Saturday, April 25, 2015

Pretty in pink

I have so many photos of the flowering plants in my yard that I don't get too excited about wandering around the property, camera in hand. However, I don't recall the rhododendron ever blooming this heavily before. I'm glad I took this pic despite the windy conditions because the next day, after a frosty night, most of the petals lay on the ground in a pink carpet.


The fruit trees did arrive, as did the underground utility guy. I had to help him find the gas lines because 1) he was not aware that when my neighbor to the south installed a gas furnace, NIPSCo ran the line across a corner of my property, and 2) the utility maps shows the main line to the north to be on the property of my neighbors on that side of the house. I've lived here over 20 years and generally have the utilities marked every year, so I guess that now makes me the expert.

I'm not such an expert when it comes to transplanting fruit trees. Different instructions from different sources do not help, either. The trees are in the ground, hopefully at the correct depth given the root stocks. Now all I need to do is cut them back to where I want the branches to form a scaffold, in my case at about 24 inches, per Grow a Little Fruit Tree. Gulp! Since I finished planting last night in the dark, I have not made this cut yet, as I wanted to be able to see what I was doing. Today is wet and windy and cold, so I will gardener up and do it tomorrow.

By the way, here is what I planted:

Apples:
  • Liberty
  • Wolf River
  • Pristine
  • Nova EasyGro
Cherries:
  • Black Gold Sweet
  • Balaton Tart
  • North Star Tart
  • Hedelfingen Sweet

3 comments:

About JollyJilly said...

wow what a fab flower so beautiful the colour is stunning

About JollyJilly said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Toni said...

That is so beautiful!

I'll be interested to see how the cherry trees work out for you. We've talked about trying to add a fruit tree of some sort because I do so much canning and love fruit in general, but the maintenance and fighting the birds has me a bit worried. Hope they work for you! That will make me braver!