Celebrating Arbor Day early
Apr. 16th, 2009 06:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayfurrYesterday we put around 30 northern bayberry (Myrica pensylvanica) and 30 winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata) in the ground on our lawn.
We got them from the New Hampshire state nursery via UPS -- we've gotten lots of seedlings from there over the years and generally they're thriving. In a nutshell, we didn't want to have to mow our three acres of lawn, so between a large wildflower garden and big stretches of European mountain ash (Sorbus aucuparia), dogwood (Cornus alternifolia, Cornus racemosa, Cornus sericea, Cornus amomum, and Cornus cericea), black walnut (Juglans nigra) and European high-bush cranberry (Viburnum opulus) we've reduced the area we have to mow considerably. We also put some forsythia in the ground a couple of years ago but I have absolutely no idea what specific species we wound up with. Five of eight plants made it and are doing very well. Off to one side we have a little grove of completely random trees that we don't have any ID for at all -- they were sent to us free by the Arbor Day Foundation a few years ago and we shrugged and planted them and lost our records of what they were supposed to be almost immediately. Sometime we'll have to go around taking photos and take the photos to an expert and see if they can tell us what we've got. :)
We had some problems with borers attacking the mountain ash but that stopped when we stopped mulching their bases with red cedar bark mulch. We don't know if the borers came in the mulch or they just found it a happy breeding ground. We also had some problems for a few years with something that skeletonized the European high-bush cranberry and had to do some seriously non-eco-friendly chemical warfare but last year we did no spraying at all and the plants grew like crazy and bore lots of bright red berries. Carole thinks that the periodic infestations of tent caterpillars were simply going through a cycle and last year we just got lucky.
A lot of what we've planted is meant to a) look nice, and b) produce lots of winter-fast berries for the local critters to eat. Some of the trees are seven years along now and they're finally starting to do some actual berry production. It'll probably be a few more years before we see much from the dogwood and of course, it's anyone's guess how many of the bayberry and winterberry holly make it and bear fruit. But it's nice to see them in the ground anyway: I remember when we had first planted the European high-bush cranberry and European mountain ash, and look at 'em now!
So anyway: we know Arbor Day isn't until April 24, but hey, we did our planting early, getting everything planted the day the big brown packs showed up in the UPS truck just like the New Hampshire state nursery said to. So sue us. :P
We got them from the New Hampshire state nursery via UPS -- we've gotten lots of seedlings from there over the years and generally they're thriving. In a nutshell, we didn't want to have to mow our three acres of lawn, so between a large wildflower garden and big stretches of European mountain ash (Sorbus aucuparia), dogwood (Cornus alternifolia, Cornus racemosa, Cornus sericea, Cornus amomum, and Cornus cericea), black walnut (Juglans nigra) and European high-bush cranberry (Viburnum opulus) we've reduced the area we have to mow considerably. We also put some forsythia in the ground a couple of years ago but I have absolutely no idea what specific species we wound up with. Five of eight plants made it and are doing very well. Off to one side we have a little grove of completely random trees that we don't have any ID for at all -- they were sent to us free by the Arbor Day Foundation a few years ago and we shrugged and planted them and lost our records of what they were supposed to be almost immediately. Sometime we'll have to go around taking photos and take the photos to an expert and see if they can tell us what we've got. :)
We had some problems with borers attacking the mountain ash but that stopped when we stopped mulching their bases with red cedar bark mulch. We don't know if the borers came in the mulch or they just found it a happy breeding ground. We also had some problems for a few years with something that skeletonized the European high-bush cranberry and had to do some seriously non-eco-friendly chemical warfare but last year we did no spraying at all and the plants grew like crazy and bore lots of bright red berries. Carole thinks that the periodic infestations of tent caterpillars were simply going through a cycle and last year we just got lucky.
A lot of what we've planted is meant to a) look nice, and b) produce lots of winter-fast berries for the local critters to eat. Some of the trees are seven years along now and they're finally starting to do some actual berry production. It'll probably be a few more years before we see much from the dogwood and of course, it's anyone's guess how many of the bayberry and winterberry holly make it and bear fruit. But it's nice to see them in the ground anyway: I remember when we had first planted the European high-bush cranberry and European mountain ash, and look at 'em now!
So anyway: we know Arbor Day isn't until April 24, but hey, we did our planting early, getting everything planted the day the big brown packs showed up in the UPS truck just like the New Hampshire state nursery said to. So sue us. :P
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Date: 2009-04-17 05:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-17 12:51 pm (UTC)