Contemplation and Validation

So, it's been a while since my last update. Summer gets really busy really fast, and I haven't quite accepted the beauty of winter interest, so that brings us to early spring, and a short timeframe until we host a family event in our backyard!

So, here is a blueprint/outline of our property that the previous owners had commissioned. We didn't like any of the layers of landscaping that were provided, so I'm presenting what has been done, and some of my ideas for additional input and discussion. A little more background, we are in Utah, zone 5 with very hot 100 degree summers and winters that could get down to -15, but don't always. As shown on the map, the back of the house faces southeast, so most of the backyard gets plenty of morning sun and summer afternoon shade from the house starting in the late evening. Also, there's a slight slope away from the house towards the east/southeast side of the yard.

Next, I've attached various recent photos of the backyard. Hopefully, you can get a better feel for the current layout from the photos, and a general idea of my plans for change.

So, here goes...

This is starting in the northwest corner of the yard. It started out as the vegetable garden, until we planted a Gala apple in the middle, but I think we have a little time before the entire area gets covered by the apple tree.

I'm trying to keep reference points as I go along. The Blue Spruce (A) to the east of the vegetable garden is the focus of the next picture, with the garden hose showing an outline for the curving expansion of the garden, as well as the edge(somewhere along there) of the border that will be raised and covered with mulch instead of lawn. Also visible further east is the trampoline, which is in the process of becoming "in-ground", and the northeast corner of our lot.

Keeping that frame of reference, this is taken from the northeast corner of the lot to the southeast corner. On the other side of the sandbox is last year's border project, where we dug out and built up a border around three apple trees (Golden Delicious, Crabapple, and Gala) planted by the previous owners. In the southeast corner is another Blue Spruce (B).

This is taken from the southeast corner next to the Blue Spruce (B) towards the southwest corner of our lot. This is another target for building up a border around the fruit trees on this side of the yard. Our border with the neighbor is a row of Laurel bushes, however, they seem to be experiencing quite a bit of die-back from the winter (they are supposed to be evergreen).

And finally, this is taken from the southwest corner towards the Blue Spruce (B) in the southeast corner. Again, the green garden hose shows the proposed outline for the border. Did I mention that we really love that mountain view?

Now that you basically have the corners, here are some bird's eye views from the roof....

This is from the roof, towards the Blue Spruce (B) in the southeast corner of the lot. Also showing the basement steps and patio, along with the hot tub shelter.

This gives a little better perspective of the proposed border around the peach and cherry trees (Intrepid and Elberta Peach, Black Gold Cherry, not pictured to the right Black Tartarian Cherry planted by previous owner).

Across the east side of the yard is another proposed border. This one using a combined black and then green hose. We would probably place some stepping stones or a path to the sandbox through the mulched border. The two gray boulders in the grass indicate the proposed future locations of dwarf pear trees (Starking Delicious and Moonglow dwarf pears - probably not going to happen this year).

This shot gives a little better perspective on the proposed border, again indicated by the garden hose, around the garden and the Blue Spruce (A) and Fuji Apple. The Fuji Apple is probably too close to the trampoline at about seven feet from the trunk, but it is a dwarf, so I'm hopeful. The trampoline is also about seven feet from the fence, which won't be as much of a concern once it is in-ground.

The livingroom window (directly above the basement steps) looks out towards the peach trees and the Blue Spruce (B). I'd like to add a lot more visual interest into the yard by adding more flowers to the expanded border. It would probably be a few years before the fruit trees actually shade the area.

We put the trampoline in the corner to make that part of the yard a children's area, along with the sandbox. It's visible from a kitchen window, but outside the view from the livingroom window.

We aren't huge entertainers, but we do have large extended families, so we are trying to establish a tradition of hosting a summer event for each side of the family. (This summer will be our third year in this home.)

Almost forgot. This corner, almost completely out of view of anything else, I'm debating putting in a Reliance grape along the fence and a raised bed to transplant some raspberries that are too crowded next to the house. This section of the fence in the southwest corner is about 30 feet long, so there's plenty of room for one, maybe two grape vines. I'm not sure about the size of the raspberry raised bed, but we want more than "cereal garnish" so hopefully it could stretch out to at least 15'.

Busy Saturday

This last weekend was our first phase of removing the wall-to-wall lawn designation from our backyard. Too bad there is no before picture to precede the after, but just imagine grass all the way to the fence, with the slope of the yard continuing down toward the fence. Oops, including all the way to the trunks of the trees. (View from south to north, then from north to south - the blue spruce is in the south east corner of our backyard.)

I used some cardboard, but mostly sections from the lawn that I cut out to cover grass. Hopefully it doesn't grow through. Because I didn't dig up the trees that were planted by the previous owner, I'm keeping a circle clear around the trunk of each tree, but we will probably continue to build up the height of the border around these "clearance circles" for greater effect. Eventually, we'll plant smaller flowers/ground coverings on the hills of the border - or better yet, maybe more strawberries! (View of "clearance circle" around one of the apple trees.)

We'll also cover it with mulch once we complete excavation...

The last picture is an effort to remove any trace of bindweed root from our backyard. Actually, it is an early stage of the future garden location that will include combination container boxes/cold frames since we planted one of the new apple trees in the middle of the current garden location. After excavation is complete, we will build a retaining wall. It will also be a more efficient use of the north east corner that wasn't being covered by the sprinkler system. As you can see, it is now being used to "store" or mulch sections cut out from the lawn for the five new fruit trees we planted (not pictured).

I'm attempting to "harvest" rock from the excavation for a gravel floor around the future boxes.

Everything's coming up Roses!

A little blurp on the roses in our garden. Although the primary crop in my farm-belt hometown in Southern California was Roses, I didn't spend too much time learning the tricks of that trade (except to discover, on a rose field tour during a festival, that although people sometimes stole plants from the fields, all they had to do was take a cutting to grow a new plant). At any rate, at my first home as a married adult, I thought I did a decent job tending the bed of roses we inherited with the property only to discover completely different types in our garden (not to mention a completely different climate) when we moved to Utah!

There are four types, if not varieties of the 9 plants we have...


The first, and my favorite, is the yet to be identified ever-bloomer. These three bushes appear to bloom, and then the bloom lasts for months. Sometimes it starts out sort of orange and gets deeper red, but once in full bloom, they just look good until they dry out, which seems like weeks or even a month!















On the opposite side of the spectrum are the climbing roses. We have the Golder Shower climber (from the tag left on it, first picture) and probably another, although not quite as vigorous a grower, yellow rose (close-up second picture). Although these two produce dozens and dozens of roses, they tend to go quickly and the flower opens up and then drops petals within the week. My list of things to do includes trying to figure out where this falls in regards to nature vs. nurture.



































The Climbing Blaze is another climber that looks like it's been through a lot, but has bright red blossoms that add a lot of color.





















The last three are very different than the others. Instead of full blossomed roses, these provide flashes of color with just a few petals on each flower. They are in a cluster of three bushes that would quickly run into each other if spared the clippers. While they do add nice color and seem to be pretty tough, they are also much smaller in cane size, leaf size, and, of course, flower size.

Relief!

After my somewhat embarrassing call on a radio show Saturday morning revealed that the red spots are glands common on cherry trees and the local USU extension agent over Integrated Pest Management clarified that the damaged leaves are likely due to a frost when the leaves were young and tender, (in addition to commenting that the glands are quite large), I am somewhat relieved to know that I am not losing a war with pests!

Above is a close-up (yes, I also learned how to use the close-up zoom on my camera) of the new cherry tree.

Here are a few pictures of the new trees, all of which have already burst out with active buds now developing and leaves starting to show.

This is one of the peach trees. I've noticed that most of the smaller branches appear to be dead, but there is growth from the ... trunk?

This apple was planted a day or two (or three) later than the others, but as of this evening, there were even developing buds on the lateral branches.

This is by far, the most aggressive grower. One of the new buds has already grown a small branch about an inch and a half long so far!

Okay, so this isn't from any of the new plantings, but I had to show off one of the close-up images of a crabapple blossom now that I'm getting the hang of the close-up zoom focus!

Really bugging me...

Here are a couple of photos of two sweet cherry trees. Of course, the brand-new planting is already infested. The more established is the Black Tartarian semi-dwarf. The new cherry with emerging leaves is a BlackGold semi-dwarf planted about two weeks ago now.

I treated the established tree with Pyola, a canola oil with pyrethrin derived from chrysanthemum flowers. After not seeing any results, I took an affected leaf to a store for an opinion. Unfortunately, the red "part" on the stem of the leave didn't do too well in my car while I was at work. At any rate, the representative at the store didn't see any pests on the leaf, but recommended Triple Action as a fungicide, insecticide, and miticide that uses Neem oil. After a couple of days, there doesn't appear to be any change to the red "parts", and, of course, I had to treat the new tree that was just planted as well.

Is it time to drop the organic-based pesticides? None of the other (apple, crabapple, or peach) trees are affected.

Inventory

You've got to start somewhere....

In purchasing a landscaped home, the second order of business, after trying to keep everything living, is to determine what everything is. We didn't make the purchases, after all. Well, maybe some of them. Here's what we've added:

Summer 2006
*Salvia
*Dahlias
*Lilium - Painted Pixie and Black Bird
*Bleeding Heart

Fall 2006
*Red Tulips (with red and yellow appearance in spring 2007)

Spring 2007
*GrandGala Apple - semi dwarf
*Red Fuji Apple - semi dwarf
*Intrepid Peach - standard
*Burbank Elberta Peach - standard
*BlackGold Sweet Cherry - semi dwarf
*Valencia Orange - potted/indoor
*Eversweet Strawberry - everbearer
*Asiatic Lilies - lilies with all these fruit bearers? Free with order, of course!

Planting Season Unknown - existing garden residents (identification a work in progress)


Hardy Aster ?

Goldnet Japanese Honeysuckle

Lamb’s Ear?

Hardy fern?

Huge Round Bush Green leaves, late flowering? ¼ inch wide 2 inch long narrow leaves

Dogwood? Green leaves with yellow white around edge

Some type of perennial flower

Some type of shrub – 2 inch oval faded green leaves with red new growth

Deep red (black) very small shrub ¼ inch oval leaves

Buttercup bulbs – white flower with yellow cup center

Flowering cherry tree

Climbing rose (yellow)

Hidden shrub long narrow leaves, white down center

Spreading roses – pink small flowers

Bush – unknown near death

Bulbs yellow petals, orange layers - daffodil variation?

Unknown basement tree

Ivy

Forsythia?

Sort of ivy small leaves with white outline

Rose with yellow red flowers

?Fiesta flower

Climbing rose yellow flower

Laurel shrub border

Black Tartarian sweet cherry semi dwarf

Gala apple - semi dwarf

Crabapple

Golden Delicious apple - semi dwarf

Unknown tree x 3 (sandbox)

3-4 types creeping/hanging ivy shrub some purple flowers some yellow green leaves

Concord grape

Red raspberry

Strawberries - June bearing

Blue spruce x 3

Small light purple bells

Summer flowering shrub