I had a crazier than normal crazy moment and invited my high school classmates over for lemonade and cookies as part of our #XL reunion in less than ten days.  I didn’t get several of my beds mulched before the winter as I was dividing and moving plants to theme beds when I ran out of warm weather. With all the rain my flower beds are full of grass and weeds.  With the tremendous amount of weeding and mulching left, I hired some help a couple of weekends ago as my classmates will be visiting soon.  The problem with hired help is that they aren’t familiar with where your plants are.  And if they aren’t a plant lover, really don’t care what they pull up or break off even if marked with a plant tag.  Apparently they have some vendetta against cone flowers as I had a couple of new varieties called Pow Wow cone white in my Deshler High and Echinacea Hot Papaya in my Auburn bed marked with two plant tags and they still wiped them out.  I cleared around one of my oriental lilies so it would be safe only to come back later to see a half inch stub.

 That Sunday I accidently got in-between Patches and Blackie having a knock-down drag-out fight over a mole of all things. Patches was playing with it and Levi grabbed it and when he dropped it, Blackie picked it up and Patches decided she wanted it back. I thought I had them separated with a garage sweep broom when Patches growled at Blackie and my hand got in between. I had heavy duty leather work gloves on, but they found the only hole at the end of a finger and slashed open the end of my middle finger. So I’ve been weeding one handed since then.  There’s something about a sore finger that attacks hidden objects, I kept hitting things and breaking it open. After sticking the end of a clothes hanger in it, I decided it was time to visit my doctor as I was determined to get an infection in it. He gave me an antibiotic and gel antibiotic prescriptions and also a tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis booster. Friday I developed a horrible sore throat and fever and a huge knot on my arm.  The sore throat and fever lasted through the weekend.

Last week, Verborie, my high school classmate hired her ex-husband, Leonard.  Now, Leonard knows the difference between flowers and weeds.  We’ve gotten a lot cleaned this past weekend.  I also started a week’s vacation hoping to get a lot done before our reunion which is now less than a week and counting. Easter Sunday afternoon found me cleaning up my African violets, cleaning the glass shelves and watering them before placing back on the shelf. When placing one back on the shelf, I hit the corner of the glass with my sore finger and dropped the plant on the floor, water and planting mix all over the floor.  I picked up as much as I could of the planting mix to put back in the pot, and decided I would have to let it dry before cleaning up with the vacuum cleaner. I didn’t feel like getting electrocuted on top of what’s happened already.

With severe storms expected Monday night, I decided I needed to plow my garden space before taking the tiller off of the tractor and putting the mower on. I also needed to plow up an area along the dry creek so I can’t get my oak leaf hydrangeas planted.  First I need to connect up the new wire I ran for the underground fence.  The old section had too many breaks and also was hit by lightening and needed to be replaced.  When running a new section, you can’t place it near the old wire as it will cancel the signal from the new wire.    I got all of the connections made and started plowing along the creek; when I backed up into the bottom corner, I got too close to the new wire and cut it.  Patch number one completed, I went back to plowing and some how got a small cedar wrapped around the tines.  I thought after plowing the creek area, my garden and Mom’s garden, it would be gone, but it wasn’t.  It was at this point I realized that I was missing my Woman’s Work pigskin glove that I was wearing on my good hand.  While plowing I had laid it in the cup holder and it must have been knocked off while going under a tree along the creek, probably when I picked up the cedar tree. I retraced all of my misadventures, but must have plowed it under. If it is in my garden area, Patches will find it and return it after she gets through chewing on it. She has this thing for leather gloves.  Pulling out the cedar will have to wait until the next time the tiller gets used.

Next chore: weed eating.  I have a 6 hp electric start walk behind weeder that I got after doing a Superwoman off of a ladder at Mom’s house about 12 yrs ago. It will cut through just about anything except barb wire, so when I got too close to another section of the new fence, it was a peace of cake taking out a 2 foot section.  Two more connections for a total of three.  Did I say that the weeder will handle anything but barb wire? I found out that it doesn’t do well on a stack of fieldstone as it broke off the strings.  After replacing the strings and restarting, I got about 20 feet when it ran out of gas. By this time I was also out of gas and decided that I would finish it up later.

The next item on the list was mulching the beds that Leonard and I had cleaned earlier. I hauled a scoop of sawdust to Mom’s to use for starting her sweet potato slips.  I got another scoop and mulched an area and headed down for another load. As I hit the pile of sawdust the tractor stopped and won’t go forward or back.  I called my local John Deere service told him it was running but wouldn’t go forward or back. He said it sounded like I had pulled a wire loose and wanted to know if I’d been going though something tall?  Does Chinese privet count?  And my high school class is coming Saturday for a garden tour, and I haven’t mowed my three acres yet. He told me that they would be out first thing in the morning unless we are having a bad storm which is predicted for tonight through Wednesday. It was at this point I asked a really stupid question “do I need to cover it up in case it rains?”  He assured me it would be okay to get one rain on it, but a hail storm might do some damage.  I bet he got a good laugh out of that one after hanging up.

Tractor dead in the sawdust, I turned my attention to planting some of the potted plants sitting by the garage door.  I had an iris in bloom called 'Gnu Blues' that I decided would be good for my Auburn areas along the driveway.  Digging down about four inches I hear a tunk. I backed up a few inches and tunk again. After making the hole over a foot wide, I finally found the edge of this boulder and had to get a bar to lift it up.  One handed, it was too heavy to roll out of the hole.   I would need to let the tractor scoop lift it out after JD service gets it moving again. Moving to another location I was able to get the iris planted.  Before calling it a day, I found Blackie pawing at a hanging basket I had brought out of the garage earlier to plant petunias in. Apparently a lizard had crawled into the watering trough in the bottom and she had dumped out the planning mix trying to get at the lizard.

The day wasn’t a total disaster; I picked my first quart of strawberries and ate the whole thing while cleaning them, and found my favorite iris ‘Starship Enterprise’ in bloom.

Growing up on the farm, our favorite place to play was in the hay barn.  When our dairy was first started, it was the site of our milking barn also.  The side room was the area where the cows where milked until the 1950’s when Dad built a new milking barn. The barn had a shed added to the side made from boards of Roscoe Turner’s hanger at Gusmus Field on what is now Lewis Street in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Mr. Turner was portrayed in the movie The Young Aviators, a movie about pilots who were flying for the British Air Force during WWI. He flew the plane with the lion on it. If you are visiting the Aeronautics Museum in Washington, D.C., look him up.   Dad used to tell the story of the whipping he got when he climbed into the plane while visiting his Grandpa Gusmus.

 
Family with Roscoe Turner's plane 

   
Aunt Mary and Rosemary Gusmus at Roscoe Turner's plane 

Back to the barn; it had a rail system in the top that was once used for hauling hay into the barn with mules. When the barn was empty we would hang onto the rope and swing from side to side or ride the rope down the rail from front to the back doing our best Johnny Weissmuller imitation.  When the barn was full of hay, we would climb to the top of the stack and open the back door and hang the rope out and play mountain climber down to the ground from about twenty feet up. 

Thinking back now I realize what danger we put ourselves into.  We could have fallen into a crack in the hay and suffocated or slipped off of the rope and fallen onto the rocks below and done some serious damage to ourselves.

 The shed part of the barn was used to keep the new born calves in after we took them away from their Moms after delivery.  One Guernsey became very mean after we took away her calf every year and would stand out side the barn chasing after anyone who came near her calf inside. When she had her calf it meant that we couldn’t play in the barn until she got over the separation.  We would sneak around from the back door of the milk barn through the chicken pen to the back of the barn.  We would hang out the windows teasing her until she’d get so mad that she would buck the barn door.  Well one day she caught us going from the chicken pen to the back door of the milk barn and had us penned up against the wall of the milk barn.  We started screaming until Dad saved us.  He made sure we were okay then he gave us the only whipping we’d ever gotten from him.   Mom gave us so many spankings for things we got into, I don’t remember any of them and the reason why, but I’ll always remember the only whipping Dad gave us. He always told Mom your kids did so and so, give them a spanking. The great old barn doesn’t exist now. The new owner of the farm took a bull dozer to it as it didn’t fit into his plans. The best picture I have of it in the background behind my Dad and cousin Pat.

 
Dad and Pat on horseback; barn in the background

The dogwoods are finishing blooming here and the iris and peonies are opening up.  I just love this time of year. You get up to a new plant in bloom and find something else blooming when you get home.

My 3 hooligan Border collies wear out the wireless fence collars fairly regularly.  When I have to buy a new one, Patches gets the new one as she is the one who is constantly testing it.  The collars vibrate 10 feet from the fence as a warning and will shock if they get closer.  She knows that if the collar doesn’t vibrate, it’s time to get out. I had bought some store brand 9 volt batteries & a couple of weeks ago put one in the new collar and one in Blackie’s collar. I noticed after a week that the low battery light on Blackie’s was blinking and the battery usually last three months.  Friday a week ago, my neighbor Jessica called saying that she had just put Patches back in the yard. We had a power outage that day and I thought maybe that’s what the problem was.  On the way home I bought new batteries just in case.  All weekend Patches acted like the fence was working so I didn’t change the batteries. Well actually I forgot to replace it.  Monday I get a call from Jessica again that she put Patches back in the yard again.  Apparently the battery is too weak to keep her in but strong enough to keep her out.  When I got home from work I tied her to the hitch on my truck and replaced the battery & tightened up the collar some as I noticed it was a little loose on her.  She won’t let me put the collar back on her if I don’t tie her up.  She knows what the collar is for.  Things were fine until this Thursday when I get a call that she’s out again. This time the routine was repeated for a trim in the area of the contacts.

 Oh we recently told Mom about the Tarzan thing in the old barn. Glad she didn’t know at the time what we were doing. We thought she was going to have a stroke.

One of my biggest pet peeves in driving around the Shoals, a name given to the cities of Tuscumbia, Sheffield, Florence and Muscle Shoals, is improper pruning of crepe myrtle trees.

Crepe myrtles are trees that many owners just don’t treat with respect.  It is the most planted tree in the US and is available in white, purple or lilac, red and pink colors. Are you a crepe myrtle murderer?

With the large number planted, many home owners as well as lawn services improperly prune them so that they form a Medusa head when new growth starts. Some are so drastically cut back, using a technique called crepe murder; it’s amazing that they grace the owner with growth.  The growth that does result is a scantily clad shrub.  Notice in the murder picture very little growth.  It takes the crepe myrtle half of the summer to recoup. The Medusa form of pruning or topping results in pom pom growth.  An example a friend of mine calls Crepe myrtle castration is cutting the tree down to a stump.  Several of these may be found at the city hall in Tuscumbia, AL.

The prettiest presentation of crepe myrtle in trimming it in a tree form choosing 2 or 3 main trunks and cutting off all growth up the trunk for several feet and exposing the beautiful bark of the crepe myrtle.   If you must prune, only trim any branches or limbs a pencil width or less in size. 

Some of the best classic examples of crepe myrtles are found in Charleston, South Carolina.  One street is lined with several of the trees cut in the tree form style, some over 20 to 30 feet in height.  The barks of these trees are just wonderful when left in the tree form instead of the bush form.  I have all of mine in the tree form.

My dogwoods and iris, azaleas and clematis are starting to bloom, and peonies are a week or so from opening.  Temperatures have been in the eighties this week. Normal this time of year is in the seventies.  Last week we barely got out of the forties.  The hooligans have very busy getting into trouble.  Mom’s crabapple tree was in bloom and I didn’t notice my Piairifire crabapple blooming, so I went down to the lower forty to check on it. I bought it for myself last year for my birthday. Each year on my birthday, I allow myself one expensive plant, and since this was a rather large tree, I didn’t put a hooligan cage around it.   In the hunt for mice, apparently back in the winter they had dug up around the tree on all side exposing the roots to the elements.  Some of the roots were very well knawel on.  My tree was dead.  Ughhh!!  I came close to calling the rescue inquiring what was needed to turn them back in, but I wouldn’t wish these three on anyone else. 

 
  
While mowing the grass Thursday afternoon and using the clippings to mulch some of my beds, I noticed Levi was staying next to me like glue.  Thunderstorms were predicted, so what was causing his clinginess?   When I finished emptying the grass catchers, I noticed Blackie and Patches jumping at something near an area that I plant to put an arbor. I had the holes dug and put concrete blocks over the holes to keep critters from stepping in the holes.  I thought I might need to save a lizard as they have chasing them and bumble bees since the weather turned warm.  When I got close they threw a snake up in the air. By the time I reached them to save the rat snake which us Southerners call a chicken snake, was a goner. Blackie had it by the head and Patches had it by the tail playing tug of war.  I finally was able to get the snake from them after a chase and took it to the other side of the wireless fence out of sight. With the number of field mice I have this was a good snake. I’m glad it wasn’t Fred, one of the largest rat snakes I’ve every seen who lives under my house and comes out every once in a while to sun. 

Patches first met Fred the first summer after she arrived at my place.  She had a fascination for sticks and would carry one with her where ever she went. I was taking mowing my grass and went around the end of the house with Patches right behind me carrying her stick.  There was Fred sunning himself and I decided that Patches needed to find out what a snake was.  The idea at the times was that she would find out and then stay away from snakes.  She spied Fred and decided that this stick was a lot nicer than the one she was carrying.  She dropped her stick and tried to pick Fred up by the middle, but this stick was too limp, so she decided to drag it by the end which was Fred’s head.  Fred decided he had enough when Patches opened her mouth to pick him up by his head, and coiled back ready to strike. Patches decided she didn’t want this stick then.  Another time Blackie spied Fred and I had a time saving him between Blackie lunging at him and Fred striking at her. I took Fred down to the creek and turned him loose. I’m not sure if he made it back, but my exterminator talks about the biggest snake skin he’d ever seen every time he goes under the house. 

Sunday I found a $15 replacement bare root crabapple tree called ‘Profusion’ and planted it in the same spot my Prairifire one came out of.  After backfilling and tamping down the soil around the roots, I went to fetch a hooligan cage to protect it.  Just as I arrived back Blackie had already started un-planting it.  It’s going to be a long summer.

Someone just gave you an orchid as a gift. It’s a tropical plant so it needs plenty of moisture right? Wrong. Orchids don’t like wet feet and the easiest way to kill an orchid is over watering. I was hesitant to get an orchid. I didn’t think I had the proper conditions in my house for orchids. Orchids like day time temperatures around 75 and night time temperatures around 65; just what us humans are comfortable with. When I got my first orchid as a gift my first thought was that I didn’t have room among the fifty or so African violets. After I got that first one I did some research and found a site that recommend using 3 ice cubes a week to water them. I’ve been using that system for my original orchid plus the 23 or so I have now.

During bloom season which starts in January to February and lasts for months, I use vermicompost tea for fertilizing my orchids every other week. Vermicompost tea is a fancy term for earthworm compost pee. This tea is the only fertilizer I use on all of my house plants. It’s natural and won’t burn your plants and doesn’t have the salt build up that you get with commercial fertilizers. Whenever I find my ice cube trays, I’m going to make vermicompost ice cubes and use those during bloom season. One worry I have is that a visitor one will think they are frozen tea and use them in their ice tea.

One thing that I would recommend after receiving a new orchid is to repot it as soon as blooming is over. Some are in a clear container inside an outside container which allows you to see how healthy the roots are. Pull the plant out of the pot and if you see Styrofoam or nothing but the Spanish moss, repot it. I bought one in full bloom recently and it did not have a single speck of potting bark, only a pot full of moss. People get these things as gifts, then they die on them, and they get the attitude that they just can’t grow orchids. You can replant it in any type of decorative container. You just have to be careful not to overwater. This is the beauty of using 3 ice cubes; they slowly melt and you don’t have to worry about drowning your orchid. If your orchid starts looking wrinkled, it is an indication that it is not getting enough water. Increase your ice cube by one. Larger pots may need 5 ice cubes. Place in bright, indirect light; direct sunlight will result in sunburned leaves and bloom drop.

After the blooms have finished and fall off, do you cut off the stem or leave it on? I usually cut mine back to a node and usually will get a re-bloom. If the stem starts to turn brown or yellow cut it off to the base. This will direct its energy into producing roots. A trick you can use to try and force them into bloom is to move them to an area where the night temperature is slightly lower, about 55 degrees. Leaving mine in its usual spot and using ice cubes serves the same purpose of lowering the temperature.

I just purchased a garden orchid called Nun’s orchid. It is hardy to zone 8 which is one zone below my zone 7, so I planted it in a container that I can move into the garage to overwinter with the rest of my plants. If planting in a container, use one with plenty of space, it has a lot of roots.

With spring coming, my hooligan Border collies have been very busy. They spent most of the day today barking at a plastic bag hung on a cotton plant flapping in the wind. They must have thought it was Noah the cat next door who likes to tease them in the area where the bag was caught. I finally got tired of hearing the commotion and went over to the field and picked it up.

Levi has been busy picking on Blackie, and when she finally catches him she sits on him and he is squirming trying to get away. During several days of continuous rain one of them decided that my John Deere tractor seat made a nice bed. I went to use it and had to mop the seat off before I could get on it. My guess it was Levi. Now that I’m folding down the seat, I’m waiting for him to discover the Husqvana. He’s the only one that will jump up on things.

I started my heirloom tomato seeds the middle of February. I’m planting my usual Cherokee Purple, a deep dark reddish black flesh tomato which I think is one of the better tasting tomatoes. This year I’m also planting a yellow Brandywine tomato. It’s a new heirloom for me that I haven’t tried before. Last year I planted a Black Krim tomato along with my Cherokee Purple and it didn’t do well. Come to think about it, last year wasn’t a good veggie gardening year. After I planted my garden we had monsoon rains and then weeks of scorching heat which killed most of my plants. I had placed my plants out on the patio table during a nice warm spell we had. We’ve had a few nights of freezing temperatures and day time temps in the forties and fifties, so I put my plants in the garage on top of a bucket of water that I use for watering my overwintering plants in the garage. Yesterday afternoon I found the box dumped off into the floor, so I spent time repotting the survivors into larger containers. My guess as to the doer of this deed would be Blackie. She likes to splash and play in water. Patches has been wearing herself out chasing bumble bee shadows, and I’m sure she’s been into something. I haven’t found it yet.

The daffodils are just finishing up and my dwarf iris is starting to bloom. The daffodils that they dug up three times last fall and scattered the last time all seem to be back in the correct place except for one of the Full Throttle is mixed in with the Pinza daffodils. So all I have to do is move the marker down a little and move one of the wayward daffs back to its section.

Me? I’m fussing about all the cases of Crepe Myrtle Murder I’m seeing around the Shoals. My dwarf iris are in bloom and late blooming daffodils are finishing up.