The Compost Bin

This Ornamental Cherry Tree was a one year wedding anniversary present from my Aunt. It's now eight years old and has come a long way from that little one gallon pot that it came in.

Originally went I planted it, I did a terrible job. I guess I didn't pack the soil down well enough because it started leaning and looked pretty crooked. But it still grew nicely for about five years. Then a few years back we did a major pool renovation and it had to be moved. The landscaping crew wrapped it up nicely and put it in a nice safe corner of the yard away from all the heavy machinery.

And months later, when the landscapers were done robbing us of all of our money, they used one of those heavy machines to replant the Ornamental Cherry Tree properly where it sits today.

Holy cow, I have figs!

I'm shocked because I only bought the fig tree this season. I guess I'm used to fruit bushes and trees not doing anything for years. My blackberries took three years to produce fruit and my climbing hydrangea is on like it's 5th year without any signs of flowers. The can learn something from this fig tree.

Sometimes when you go to the store to get windshield washer fluid, you wind up coming home with a fig tree.

I don't know how it happens but I think I saw something about this mysterious phenomenon on 60 Minutes. Something to do with spring and the polarity of the shopping cart making the plant just jump right in there.

Now I just have to explain this phenomenon to my wife. She loves figs. And then maybe she'll understand how I forgot to get the windshield washer fluid.

Unlike my giant elephant ear, this hibicus made it inside the house for the winter. I trim it back to make it smaller and neater and it overwinters in my living room. Been doing it for 3 years so far and the plant is doing just fine.

But anyway, it was looking a little be droopy recently so I added shot of Sea Magic Fertilizer to my watering can and now it's flowering. Wow, this stuff is really good. I think I used it once on my tomatoes and some other vegetables very early in the season but really I just forgot that I bought it (my garage is a giant disaster).

You fill up a gallon bottle with water and add the contents of the package to make it in concentrated form. Then just splash a little bit of the concentrate into a full watering can and you're ready to go.

During the winter my hibicus doesn't grow too much and has never flowered inside before so this is kind of exciting for me. I plan on doing some experiments with my houseplants to see what other damage I can cause. Have to get my gardening fix somehow. Still have a long way to go until spring.

Way back in April I picked up a Plum Newport that was on sale at Lowes and I couldn't be happier with the purchase. I liked the dark red leaves that I knew it would someday have and thought that it would look nice in my mostly green landscape. I'm patient when it comes to trees, so I figured that it would take a few years for it to mature into something that looked like more than a stick in the ground. That's usually the case with most trees and shrubs that you find on sale.

I was nicely surprised when it flowered a month after I planted it. 4 years later, I'm still waiting for my Climbing Hydrangea to flower but this Plum Newport was nice enough to do it in a month.

And now, a few months later, there's lots of new growth on the tree. Don't get me wrong, it's not one of those miracle trees that claim to grow 3 feet a year in those shady advertisements. It's still a small shrub but I'm very happy with the few inches of new growth. I'm guessing that the tree likes where I planted it.

I picked up a Plum Newport the other day. Now this definitely was not an impulse purchase. I've been meaning to get one of these for a while. In fact I wanted to get two of them last year but couldn't find one anywhere for less than big bucks.







The area around my pool has no tree/shrubs/plants. There's nothing there after the pool renovation. I'll pick up a few items this season but I'm sure it won't look like I want for several years. It's okay, I'm patient.

Sometimes you have to destroy your yard to make it look better. When we bought our home 5 years ago, the 1/2 acre suburban property was made up of giant overgrown hedges, shrubs, trees and lots of other wild looking things. No one had lived in the house for the previous 6 months but I don't think that anyone ventured into the yard even when people were living there. The nicest part of our property at the time were these giant rhododendrons.

Unfortunately, this is one of the few remaining rhododendrons that we kept. The pool/patio work caused us to lose a giant section of rhodo shrubs that grew into a hedge shape and were about 10-12 feet tall. It's really a shame that we had to get rid of them but the hedge was made up of about 5 shrubs that grew together and against a fence. If we separated them, we would have been left with 10 foot sticks with some leaves on top. The whole side growing against the fence was bare too.

We did move one large one that was separate from the hedge and it's doing great in it's new home across the yard. The pool contractor used a Bobcat to scoop up a root ball that must have weighed about 600 pounds. It never even showed any transplant shock.

This rhodo in the picture is the sole survivor around the pool and it has a huge bare spot (that I hope will fill out in a few years with some careful pruning).