Dayton "Dirt" - November 7, 2014

While the weather has been beautiful earlier this week more outside work has been accomplished that would normally have been performed in late winter or spring.

The flower bulb planting is finally done with the addition of a new variety of the genus called Allium that is the genus of the onion family. Allium Globemaster is the bulb and quite the price tag to go along with it. Only a total of 18 of the alliums were added to the spring display as the bulbs wholesale cost was a whopping $4.00 each before shipping. Globemaster Allium sports a round onion-like flower on top of a tall flower stalk in late May or early June with the globe-like lavender flower the size of a cantalope or even a soccer ball. It’s a long seven month wait but hopefully the fantastic display will help mitigate the pain of the price tag.

The branch cutting for grave blankets is going a little slower than desirable because of the quality of branches of scotch pine seems to be declining as fewer and fewer scotch pine have been grown for Christmas trees beginning 15 years ago and more. While scotch pine has good needle retention once cut, the favorites are the firs and most notably the fraser fir with its classic “christmas tree” shape and soft dark green needles. Unfortunately, fraser firs are more fussy about the soil and other factors of the site that might affect their growth as compared to Scotch pine.

White pine too has fallen out of fashion in that the long needled trees have quite the limber branches when trimmed heavily for sale as a cut tree. The extra long needles of the five needled pine and the limber branches can make decorating the tree difficult especially if the ornaments are heavy.

Next week starts the cutting of spruce branches for the larger grave blankets as the spruce needles tend to shed more quickly than pine especially if they are cut too early.

The last mowing of the lawn is here which also goes for the last fertilizing of the lawn and trees and shrubs. November is actually a busy gardening month with “putting everything to bed” for winter but also planning for the rebirth of a really not too distant spring.

Tom