May 27 2011 Blue Skies, Nothing But Blue Skies.....

The sun is here again!!  Yesterday after work, I was able to plant the cherry tree cutting that grew roots and take up the crabapple trees.  I got a general fertilizer from our local Nitron Industries store as well as the paramagnetic rock.  I used these when planting the cherry tree and in replanting one of the crabapples. The other crabapple snapped in the winds earlier this week. I'll probably end up using it for mulch.

I planted the two passionflower vines finally. I don't have the trellis built yet, but I know what I want to do. The caterpillar disappeared.

I'm still working on that online landscape design class through our local library. This is what I wrote for one of our assignments which included drawing up a plan:

"Before I bought the house, I'd had the full acre surveyed.  I used this professional survey as the background for tracing paper. Using this method, I mapped out all the existing trees. I had several "free" Arbor Day trees I wanted to put in, so I read up on how large they are expected to get. I evaluated the available spaces, keeping in mind areas we wanted open for company to be able to park and just open yard space to enjoy.  I was able to find a few areas to plant my trees. I thought about the colors the trees would offer and what times of the year those might change. This allowed me to plan where to plant a witchazel, a cherry, a redbud, and a crabapple. I also found spots for lavender to spread. I thought about what kind of trellising to use for my passionflower vine and put in on the plan. The trellis is pretty much longer than it is wide, sort of a short, shallow fence that parallels the driveway.

Before I started planting trees, I also called the 811 number our state has for finding the utility lines and was able to include those in the plan so I could avoid planting trees on or too near them.  It's been an interesting but fun experience."

Technically, David helped me quite a bit with this.  And the 811 number did NOT help me much but I figured out where the utility lines were anyway (the sunken earth lines gave it away).