Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
I’m not sure if these flowers are called Lilies, Lilium or Pink Perfection Lilium. All I know is the package that held the bulbs we bought from Costco a while ago said, “Lilium” on it. Also, if you do a Google Image search for any of the names I just mentioned, the same flower comes up.
Out of about 19 bulbs we planted, I would say we have about 5 plants growing. The deer ate the heads off a few, a few didn’t grow and just the other day, Laura and I were standing outside looking at one of these plants when we noticed it start to vibrate. Apparently, a mole was eating the base from below the soil. This is the second time I have witnessed this and I would say it’s rather frustrating. But, of the plants that we do have growing, some wonderful flowers have been produced.
Yesterday, I took about 25 photos of one flower. I narrowed the photos down to 6 and didn’t have the heart to go any further. The color just looks so good and the photos are pretty neat.
Here, take a look:
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Lilium – Pink Perfection #1
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Lilium – Pink Perfection #2
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Lilium – Pink Perfection #3
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Lilium – Pink Perfection #4
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Lilium – Pink Perfection #5
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Lilium – Pink Perfection #6
You’ll also notice that I started putting a watermark on each photo with the domain name of this blog. That’s for all those people out there who like to borrow my photos without permission.
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Thursday, May 7th, 2009
Yes, it’s about that time of year, folks. It’s when the majority of Daffodil flowers die off in the Northeast. I’m not sure of anywhere else, because I don’t live anywhere else. Here, I simply look out the front door.
So, what to do when Daffodil flowers die? Well, it’s time to prune (or deadhead) the flower. I am going to do my best here, because I just did a little research on the topic. There was something I needed to look up that I’ll reference later in this post.
Now, I am only talking about deadheading the dead Daffodil flower here, I am not talking about cutting down the entire plant. Here, I’ll show you some pics.
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Dead Daffodil flower heads
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Pruning dead Daffodil flower head
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Pruned Daffodil plant
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Pruned dead Daffodil heads laying on sidewalk
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Seeds in pruned Daffodil seed pod, or ovary
As you can see from the above photos, dead Daffodil flowers look pretty nasty. Even if all the advice on the internet told me not to prune these things, over here, they would get pruned. I am just not going to look at that kind of thing. As for the Daffodil plant itself, I would say they don’t look all that bad. It’s a nice looking, green bushy plant. I’ll keep them around until they start to droop.
That brings me to another topic. When do I prune down the entire Daffodil plant? Well, from what I have been reading, you are supposed to leave the entire Daffodil plant standing until it dies off naturally. It’s important for the plant leaves to soak up the sun’s rays to energize the bulbs for next year. That’s what I have been reading anyway. From personal experience, you could probably run these flowers over with the lawnmower every year for the next 20 and never get rid of them. I learned a long time ago that people just love to copy each other when giving advice on the internet without any personal experience.
So this is pretty interesting – As I was pruning off the dead heads of the Daffodils, I noticed a sack, seed pod or ovary right at the base of the dead flower. I split one of these seed pods open and noticed a bunch of tiny white seeds (as seen in the photo above). After I saw this, I said, “Hmmm. What the heck are these things?” Since I had no idea, I looked it up. Here is what I found.
Daffodils multiply in two ways: asexual cloning (bulb division) where exact copies of the flower will result, and sexually (from seed) where new, different flowers will result.
Seeds develop in the seed pod (ovary), the swelling just behind the flower petals. Most often, after bloom the seed pod swells but it is empty of seed. Occasionally, wind or insects can pollinate the flower during bloom by bringing new pollen from another flower. When this happens, the seed pod will contain one or a few seeds.
Daffodil hybridizers pollinate flowers by brushing pollen from one flower onto the stigma of another. Then the resulting seed pod can contain up to 25 seeds. Each of these will produce an entirely new plant – but the wait for a bloom for a plant grown from seed is about 5 years! Source
I though that was fascinating, so I decided to sprinkle those pruned Daffodil flower heads around where I wouldn’t mind seeing more Daffodils in the future. Hey, who knows if they will just rot or if they will actually turn into a plant someday.
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Saturday, April 18th, 2009
A few days ago, I walked outside and dug up a few “bunches” of Daffodils. They were regular Daffodils, but in bunches or clusters, meaning they consisted of about 10 or 15 individual bulbs.
I am not sure if gardeners know this or not, but Daffodils are easily divided. Each bunch is just a whole lot of bulbs stuck together by their roots. Everything is all tangled up. From the few bunches of Daffodils I dug up, I planted a whole line of bulbs all along an entire mulch bed. Sure, it doesn’t look like much right now, but come next spring, I think we’ll be getting somewhere.
Yellow Daffodil
There are only a few things you need to know about dividing Daffodils. The first thing is that you want to dig up the whole plant, without damaging the bulbs beneath the dirt. When dividing other types of plants, such as ornamental grasses, you slide your shovel right down the center of the plant. With a bulb plant like Daffodils, you don’t want to do that or you’ll damage the bulbs. Dig the whole thing up.
When you have the whole messy cluster of bulbs in your hand, shake out any excess dirt. That will make it much easier to get the bulbs apart from one another. I like to hold on to one bulb and kind of shake that one until the rest drop from that. At least you will have one free. Keep doing that and they will all eventually separate. If you dunk them in water, that helps to loosen them too.
When you have all the bulbs separated, you can plant each one where ever you want. I did this a little late this year. The best time to replant Daffodils is when you just see them starting to push through the dirt. You might not get that much out of them the first year, but they should come back in later years and continue getting fuller and fuller as they years go on.
I read yesterday that if you don’t divide your Daffodils every so often, they will stop blooming. I can see how that would happen because with all of those bulbs stuck together like that, it would be hard to get any nutrients to them after a while. Also, after the blooms die, you need to keep the green plant in tact for a few weeks to absorb the sun. I read that the sun kind of re-energizes the bulb for the next year.
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Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
This is so cool. I bought my first LED house light this afternoon.
I had a small Home Depot list going on, so I thought I would do a little shopping today. This morning, I told Laura that I was going to head up the Glastonbury to get some stuff and she informed me that the night light bulb went bad last night. We like to have a night light in the hallway to avoid falling down the stairs when it’s dark. I put that on my list and off I went.
I knew that an LED bulb was the way to go, especially for this application. Since the night light is so far away from us when we are sleeping, the light the bulb gives off doesn’t need to be necessarily “pretty.” I think LED bulbs have a long way to go in that department.
The only thing I was concerned about was whether or not the Depot had any LED night light bulbs.
When I got to the store and the bulb area, I didn’t see any of the bulbs I was interested in. I actually had a 4-pack of the regular incandescent bulbs in my hand and was ready to stand up to put them in the cart, when I saw the little LED bulbs to my right. I think the 4-pack of incandescent bulbs were $3 and change and the 2-pack of LED bulbs were about the same. When I read that the incandescent bulbs had a life of 3,000 hours each and the LED bulbs had a life of 50,000 each, the decision was a no-brainer.
The really cool thing is that each bulb only costs $.25 cents per year to use. Now, you please tell me if that’s a good deal or not. I have absolutely no idea how much it costs to run a night light. I am sure there are some hours involved here because people don’t really keep night lights on all day long. Either way, $.25 sounded good, even if it was creative marketing.
Here are some photos of the LED night light bulbs.
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Eternalite LED bulb package
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Three LEDs in the LED bulb
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LED night light giving off blue light
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Friday, March 27th, 2009
Okay, today is no doubt the nicest day of the year so far. It’s mid 60s and sunny. I can’t complain about that.
Yesterday, I had 15 yards of mulch delivered from the place down in East Hampton. I got it for $22 per yard, plus $8 for delivery (per yard). That’s $30 per yard for the cheapest stuff they had. Considering I paid $120 to have yesterday’s mulch delivered, I am considering getting a sweet little trailer. After all, I did have a trailer hitch installed on the new vehicle for a reason. What a treat it would be to drive down there and pick up mulch for $22 per yard. Either way, I got the 15 yards and still need about 5 more. I’ll have to think about this a little before I order the rest. I have a severe allergy to throwing money out the window for delivery.
The task was to mulch the small garden in the front, the stone wall garden in the front and the side garden that I just expanded. I didn’t think I was going to have enough for anything else.
It took about a half day to get those three areas done. When I was finished with them, I had about 4 yards of mulch left over. I decided to spread some around at the end of the driveway. When it rains, the runoff from the driveway erodes the ground there. It isn’t the prettiest thing. I figured that mulch was the answer. Also, I decided that I could tackle some of the back garden as well. I would say that I got about a third of that finished.
Hey look, I even took some before and after photos for you.
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Pile of Witch Hazel mulch – 15 yards
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Small garden in front before mulch covering
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Small garden in front after mulch covering
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Stone wall garden in front before mulch covering
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Stone wall garden in front after mulch covering
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Side garden before mulch covering
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Side garden after mulch covering
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Garden in back of house about a third of the way covered with mulch
Talk about weed control.
What I am trying to accomplish here is a nice base. I think that light yearly applications of mulch will keep the soil nice and black and the weeds down. If that happens, I will be happy.
Now, I need to order 5 more yards of mulch to finish up the back and then it’s off to get flower bulbs, plants and shrubs…and a hammock.
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Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
Perhaps the question is…Can I plant bulbs in the spring?
I did find a few sites online that say I can. Here is one of them. I mean, places are selling bulbs all over the area now (if you haven’t noticed, it’s spring).
Yesterday, I had to run up to Home Depot to get a few things. Bulbs were on the list, but since my better half wasn’t with me, I decided only to get some that I knew she likes…Lily of the Valley. I didn’t want to get a whole variety and totally strip out the bulb buying fun we share together every year.
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Lily of the Valley
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Lilium bulbs from Costco
I picked up three bags of Lily of the Valley for $5.98 each.
Today, during our Costco trip, I came across a whole selection of bulbs. They seemed to be priced very well, so I called my lady over. I had her pick something out and we ended up with 18 Lilium bulbs for $12.98. That’s a pretty good price compared to Home Depot, I think.
Now, from what I have been reading, I pretty much need to get outside right now and plant these things. They say that if you don’t plant bulbs in the autumn, get out there and plant them in the spring when the Daffodils are coming up. That’s now.
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Monday, March 23rd, 2009
Remember when I told you I was transplanting the Daffodil bulbs from the area along the stone wall in the back yard to the area near the driveway? I told you I was doing this because the area was just too large for a garden and I would rather simply plant grass there instead.
Well, as it turns out, we are going to have a garden in the back after all.
Laura and I have been wrestling over the idea of a new flower/veggie garden for some time. I came up with a few ideas, but the look on Laura’s face told me to keep thinking. The problem with setting up a real fenced-in vegetable garden is spacing. We have a few good areas to do this, but trying to have a combination vegetable and flower garden is getting rather difficult.
Yesterday, we decided to limit the new garden to flowers and shrubs. For the veggies, we’ll think of something else. Laura has been talking about different varieties of bulbs and some sort of a garden trellis that we can grow vines all over. For these types of ideas, the only place available is the area along the rock wall in the back yard. I guess I am going to be ordering 30 yards of mulch, instead of 15. Gee, that’s going to make for some real fun after that delivery.
I spent some time yesterday edging the area for the mulch. I will probably make the order next week. Here are some pics of what I did yesterday…
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Edged area in back yard for mulch in flower garden along stone wall
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Edged area in back yard for mulch in flower garden along stone wall
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Sunday, March 15th, 2009
Well, I think it’s almost here. Yeah, now that I said it, it’s probably going to snow next week.
What I’m talking about is Spring. If you’ve gone outside over the past few days, you might have gotten a tan. Sure, that may be exaggerating things a bit, but no one can deny sweating a little during a warm March day. I did and I don’t think I miss the sweat. I miss everything else, but definitely not the sweat.
When I woke up this morning, I looked out the window and thought it would be a great day to get a little yard work done. I know, I know, it’s a little early to start hitting the yard work, but you have to remember that I have been waiting about four months for this. If it’s over 50 degrees, I am going to be outside getting stuff done.
Today was the day that I dug up the sprouting Daffodil bulbs from the backyard and transplanted them to the new mulch bed. Well, the mulch hasn’t exactly arrived yet, so I guess I should just call it a dirt bed for now.
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Digging up the clusters of Daffodil bulbs
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Freshly dug up Daffodil bulbs – showing the roots
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Another view of Daffodil bulbs and their roots
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This is what a Daffodil bulb looks like when it’s sprouting in mid March in the northeast
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Digging a new (or larger) mulch bed
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A five gallon bucket of Daffodil bulbs
As you can see from the above photos, I decided to expand the mulch bed that I made last year. I got thinking about it and thought the old one was just too small. Also, I was sick and tired of mowing around that fruit tree. Now that the new mulch bed is dug, I could plant all sorts of stuff in there, starting with the Daffodil bulbs I dug up today. I am not a fan of small mulch beds. If you have a small mulch bed and don’t know what to do with it, give me a call and we’ll chat.
It took about a half hour to get all those Daffodil bulbs up and out of the dirt. When I first started, I dug up a big chunk of dirt and transplanted the whole thing, but as time went on, I thought it would be more efficient to grab a bucket and shake the dirt off the bulbs so they would fit inside. That way, I could just carry the bucket over when all the bulbs were dug up.
I got about five gallons worth of bulbs. I did manage to dig up a few Iris rhizomes while I was at it. Do you remember the last time I did this? If not, here, check it out. I like getting everything all dug up and put in their new spots.
You may be asking, “Jay, why are you doing this?” I would answer, “Friend, I am moving these bulbs over because I think grass would look nice up against the rear stone wall. Also, the whole area near the stone wall was full of weeds last year and I have learned that you can’t have a garden without mulch. The area in the back is way too large to cover with mulch.” How’s that? I guess I just like to consolidate.
I will tell you one thing that happened today. I got my hands all dirty. I have to say that I just love getting my hands filthy while gardening. It’s one of those things I suppose.
(Remember, if you click on a photo to view the larger version, you can click on it again to see an even larger version.)
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Sunday, October 12th, 2008
European Union Bans Incandescent Light Bulbs
The switch to energy-saving bulbs was approved by EU ministers this past week. Advocates claim that replacing the worst-performing lamps with today’s best available technology will reduce domestic energy consumption for lighting by 60 percent; equivalent to preventing 30 million tons of CO2 pollution every year.
Is Cheaper Oil A Good Thing?
It has plummeted nearly 40% in just three months, from about $147 a barrel in July to below $83 on Friday, with no obvious bottom in sight. If that sounds good, you are probably a driver who winces these days at filling your gas tank. But the downward spiral could mean trouble for oil-rich countries and for the environment.
2010 Toyota Prius Adds Muscle at Expense of Fuel Efficiency
A Toyota spokesperson said the changes were to increase the vehicle’s mass-market appeal, but with the changing economy and increased concern for the environment, it remains to be seen whether top speed will be among buyers’ concerns.
Introducing the World’s Largest Solar Powered Winery
The largest solar installation of any winery in the world is set to be built for Constellation Wines’ Gonzalez winery in Monterrey County, CA by Pacific Power Management.
Exposing the Bi-Partisan Myth of Clean Coal
There’s at least one topic the candidates in the US elections won’t be wrangling over: so-called “clean†coal. That’s because they all support it.
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Thursday, August 28th, 2008
As you may know, I have been doing a lot of work outside trying to make things look nice. A lot of sweat has gone into these projects. Things are rolling along smoothly and actually getting somewhere.
I have been visiting the local hardware store every few days to get a yard of mulch. I can fit twelve bags in the car, which is actually about a yard and a third. It’s good enough to do smaller areas. Once you start raking, mulch doesn’t go all that far.
I am up to the front sidewalk area of the house. I weeded the whole area this morning in preparation for the sidewalk lighting I purchased at Home Depot yesterday. There were already three lights out there, but two of them were out. I decided to buy three more lights and a set of bulbs. I got the Malibu “Do-it-yourself” metal lights, because they matched the ones already installed.
Malibu sidewalk light
These lights are pretty nice. They are about a foot and a half tall, made of metal, use 11 watt bulbs and are really easy to install.
Since there were already some installed, but I like to do things my own way, I decided to take them out, along with all the wire. With the 50′ of outdoor wire I bought yesterday, coupled with the existing wire, I had plenty to add three light to make a total of six.
After I did all the weeding and pulled out the wire and lighting fixtures, I assembled all the new lights. Each one took just a few minutes. I installed the lights and re-ran the wire so it accessed all of them. I changed the time on the outdoor timer and took a look. Miraculously, all of them worked. I am very excited for it to get dark tonight to I can attempt another picture. I am hoping it will come out so I can post it here. Then, you will see the pure beauty of my work.
After I showed Laura what I did, she suggested that we put in some small floodlights that aim at the house from the sidewalk, facing upward. I am sure you have seen them. There are a few houses that have those types of lights in this neighborhood and I get jealous when I see them. There is nothing worse than a naked, dark house at night time. Well, I’m sure there are some things worse than that. But still, it’s all about the lighting.
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