Bogieblog

Stunning Foliage

The trees to the north and east of the house are nearly bare (thank goodness - I've mowed leaves 4-8 times plus done some leaf blowing into the tree line 2-3 times already). I took care of all the leaves on Tuesday, and Wednesday you couldn't tell it. Oh well, it is almost over.

Anyway, the trees on the southerly side of the house are the stars now. All of these are close to the drainage ditch, so did not suffer from the last 3 months of dryness we've had.

October Glory Maple with burning bush beside it. Interestingly, the maple should be more red, but this year it decided to be different. The second pic is a close up of the maple's leaves.

October Glory Maple in the foreground with a couple of wild maples behind and to the side.

This maple was shining gold in the sunlight

The Lace Leaf Japanese maple is burgundy color during summer, but it was on fire in the sunlight

Interestingly, the Thanksgiving Cactus threw an early white bloom. There are no other buds and when this starts blooming in a month or so, the flowers will be salmon colored. This cactus started throwing one white bloom just a couple of years ago, but I don't recall it ever having done that out of sync with the rest of the blooms.

That was all during the week, then I went to Concord this weekend and between the Dick's Sporting Goods and Petsmart there were a row of stunning maples. Pictures are straight from my phone with no manipulation (and I don't use filters). The closer up one, I was nearly under the tree. Taken at 9:35am, so the sun was still fairly low in the sky, but strong.

The season is almost over and then we'll be wishing for snow to relieve the brown of dead lawns and bare trees.

Pictures week of 10/06/2024

The Burgandy Belle maple was showy this week

Rainey being silly. She had been in my lap while reading. I use the pillow for back support so it was nice and warm.

Meanwhile, Spot was in a "cave" in the cat tree

 

Cozied Up

I had a few things to button up before winter gets going, and I accomplished everything I need to at this time

The snowblower was taken out of the shed, filled with gas (new gas I had just gotten that day), started, and run for a couple of minutes before placing in the garage.

I dug the the snow shovels out of the shed, chased the spider off of one of them, then siliconed them as well as parts of the snow blower

Got the P43 all ready to run - and have been running it at night while using the mini split during the day. Spot approves

Since the "sideways error" has not resolved itself (I was hoping it was just a temporary thing), I jumped thru a bunch of hoops to report the issue. On the bright side, not a single picture refused to load the first time (which issues has been going on for a seriously long time). Guess you all will just have to turn you monitors :)

And, while typing that last sentence, my keyboard batteries died - so I had to replace them so it didn't end at "have to". Jeeze, the things I go thru for ya'll.

Getting More for Fall Colors

Although we have had fairly mild weather, the plants know what is coming and work to their own internal clocks. The garden pictures are from last Sunday:

Giant Autumn Crocus

Burgundy Belle maple is starting to turn

Husker red pentemmon gets the most amazingly bright red foliage (it is purplish during growing season)

Autumn fire sedum

Uggh, new things are happening with Typepad: No matter how I save the pictures on my hard drive, they are now loaded in an off orientation. And when I try to use Typepad's picture manipulator, it gives me an "ImageProxy HTTP error: Unknown ImageProxy error". So, they are all sideways. I guess I should be grateful that I managed to get them uploaded at all.

Finishing Along the Fenceline

Friday and Saturday I worked on finishing up the work around the fence that I had moved.

I moved all the plants to inside the fence on Friday. I realized that the reason I had placed the plants there in the corner to begin with was mowing that inside corner. Sure, I could weed wack it, but I like mowing a whole lot more than weed wacking. I usually only use the weed wacker 3 times a year and leaving that corner uncovered would mean I'd have to do it more often.

When I say moving the plants, there was a whole lot more work than that. I dug out all the grass/weeds , transferred the hard ground coverings, then placed the plants there. It had rained the night before (first time in weeks), so pulling up the grass wasn't too bad. I did repurpose the grass to low spots and areas that had gone bare from ants.

I had a super hard time finding sod to fill things in. Although I had just seen sod for sale at BBS the week before I moved the fence, there was none to be found the day after I moved it. That is not exactly true, I could order a full pallet and pay delivery charges, but no one had individual rolls (I certainly didn't need a pallet). One thing I found out was that most landscaping companies and landscape supply stores only carry hardscape materials. Sod is a special order - and again, they would only order by the pallet. Who knew? I tried appealing to locals on some of the FB pages to see if anyone had a few rolls left from a recent landscape job. But I had no luck.

I finally found Tim's Turf and Landscaping Material in Litchfield, NH that I could get sod from. I contacted them on Thursday and they were happy to sell me 10 rolls (2' x 4.5' each) to be picked up on Saturday. Nice guys when I showed up. Someone even called while I was there looking for a similar amount :)

Picking up the sod took a couple of hours and then I got straight to work. Pictures are of the basic laying of the pieces, I also filled in the outside edges and the buttressed edges with a couple of bags of yard soil.

I had also manage to procure a "Heavy Duty Mast to Mast Mount Bracket Kit" to better clamp the fence panel to the inside post. The hardware is rounded and fit the OD of the larger post perfectly. I did have to buy a couple of extra nuts to secure the V-jaw plates. I am unsure why the kit doesn't come with those. Although the picture clearly shows only 2 nuts, I obviously didn't pay attention to that and expected 6 nuts for each clamp assembly.

 

Oh well, the local hardware store was able to help me out so it all worked out. I replaced the much wider square U-bolt that I had bought locally as a temporary fix as well as putting a mast mount bracket down lower.

The sod is in and the gate panel secured with well fitting brackets so it was a productive couple of days.

Making the Backyard Smaller

When I originally moved here and fenced in the backyard, I had to install it so the ramp wouldn't be blocked in. That meant that an additional 10' of fence stuck out on the north side of the house. It mad for interesting mowing and snow blowing along that north side. picture is from a couple of years ago:

Since removing the ramp last fall, I've wanted to remove that extra 10' so the gate would be more protected from the snow (for convenience on my part), make mowing easier, and as a bonus, improve aesthetics from the front side of the house.

One of my hesitations was that the 10' panel between the gate and corner of the house, was doing the major work of keeping the north side fence stable. Once I removed that section, I would have to find another way for stabilization.

Last weekend was the time to do something. On Saturday, after mowing that area, I removed the excess panels and put them at the side of the road for someone to claim (they didn't last long). Those panels were old and beat, although still usable. I still have a couple of panels behind the shed in case I need to replace any down the road.

First picture is before I moved the panel from the corner of the house. It is still supporting the gate panel that was moved inward. Although it is hard to see that extra panel, you can see the far end of it as it appears as a weird vertical line in the top half of the gate.

Then I moved the T-post, pounding it in 2' with a sledge hammer. Oh, and I forgot that I strated the day by putting in stone blocks beneath where the gate would be

Potted plant are now outside the fenced in area

Although the T-post would hold the fence, the end of the gate was wobbly and it would not survive the hits from snow sliding off the roof. After researching online, I found that attaching that corner to the house was strongly discouraged. So Sunday, I trecked up to Concord and got a couple of posts.

Although the work did not go as smoothly as I'd like, I pounded in a support post just to the inside of the corner, then pounded in that extra T-post (standing a couple of feet from the corner in the pic with the ladder) on the outside of the corner (which you can't see in the following picture). The T-post has 3 clamps attached to the gate post.

I need to get appropriate clamps for the post that can be seen in the picture - right now it is just what I was able to obtain at the local hardware store since the other fence clamps that I have are too small. But, even the way it stands now, it is very stable and solid.

Right now I am debating as to whether to move all the potted plants back to the inside of the fence (in that same corner), or whether to line them up along the outside. Either way I'll need to finish off in that area as well as at the gate with some sod - hopefully there is still some around at the BBS.

 

If I didn't get all 3 error messages (unsupported file format (for a JPEG), socket error, timeout - after 0.5 seconds) while uploading pictures (not at the same time, or on the same picture mind you), I would not know what to do with myself.

Rain is a Good Thing Here

Updated with pictures 8/12/2024

Finally got a good amount of rain, so my dry spell is over for now. I got about 4" of rain spread out thru last week, so no flooding issues. Even the remnants of Debby only put down about an inch since I was on the west side.

I was able to mow Thursday evening, after the first 3" of rain, but before Debby hit. I still didn't have to mow the part between the house and the rhodies. That section also extended down to between the driveway and the rhodies (except a couple of tall weeds), but I did mow everything else. That was the first time since July 2 - so 37 days (except the drainage ditch which was mowed once between those dates).

The Clethra (Summer sweet) busted the blooms out after most of the rains and the air is full of its sweet scent. Various insects are enjoying the blooms. I've seen bumble bees, honey bees, blue mud wasps, and a bunch of others, including this beauty.

Well, okay then - I can't upload pictures again, so I'll try again later. I also need to upload my first Rose of Sharon bloom since I planted them fall of 2020.

RoH - the bud apparently opened during some of the pouring rain, so isn't in the best form. But, It is the first flower from either shrub since planted, so wanted to document it

More Pics from the Weekend

Now that Typepad consents to actually grabbing pictures, here are a few more from last weekend

Joe Pye weed in the drainage ditch to the south. Next picture there are at least 3 bees, maybe more

 

The shade garden, which I allowed to go wild. the bright pink is tall phlox, the blue is Endless Summer hydrangea and the tree hydrangea in the background is starting to bloom

 

Butterfly joined me while I was pulling laundry off the line

This picture of Timothy grass is from about 10 days ago. It is growing in the southern ditch near the Joe Pye weed (you can see JPW starting to bloom in the background)

I don't think I published any pictures of the Endless Summer blooms (just that group photo up top), so here are some from a couple of weeks ago

Have a great week everyone!

Do I Get to Name It?

Yesterday I noticed and extremely late day lily over by the front door. That entire bed is covered by the regular orange ditch lilies, and all of them had gone by and dropped all the old flowers a couple of weeks ago, so it really stuck out. Since I rarely use the front door, I decided to go take a look and found this - which must be a natural hybrid since I didn't plant it.

Pictures of what I believe the parent lilies were for reference (sorry, you don't get a pic of the orange ditch lily - because, Typepad). With the ruffling of the petals on the above lily, and the downward curl of the petals like a ditch lily does (whereas the petals on the yellow are not curled down), I believe it is a cross between the ditch lily and the yellow lily.

Well, Typepad won't let me load anymore pictures (it has taken me 10 minutes to get this far (and this is an even different issue than I've had in the past - it doesn't even try to grab th pictures at all or give me any errors). Since pictures is what this post is all about, I guess you don't get to see them until such time as Typepad decides to play nicely.

(A bit later) - the standard ditch lily that I believe is the other half of paternity of the flower at the very top.

Joe Pye weed is flowering at the culvert on the south side of the yard. I planted that in the shade garden when I first put it in, then I think I forgot about it and kept pulling it (when I used to try to keep control of that area) - so it decided to grow in the ditch. And, apparently I exhausted Typepad, because it won't let me do more pictures. I swear, if I weren't so lazy, I would find another host.

Was it 4th of July or Labor Day?

Thursday was supposed to be the coolest day left and the humidity starting to build again so I decided to do some yard work. First I weed wacked, then I took down a couple of 15' saplings and cut them up for taking them to the brush pile at the dump.

After that I watered the south side garden and perused the flower offerings. To start with are things that just started flowering. The Yucca spike is taller than I am

The next flowers were already starting to bloom in pictures I posted previously, but the Black Eyed Suzie's in the driveway garden have really stepped up their game now that the Butterfly Weed is going by. This picture is the lowest tier of that garden, but they are also abundant in the other two tiers.

The standard orange lily above is in the shrub garden and mostly shaded, so it got a later start than the others.

I noticed in the roadside garden that the tall phlox are setting up buds, so those should be coming along in the nest week or so.