was time to try a different vine and picked up a nice looking clematis on one of my many trips to the nursery. And I'm glad I did.

This Clematis is in it's second year and it's doing great with little or no maintenance. I planted it in rich soil that I amended with compost and occasionally feed it with either fish tank water or some Sea Magic Plant Fertilizer. I just kept it watered and bought a nice trellis that I figured it wouldn't need for a few years and that was it.

I was wrong about that because it grew right up the trellis about three or four feet high within a month or two. Then the flowers came and I became really happy with the purchase. What a great vine!

When spring came around this year, I tried to do some research to see if this was the clematis that likes to be cut down to the ground each season or if I should just leave it be. But that research, like many other things that I could only accomplish if I was independently wealthy and didn't need a 9-5 job, was put on the back burner. But thankfully, the vine starting growing and budding without any help from me. And now look at it.

Easy to grow, great looking flowers, fills in a trellis pretty quickly, a clematis is a great plant. This year I bought four new ones in hopes of growing them up my chain link fence. And just like I told my wife, the entire chain link fence will be covered with flowering vines in a few years and we'll have to trim them to keep them in check.

Just posting a few random blooms today.

This past weekend I was excited to see that the buds on my rhododendrons are starting to swell up. That usually means that spring is on it's way but as I'm typing this post, we're in the middle of a winter weather advisory in New York/New Jersey. It seems that after getting an inch or two of snow today, it has decided that ice should fall from the sky for the rest of the night.

Checking back on some old posts, my Rhododendrons don't usually open until April or May. So seeing that bud was really just wishful thinking on my part.

My rhodos will have to wait a few months before they can start blooming and I'm going to have to get the shovel out of the garage tomorrow morning and chip away that ice.

Where's the yellow?

Are my daffodils taking the year off? Was it the crazy weather this winter with 70 degree days in January and then several harsh ice storms in February? Or do my bulbs just need to be dug up and divided?

I guess I'll dig up a few and see what's going on down there. It's hard to believe that out of the 400 bulbs that I planted 3 years ago, that not one flowered. The crocus came up a little late but they were fine.

Or maybe this is my yard's way of telling me that I need more bulbs.

After a quick trip to Costco, I'm now going to grow some vines. I've heard good things about clematis and decided to give them a try.

There's a very plain side of my house faces my patio that needs to be softened up a bit. It's really just a large windowless area that's all white vinyl siding and there's nothing too special going on there. But the good news is that there is a flower bed in front of it. So step one is to get some nice looking flowering vines to climb up a trellis. That will be a big improvement so hopefully I can get these vines to grow.

I don't know if this clematis is going to be like my climbing hydrangea but I'm hoping for a few flowers this year. We'll see how it goes.

I just heard the weather report and now they say there's a chance of snow here in New Jersey this weekend. My bulbs are starting to open despite a major beating from old man winter after they had already sprouted.

And now they might get covered up by the white stuff yet again.

Even if it doesn't snow, I doubt this crocus will make it past the weekend. My daughter is a notorious flower picker.

Unless someone posts some nasty comments about why I should avoid any of these seeds, I think I'm ready to finally place my Burpee order. It's a little flower heavy this year because my yard was destroyed by some renovations and I have a lot of empty space to fill.

My sister also got me a Gift Certificate for the Seeds Of Change catalog. I plan on getting mostly herbs and my favorite corn (True Gold) from them but I haven't finished deciding yet.

Porterhouse Beefsteak Tomato
Little Mamma Tomato
Tomato Early Girl
Tomato Tomande
Kentucky Wonder Pole Snap Bean
Burpee Golden Globe Turnip
Sweet Success Hybrid Cucumber
Bush Champion Cucumber
Parnsip Hollow Crown
Red Delicious Hybrid Pepper
Sunny Delight Squash
Summerlong Basil
Zowie Zinnia
Gaillardia Sundance Bicolor
Boy O'Boy Mix Marigolds
Burpee Hybrid Mix Zinnia
Blue Star Columbine
Quetzal Mix Columbine
Chinese Lantern
Gloriosa Daisy Double Gold
Gaillardia Amber Wheels
Lavender Lady
Alaska Shasta Daisy

Just a few weeks ago, my pansies were blooming. This morning I woke up to a dusting of snow. January started out with weather in the 60ies and we even hit 70 degrees here in NJ. Tonight it's 22 degrees.

Whether it's El Nino or global warming or something else, the weather really has become unpredictable.

Oh yeah, I forgot all about those lilies that I planted last year. Don't you just love when something pops up that you forgot about. Surprise!

I'm pretty sure this is a Honeysuckle Vine. It smells great when it blooms and it grows like a weed. The vine came from my neighbors yard but it's welcome on my side of the fence too. In fact these vines are taking over my chain link fence and providing a nice screen between our two pools (except he actually gets to use his pool).

...let's go and meet the pansies!

My 3 year old son shouts out that quote from the movie Madagascar whenever he sees the pansies in our window boxes. And everytime he does, I laugh. Who knew that pansies could be so fun?