PRUNING THE VINE - advice taken!

Taking crowd sourced advice from my readers here and on Facebook I liberally pruned our grape vine last night.  What a thrill!

(Summer 2012)

No, literally, I mean it. I love pruning.

  While I had already started to remove some of the thicker vines this is as pretty decent "before" photo.  

Getting rid of the dead parts that could bring disease is important and afterwards it looks lighter and cleaner.

It should move it from being somewhat heavy and oppressing to looking like a floating garden in the sky.

Do not worry, the biggest healthiest vine is actually in the foreground, it has just not leaved out yet; this will get greener than it looks. I promise.

Last summer it looked like there were lots of healthy vines but this spring it became apparent that the biggest thickest ones were dead. It also turns out I was literally able to "push" the remaining vines over the top and bring them further out above the seating area and have them less sitting on top of the wall.

The walls do not need to be vine covered as long as the vines create a roof of sorts over the seating area.  Next: dig up all of that nasty Creeping Bellflower and plant some Morning Glory seeds. 

Summer 2012

Spring 2013

Most of what was there was dead and is gone but a fair number of healthy vines remain.  It will be absolutely fascinating to watch things progress. 

PRUNING THE VINE - advice required!

I am once again reaching out for a crowdsourced solution.  Last time I took your collective advice and left the plants where they are in the Alpine garden. 

This time I need help with one of the key features of the yard: the Cantina

In particular the glorious grape vine. How do I prune it? 

Instructions on pruning a grapevine all seem to be designed to maximize production for wineries, which is not necessarily what I want to achieve here. 

In fact, I want bushy, even at the expense of grapes.

Even still, a serious pruning is in order.

Like the rest here it has not been touched in years and my natural inclination is to first cut off all of the dead stuff, and therein lies the problem - there is a LOT of dead stuff. So much so that I worry it plays the role of lattice for the overhanging vines. 

If I cut too much back will it drape down? 

I do not care that it will be more more open to the sky, it is private here and it will fill in eventually and we will learn how we prefer it.

So the question is, how much of the dead stuff can I cut back? Are there any limits? Shall I proceed cautiously and take off as much as I can and still leave a skeleton framework of support?

That is my plan for now but any and all advice is welcome.

LILAC TREE FOLLOWING - part 3

This is the third post about this Lilac tree. Following a tree through the seasons I got from Treeblogging.com

When we bought our home in August it looked like a shrub. Rather bushy, not much personality.

October when we moved in I could see why. It was in need of a serious pruning and had been improperly pruned in the past, trunks cut a few feet up resulting in lots of suckers giving it its overgrown, shrub-like look.

In January we had some mild days, not many, but one was all I needed. 

So I got to work with my secateurs.

A good start.

There, tidier already.

Now that the snow around its base has receded I was out at it again yesterday, this time with a handsaw. 

 The bigger trunks are slow by hand but it is good exercise and I am eager to be outside after a long winter.  A trunk-per-weekend for the next few weeks will have a it ready for spring blooming.

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Part 1

Part 2

BIRDFEEDER BATTLE

I should stop calling my feeders "bird feeders".  

They are equal parts squirrel and rabbit feeders.

Squirrels eat bulbs and tip the feeders so I do not love that they dine on my dime.

Bunnies are cute and they just hang out below the feeders, so I do not mind, but check in with me in the spring when tender new shoots will make a delicious bunny buffett and see how I feel about them then.

In an effort to make the feeders less accessible to the squirrels I removed a lot of the lower dead branches close to the feeders.  I am probably kidding myself that it is the solution since squirrels can launch themselves through the air a fair distance, but I could not come home to a spilled feeder one more time with our trying something.

Despite having lots of trees I do not have too many places for feeders, so they are both on the same tall spruce in the backyard at the moment.

Good exercise and to be honest perhaps I am proving a point that gardening does not have to stop because of the cold weather.

New and improved?

While I hope to have put a dent in the squirrels' use, the bunnies do not care how inaccessible the feeders are.  This little guy was back grazing the next day. 

The remaining lower branches are scraggly with some greenery that I have been using for my urns and centerpieces but come a warmer day they too will come down leaving it a little tidier and less shady under this tree

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Sharing with Nature Notes

IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

There is no time like the present, so today when refilling the bird feeders I took the opportunity to try and set them up in a less squirrel friendly way.  I just go through the seed too fast when they tip it over; the feeders are meant to be a bird feeders, not bird, squirrel, bunny feeders (the bunnies love to scavenge beneath). 

It involved pruning back a bunch of the dead branches at the base of the tall spruce in the back.   Who says you can not garden in the winter?

I was outside at a balmy -9 for a few hours (before and after pics to follow another day) and I just want to state for the record what a nice way it was to spend the afternoon outside in Winnipeg, in January. 

PRIORITY PRUNING

When we first moved in on October 15th I knew I had little time and big goals...and as the days shortened so did my list, but the days somehow moved faster and with the possibility of snow in November more real than it had been for me in 15 years I let it define my priorities.  

What could I not do after the snow fell?

Planting bulbs - once the money is spent on them it is a crying shame to not get them in the ground and I think we can all admit to having made that mistake.

Second on the list was my lasagna gardens - a big undertaking for my first fall - which I finished just in the nick of time.

Then of course there was weeding, the sooner I got rid of those things and their seed pods, the better.

BEFORE

Somewhere down the list was pruning the dead branches off the large fir trees, particularly the one on the street since it is so public.  But one day when there were still bulbs to plant, gardens to build and weeds to pull I got out the ladder and saw, climbed pretty high (but not foolishly high, I hope) and rid the front tree of its lower dead limbs.

While it technically could have waited until after the snow, or even until the spring, they just seemed so obvious. Something I would notice right away elsewhere.  A symbol.

So down they came.

AFTER

And now when I look out at the beautiful snow covered yard?

I am very glad I made the time.
While having a plan and sticking to it is generally a great idea, sometimes you just have to strike when the spirit moves you.

A TREE FOLLOWING - north

I discovered a site that aggregates blog content about trees.
TreeBlogging.com
Amazing.  I love trees.


One of the things that I found is that people "follow trees" by sharing photos of a tree throughout the year.  Interesting idea, and today is the first of a few of these posts that I am going to do this year as I get to know my new property and its trees.

This is the first one I am going to document because it is in desperate need of a trim.  

It looks like a very bushy shrub with some decent sized trees in the middle but should really be just a few of the bigger trees.  In fact it should probably just be one tree, but I like a clumping look.

I do not even know what kind of tree it is, but nonetheless I can tell it needs some pruning and have an idea on how I think it should look.   

As soon as I know what it is I will share, or if you know, fill me in.

Soon I will take my secateurs and cut back the smallest stuff and then share another photo.

Then I will get the loppers from the cottage and cut back the next size, and share another photo.

And then I will take out my hand saw and get rid of a few of the bigger trees, and share a photo.

It will be an interesting project, one that I can actually do in the winter and I look forward to sharing and getting feedback.

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Sharing with Outdoor Wednesday

SPRUCE AND MOSS GARDEN - part 1

At the Manitoba cottage there has been a space between the screened porch and the road that has been empty of trees ever since a very large evergreen died a few years ago.  

Empty space?

An invitation!

 Over the years Spruce have sprouted up too close to the cottage to let them grow to any significant height.

So once again here I am doing what served me so well landscaping the Ontario cottage                                   - moving around existing plants.

Is it a conundrum that I want my natural looking yard to be "perfect"?  Not at all, I want each tree to have a good chance to grow and be healthy so when they are not growing in an optimal spot and an optimal spot is empty...well, wouldn't you do the same?

Step one was to prune the dead lower branches getting rid of the 'scraggly' look on the surrounding trees.

 I just love pruning; removing  the dead stuff leaves it looking that much cleaner. And by cleaner, I mean I got rid of that pile later that same day.

I often forget to take 'before" pictures before I start working, and this was once again the case here, so I have highlighted the trees I added before taking the shot to illustrate how barren it was to begin with.

Seedlings at the front, saplings further on and the biggest trees I can reasonably transplant with my own 2 hands and a spade (about 4 feet tall), at the back toward the road.  A nice steady progression which should look natural to the untrained eye but in fact would be a grand coincidence were it to happen naturally.

While 8 trees was not a lot for one day considering their size, I was just getting warmed up with what I actually wanted the spot to look like. 

With the season coming to a close I targeted the area above to be included and filled with trees this year.  And the area highlighted below to follow next year.

How far did I get before the end of year?

Stay tuned.

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Sharing with Fertilizer Friday