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Ethel Duath
Half-elven
Jul 22 2015, 2:20am
Post #26 of 94
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of you, for sure!
Such fun to see the pictures!
You may have scores of drooling TORnfolk checking their Palantirs and climbing Amon Hen to try to find your garden . . .  
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Ethel Duath
Half-elven
Jul 22 2015, 7:02pm
Post #28 of 94
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Here is the Official Monument at the corner of the Tolkienia National Orchard, with one of your prize apple depicted on the pinnacle.
Salary will be paid at the rate of 2 pecks of crab apples per month, except in the winter, where 16 jars of Mulberry preserves will be delivered bi-monthly.
Your official installation will take place as soon as Daniel has time to design your Official Hat.
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Jul 22 2015, 10:15pm
Post #29 of 94
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Brings back memories of Sam plunking Bill Ferny on the nose with one of those - the "Waste of a Good Apple" memorial! 
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Brethil
Half-elven
Jul 22 2015, 10:30pm
Post #30 of 94
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Proud I is, Mayor! And I covet an official hat!
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Hopefully, as in Jack to Barbossa: A Really BIG one.
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Kim
Valinor
Jul 23 2015, 12:52am
Post #32 of 94
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She keeps mumbling something about being able to fit in just one more tree...
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Brethil
Half-elven
Jul 23 2015, 2:11am
Post #33 of 94
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Ha. Haha.
I'm working on fitting five more, thank you very much. If I could just get the sleeves of htis funny jacket loosened up, I'd give you all the details.
(This post was edited by Brethil on Jul 23 2015, 2:13am)
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Brethil
Half-elven
Jul 23 2015, 2:13am
Post #34 of 94
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I dunno...is my Lawn Guyhland accent that recognizable?
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Prolly. 
BTW, did I hear you mention mulch?
(This post was edited by Brethil on Jul 23 2015, 2:13am)
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Dame Ioreth
Tol Eressea
Jul 23 2015, 11:33am
Post #35 of 94
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Recipe please? 
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Dame Ioreth
Tol Eressea
Jul 23 2015, 11:49am
Post #36 of 94
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Right now in my head and on paper.
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I found some good sales on bulbs that will be delivered later in thx year. I also await my visit with the garden fairy at a special time in the fall. I hope she is still able to see me. I heard she's been tied up recently ... 
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Ilmatar
Rohan
Jul 23 2015, 8:02pm
Post #37 of 94
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Echoing Brethil: You did ask...
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Ahem. 
* Edible:
Three old apple trees (unidentified), two young ones that got eaten by hares last winter but have recovered and might grow into "apple bushes" (unidentified), and two 3-yr-old apple saplings (of different local breeds).
Rhubarb.
Three different breeds of black currants, two red currants, one pink currant.
Raspberry.
Two varieties of gooseberry bushes.
Wild strawberry and blueberry.
Basil (indoors).
* Pretties (I had a lot of educational fun checking out all the names in English...  ):
Five varieties of old roses (some of them local/national varieties).
Firelilies, daylilies and martagon lily.
Two small peonies.
Lilacs, Snow-in-Summer, tulips, irises, hostas, foxgloves, dwarf periwinkle, cranesbill, poppies, heartleaf bergenia, giant bellflower, peach-leaved bellflower, hop, thicket creeper, creeping jenny, alpine clematis, aruncus, ninebark, and this plant that has way too many names in English for me to choose from...
* On the wild side, but welcome and "nurtured" (saved from weeding or mowing) on certain areas - bees, bumblebees and butterflies like many of these:
Daisy, four kinds of clovers, tufted vetch, bird's-foot trefoil, bird's-eye speedwell, melancholy thistle and marsh thistle, forget-me-not, common self-heal, lady's mantle, and many I don't know the name of.
* Trees (some young, some full grown): birches, aspens, oaks, maples, junipers, rowans, firs.
* Also growing  invasive species (already here when we moved, like many others in this post...) - pretty enough but must be kept under control:
Lupines, giant knotweed, bindweed.
(In dreams and plans: strawberries, cherries, pears, peas, carrots, potatoes, herbs, mushrooms, all kinds of flowers, rhododendron etc...)
Sorry for too many details, I got carried away...
(This post was edited by Ilmatar on Jul 23 2015, 8:05pm)
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Ethel Duath
Half-elven
Jul 23 2015, 10:55pm
Post #38 of 94
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I think as this is a stone apple,
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throwing it at anyone might be a challenge. I wonder, though . . . could this be the Tolkienian Version of the Stone of Erech?
The Stone of Brethil--the symbol for all those who promised to come help pick, and were promised a share of the goodies, but must now forever languish outside the fence. 
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Ethel Duath
Half-elven
Jul 23 2015, 11:00pm
Post #39 of 94
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I love the "naturalized" version you've got there. I love having tons of flowers around, but after getting a batch of City Compost, all sorts of fungus now "blooms" here so there are lots of things I'd love to grow that I can't
Love the flower in that link!
It sounds like you're enjoying the mysteries you inherited from the former owners.
I'd love to have a property like that, but I do enjoy what I have, since I"m lucky to live on a double block on the corner.
Send us some pics of your apples when they're ripe. I bet Brethel could identify them (or maybe Darkstone too).
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Brethil
Half-elven
Jul 23 2015, 11:48pm
Post #40 of 94
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Hah my dear, we both tend to get carried away!
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Lovely to see a comprehensive list. And apple bushes are awesome: pedestrian orcharding makes sense on so many levels.
I noticed a gang of black longhorn bees having a sleepover underneath one of my coneflowers. I think they can get nectar from the base of the flower; and it looks like 5 of them ate 'til they were full, then all curled up and slept under the flower for the night. SO awesome. I tried to get a picture but didn't want to disturb them. Tons of bees on my oregano that I let flower. Love all the bees, spotting different types.
Weather wise, what is your usual growing season Ilmatar?
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Arandiel
Grey Havens
Jul 24 2015, 6:30am
Post #43 of 94
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I chose flowers, veggies, trees, indoors and other
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weeds being the 'other', sadly. Bindweed is evil, evil stuff. 
Big veggie garden, currently home to flowering onions, flowering carrots, herbs, unproductive grape, gooseberry that jettisoned all its berries in a sudden temperature swing this spring, and raspberries that are taking the year off from setting fruit in protest of the horrid weather we've had the past two years - but next year should be glorious for them, as they fruit on second-year canes. Oh, and Marjorie the Compost Heap. She's a reliable font of wisdom and soil amendments.
We just had to cut down the cherry tree - last November's sudden freeze was the death knell that followed last summer's bumper crop swan-song. My Hobbit (son) has a one-year-old apple in his room that he wants to plant out (he has a fondness for sprouting seeds - lemon, roses, avocado - but the apple is the one that's survived). And we have five other big trees, plus my elderberry. Our lawns are buffalo grass (warm-season, native to our area) and we have lots of native and water-wise flowering plants, especially in the front yard. Columbine (our state flower), roses, ice plant, daisies, my mom's hydrangea, peonies, bell flowers, hostas, lamium, Jacob's ladder, spiderwort, various grasses, pulmonaria, penstemon, lady's mantle, coral bells, yarrow, clematis, day lilies, I'm probably forgetting some. Like tulips, crocuses and hyacinths...
Indoors, well, it's a jungle. I can't help it. Ferns, philodendron, ficuses, Norfolk Island pine, shamrocks, English ivy, Swedish ivy, spider plants, African violets, Christmas cactuses, ponytail palm, aloe veras, jades, hoya, lipstick plant, an epiphyllium of truly Seussian proportions. Some are my mom's, some are my kids', but I have to claim responsibility for many of them.
The secret to indoor plants is finding the Goldilocks zone for light and water - not too much (the more usual problem), not too little (rarer, but it can happen). But even more than that, find a garden center you can trust - preferably someone who grows the plants locally and keeps a clean, minimally-buggy greenhouse. Then ask them how to keep the plants healthy because they obviously know what they're doing!
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Brethil
Half-elven
Jul 24 2015, 3:48pm
Post #44 of 94
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Sympathies on your lost cherry, Arandiel. I lost a tree to the late freeze we had - multigraft plum. It was in full bloom and got zapped right to the cambium when we fell to 29f. In almost MAY (!). Huh?????
I have a WhiteGold cherry on dwarfing rootstock (G5) I on order for spring. Self fertile sweet cherry, if you are looking for a replacement; so is its sister BlackGold.
Love that the kids get in on the action. Mine only cares about planes.
Kudos to your leafy indoors, great air filters! I'm not great with indoor plants, I confess. I have a peace lily that is doing well right now, but I hesitate to get more. Having cats for many years they would chew everything to death, so I'm inexperienced with something actually surviving inside.
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Ilmatar
Rohan
Jul 24 2015, 8:40pm
Post #45 of 94
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The garden/yard is half wild :) and I like it that way. There are places that are more "cultivated" and others that are pretty much left to their own devices.
I have never heard of City Compost before and Googled it - does it mean that the city you live in offers you compost you can go and pick up? Over here we just buy our compost in plastic sacks from gardening stores. Sorry to hear about the fungus. 
We moved here last winter - it's a small farm from the 1950s, so there are decades worth of various plants - and you are right, from early spring on it has been a gardener's adventure to step out every day and see what new might have emerged somewhere!
The rhubarb I'm especially proud of, as I'm an amateur gardener... It is a replanted section of the huge one there was in our old place. I dug up a part of it last autumn, kept it alive over winter in an outbuilding and planted in spring. I'm so happy it's doing well here.
Thanks for the idea, I will send some apple pics later. But they might prove a challenge as I suspect that since they are about as old as the house, they are probably some of the old Finnish varieties (below in bloom).
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Ilmatar
Rohan
Jul 24 2015, 8:56pm
Post #46 of 94
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It's so easy to get carried away...
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...And fun so I hope it doesn't matter...
The list was not comprehensive after all: I had forgotten crocus, lily-of-the-valley, cowslip, columbines... Still forgetting something I'm sure.
The bees' sleepover under a coneflower sounds lovely! I have tried taking pictures of different types of bees and bumblebees (and butterflies, beetles and caterpillars...). Your oregano reminded me of the mint that grew at our old place - bumblebees and butterflies used to love it! I must plant some here as well - and after re-reading your previous post, I think I'd like some hyssop too, for bees. Here are five bumblebees and a peacock butterfly enjoying the mint.
Our growing season is usually from early May to late August. Apples are not nearly ripe yet, but in the meantime I should go to the woods and look for mushrooms, blueberries and (soon) lingonberries...
P.S. Of course we can also make our own compost - just bought a composter!
(This post was edited by Ilmatar on Jul 24 2015, 9:05pm)
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Brethil
Half-elven
Jul 24 2015, 8:58pm
Post #47 of 94
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And a varied landscape is really the best, versus neat monoculture. Better pollination, less chance for pests to get established. You are clearly in the right frame of mind in your planning - or letting nature do some of the planning.
So exciting to get apples. ID is tricky, as apples open-pollinate you never know what seedling someone may have planted. Do your apples have any graft scars - lumpy areas near the base of the trunk, maybe slight differences in bark? If they are grafted trees, they will be a bred cultivar. It doesn't matter much - you can get a feel by when they ripen and the truth is, the best apple EVER is the one you grow yourself.
Aren't the blooms gorgeous??? My little columnars have such a pretty bloom...the big tree does too.
I have municipal/city compost here. Lovely black gold it is. I am there a lot, they don't ask for my ID anymore (to prove residence). I think they've decided to avoid the very, very grubby lady with the shovel.
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Brethil
Half-elven
Jul 24 2015, 9:05pm
Post #49 of 94
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wish to be benign dictators here! They try annually to take the whole place over.
I love the hyssop. It literally is waving like a breeze from the bees on it; I lose count at 50 at a time. If you plant it, just don't cut it back in fall: it dislikes open stems for water to get to the roots. Other than that its a carefree plant.
That's it near the dead pine trunk I am training Virginia creeper up, for the berries it makes for the birds. Another bee fave here is purple liatris: and the birds love the seeds, which I have never read about anyplace. Cardinals and chickadees spend hours working the seedheads in fall. THAT is another carefree plant - again, almost a bit TOO carefree!!!
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Brethil
Half-elven
Jul 24 2015, 9:09pm
Post #50 of 94
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Tee hee! Garden Fairy Godmother is busy tagging your soon-to-be adopted plant children!
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BTW, did you want me to try to start you a mulberry?
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