maple grove

Fall planting: snow crocus

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Of all the stuff that we ordered for fall planting this year, the garlic and the grape hyacinth were the two things I wanted. The rest were chosen by my daughters. Especially my younger daughter, who is really interested in flower gardening.

No surprise that she was eager to get out there today, and plant the snow crocuses!

This is the area we worked on today.

The first thing we needed to do was rake and clean up the space.

When I cleaned up in this area, two summers ago, I had to take out a lot of dead trees. I deliberately left really tall stumps, after discovering (the hard way!) what a tripping hazard they were if I didn’t. This year, I have a reciprocating saw, which does a great job of cutting level to the ground.

I took advantage of that.

It took more than a year longer than planned, but most of them are now trimmed. There are just a few further out that I didn’t bother with, yet.

While I was working on that, my daughter finished off the raking, then started scattering the bulbs.

Some of them are so tiny! Like little hazelnuts.

The snow crocus mix my daughter chose included Dorothy, Blue Pearl, Tricolour, Snowbunting and Spring Beauty.

Interestingly, when I looked up the mix on the Vesey’s website, it now has 4, not 5, varieties. It no longer includes the Snowbunting.

After the were all planted, my daughter watered all the areas we planted in, including the grape hyacinth, while I placed more logs to border where we planted.

Here is how it looks now.

It’s too windy to burn the debris from the first rake, which is mostly dead leaves, so that will wait for another day.

This section will have a walking path on both sides. Further north, it’s so shaded under those trees, almost nothing grows under there. Even the row of crab apple trees I found buried under the branches is still struggling – though one branch on one tree did get enough sun to produce some apples! :-/ Anything we end up planting there has to be able to handle a lot of shade, and not much moisture. But that is probably still years from now.

So for this area, we are done with planting for the year. Everything else we’ve got, plus the stuff on back order, will be planted elsewhere. We’ve got another week, at least, of warmer weather, so we will work on keeping these areas well watered.

All of the crocuses are supposed to bloom very early in the spring. I look forward to seeing them! I expect they will be rather spotty for the first few years, until they naturally begin to spread. Until they do, we’ll have to make sure they don’t get overtaken by other things. We can also think about what we might want to plant with them and the grape hyacinth that have different blooming seasons, once we get a good grasp on how they are doing.

At the same time, we’ll be looking into a ground cover in the pathways. By the time this area is done, it should have almost no grass and need no mowing.

One thing we do have to keep in mind as we fill these areas, though, is that we still need to have at least some access into them. If nothing else, we’ll need to pick up fallen branches or remove dead trees!

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: west fence line and maple grove

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Today turned out to be too cold and damp to do the mowing between the trees I cleared last year, that I hoped to do today. I thought I might be able to at least use my reciprocating saw to cut some of the smaller stumps of trees I took down last year to ground level, so I could mow over them. In the end, I decided it was just too damp to drag out the extension cords and use electric tools.

Instead, I worked on an area I left partly unfinished last year; a double row of elms leading to the garden gate at the west fence line.

Here is how it looked before I started.

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Tree work done!

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Photo heavy post ahead. :-D

It’s about 6 months later than we meant to have it done, but done it is! The trees are now clear from the power lines and the roof.

I was really, really excited to see the chipper they brought in.

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This is me, having a “heart attack”

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High winds last night.  Lost the internet a few times.  A bit of a storm, later on.

Several times, I took a quick walk around the yard to check on things and picked up downed branches (one of the apple trees in the west yard lost a big one).

I paused to take a short video, during which my heart was in my throat.

Can you see those power lines?

Can you see those branches, whipping about at the power lines?

When we can finally get those cleared, it’s going to be so much better for my blood pressure.

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: west yard trees – FINISHED!

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Yes!!!

It is finally done!

The maple grove/west yard trees are now finally cleared, trimmed and cleaned up.  After this, there will just be the basic maintenance to be taken care of in this area for the rest of the year.  Aside from maybe trimming the tall stumps, if we get a full size chainsaw before winter.

What a difference!

When I headed out today, the first priority was to clean up the branches and trees from last time.  In the process, I went digging around for downed branches under the last bit of trees I needed to work on, grabbed what I thought was a branch and found…

… metal.

This is what I dragged out.

I haven’t the foggiest clue what it is.

It went on the junk pile by the old garden shed.

Once I did that, I broke out the weed trimmer and went to town in all the areas I’ve been working on that hadn’t been trimmed yet.

Oh, my, does it ever look awesome!!!  (click on the pictures)

While I was using the weed trimmer, I kept having to stop and pull more branches out of the dead leaves, as I found them with the line on the trimmer.  My daughters cleaned away what they could find.  I had been taking what I cleared out of the last section (photos below) to the pile out of the yard, but by the end of the day, I was getting too tired to do both.  It was quite pleasant to work among the trees, but once I got out of the yard with the wheel barrow, or dragging a tree or two, it was like walking into a wall of heat.  So I started leaving things to the side, then the girls did a fantastic job of cleaning it all away, later.

While I wasn’t going to work on the rest of the fence line, I did go in with the weed trimmer.  I took the before picture when I last worked in the area a few days ago.

There was just the last bit to work on, over by the power pole (see below).  I went into it with the weed trimmer as much as I could, but there was a section by the gooseberry bush I couldn’t reach, because I kept getting stabbed by low hanging and dead branches!

This side will probably need to be thinned down more, but I will wait and see how the remaining trees do over the next year or two.  If the maples do well, I might trim the elms to give them more room to grow, because maples can get so huge.  If the elms do well, I may trim the maples.  The maple I’m standing next to as I take the photo (in the foreground, to the right) is going to need thinning, but it can wait.

Several times, I started to clear a maple, then thought, oh… it’s actually an elm.  No, it’s a maple.  No, it’s… both??

There were groups of trees where maple and elm were growing against each other.  !!

This next section shows some apple trees.

In the before picture, there is a crab apple tree that is part of the row of crab apples in the middle of this area, but this one had so many little apple trees growing around it.  Likely self seeded, as apples fell over the years.  As I went through them, trying to figure out what to keep and what to take out, I discovered the biggest one – the one that would have been originally planted – was almost entirely dead.  It had two younger ones growing next to it, so I left those.  They are too close together, but I will see which of them does better over the next few years, before deciding if they need to be thinned more.

The major challenge was the big ornamental apple tree.  The branches were so twisted and wrapped around each other, with living tangled up with the dead.  It was a struggle to get them free of each other.  Most of it was growing towards the East – the morning sun would be the only real sunlight it would be getting – and that’s there all the little apples is had are hanging from.

There were so many dead branches higher up on all of these trees.  The extended pruning saw got quite a workout.  Not just to pull down or cut dead branches, but to untangle them to get them down.

Sadly, I was not able to use my little electric chain saw/extended pole pruner.  I checked it over thoroughly (it’s really designed to be idiot proof) and everything looked good.  Yet when I tried to use it, it started screaming and immediately began to jam.  It was also dripping chain oil. :-(

Time to see how long the warranty is for. :-(  Or if it’s still covered.  All I can think of that’s different that might be an issue is the chain oil.  The oil it came with was perfectly clear, like water.  The chain oil I have now is generic, and red.  The paperwork did recommend using their brand of chain oil, but it seems not to be available in Canada.

This rather sucks, because it did make work go much faster, when it was working!

Still, I have the tools I need to do the job, and the next time I am able to work on the trees, it will be at the spruce grove!  Woo Hoo!!!

I love this work. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Clean up; west fence area trees

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We had another cooler day today; after this it’s supposed to heat up again, so I took advantage of it to continue in the west yard trees.  I am so close to being finished here (I’ve decided not to do the rest of the fence line itself for now), I’m getting excited, because it means I can finally move on to the spruce grove perimeter. :-D  I’d like to get as much as I can done there, before I have to stop for the year.

The first thing I did was finally take down the two dead trees by the smaller willow. (The before and after pictures are taken from opposite directions)

The one that was about midway between the two willows was a bit of a job.  It was tall enough, and leaning enough, that it was well into the branches of the big willow.  Which means that, after I cut the trunk, the base just swung over to the big willow, and there it hung.  It did not want to come down!

The wood from these trees is going to be kept for the fire pit.

The tall stumps are being left until we get a full size chainsaw.

On to the next area…

There’s not a lot of visible difference here, since I worked in this area yesterday.  I took down the dead half of the maple trees.  After that, most of what I did was take down dead branches from above, except from the one mostly dead spruce that will be taken down entirely.

Next areas; the last of those rows of spruces!

Also, I found a third little tamarack hiding in them.

It really looked like a spindly, dead spruce.  I honestly probably should have taken it out, but I really want to keep the tamarack. I also should probably have thinned the spruces out more, too, because of how close together they are, but they look strong and healthy enough to make it.  So for now, they will stay.  Next year, perhaps, we can transplant the tamarack, instead.

After this, I finally got to working among the beeches.

The before picture, I’d taken yesterday.  If you look along the beeches, you can see a single trunk, slightly out of line.

It turned out not to be a trunk at all.  It was a branch that had fallen straight, and was standing there, held up by the other branches!  You can even see the broken bit it had come from.

I’ve been finding quite a lot of dead branches held up by others.  One I pulled down earlier and moved out today, filled the wheelbarrow all on its own!

In the northernmost row, I found another Colorado Blue spruce, with an elm tree growing right next to it.  Well.  Two elms, really, right up against each other.

The spruce was planted deliberately; the elm would not have been.  Because of how big a Colorado Blue can potentially get, I took out the elm and some small maples near it as well.  I probably should have taken out the maple to the right of the foreground in the after photo too, but it seems to be doing okay.  We’ll see how the spruce survives.

Here’s another view of the rows.

20180814.cleanup.westyardtrees.rows.after

By this point, I didn’t really have the energy to keep breaking down the cut pieces and hauling them out of the yard, or dragging out entire trees.  I opened the gate at this end, so I wouldn’t be weaving through trees to the gate by the fire pit, then around the pile.  Instead, I was pushing my way through really tall grass, and wearing down a path.  As I was taking down bigger and bigger dead branches, and thinning out more trees, I just started piling it all in the space that had been plowed.  I will drag it out another day.

The row of trees closest to the beeches appears to be all crab apple trees.  Most have no apples, and the one that does, has almost none on it.  This is not a good place to plant fruit trees. :-/

Moving along the rows…

This area is not complete, though I might not do much more than this, this year.  The elms in the north row needed to be thinned out; one was right up against another, and it turned out to be dead.  The larger maple to the right in the photo will also be thinned down.  The side branches would have been suckers that never got pruned back when they should have.  The main trunk in the middle is suffering for it.  I wasn’t able to get all the dead branches out of it, and won’t be able to reach a lot of them until the side trunks are cleared out.

Once that is done, it will allow more light to reach the apple trees, too.

Speaking of which…

This is where I was working when I stopped to take a phone call.  Which was well timed.  I was at the point of telling myself it was really time to stop for the day, but I kept doing just a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit…  and before I knew it, an hour had passed. :-D

I don’t know that I’ll be able to work in here again over the next few days, but when I do get back to it, I will continue thinning the crab apple trees out.  There is a big one at the end, with large branches reaching towards the power pole.  That part of it is covered with apples (it looks like another of the ornamental apples trees, they are so tiny), but only where the morning sun touches those leaning branches.  The rest of the tree is struggling, with few leaves and many dead branches.  It’s all just too crowded in there, with elm and maple tangled around each other in the canopy, blocking the light for most of the day.

The eastern end of this area of trees is where they are growing under the power line, and where the arborist will be trimming some of them back.  They can do the tall stuff.  I will do the short stuff! :-)

When I came out after my phone call to get the last after pictures, I got a couple of others of interest.

Last month, I decided to take down a small elm tree because it was growing directly under the power lines.  As I have been doing in many other places, I left a tall stump to go back to later.  You can see it here, next to the spruce tree I’d pruned the lower branches from.

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This is what it looks like, now.

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Maples and elms are very resilient trees.  You can cut them back like this, and they will start growing back!

I could leave it to grow, and just keep pruning it short so it will never reach the power lines.

I don’t know if that’s a good idea, though.

A decision I can make another time.  For now, I will leave it and see how it does.

Later, while visiting Beep Beep and her kittens by the old garden shed, I saw something I’ve been finding in a number of places around the yard.

20180814.mystery.holes

A whole bunch of holes, dug into the ground.

I’ve found some in the open area between rows of trees behind the storage house.  Now that I’ve cleared up so much of the trees, I’m starting to find them there, too.  I am guessing it’s a small animal digging up insects or grubs?  Some of the holes are quite deep.

Anyone know what might be making these holes?

The Re-Farmer

After and after-after shots

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This afternoon, I went back to the area in the maple grove I worked on last.  Rather than working my way farther down the rows of trees, I focused on taking down dead and dying trees, pruning away lower branches, and so on.

So here are the after pictures from before, and the after-after pictures from today. :-D (click on them for larger images)

When I took pictures last time, I had worked closer to ground level, so you can’t really see as much of what I cleared away higher up.  There’s a nice, straight spruce tree in the middle that had a lot of dead branches that I pruned away.  In this section, that tree saw the most work.

I pruned as many branches as I could reach.  One tree has a large dead and rotting branch that will have to wait until I’ve got a full size chain saw.

Aside from pruning, this area had a small, dead spruce tree taken out, too.

I did nothing with the big dead spruce tree in front (with the rock at its base), though some of the lower branches were a bit in the way.

This area is where I started to need to do a lot more picking and choosing.

The maple that’s under the power lines came down.  I left the stump tall for when I have a full size chain saw.  If I were to just leave it, it would probably start growing new branches.  Maples are resilient that way.

More small trees had to come down.  I’m trying to salvage some of those spruces, but the more I look at the one on the right of the photo – the healthiest looking one out there – the more I realize I will probably need to take it down completely.  It’s just too close to the power line.  It’s not a problem now, but it can potentially grow another 20 ft or more, and it’s already just a few feet shorter than the height of the line.

I think I will leave it for now and ask the arborists when they come out.

Lots to clean up in this area.  I got to one tree that was clearly planted deliberately; the sticks that had been put in the ground to mark and protect it when it was planted were still there.  When I got to it, however, I discovered that the only green leaves on it were from those vines!  Once I pulled those free, I could see the tree was quite dead.  In other areas, I took down a dying spruce that had been planted in the row, but growing out of its base were two self-sown maples.  I ended up taking out one of them.  We shall see how the other one survives.  In other areas, I was pruning branches from a couple of elms so close together, I couldn’t fit between the trunks, but they seem to be doing fine, so I’m not going to thin them down.  Unlike the dead spruce that was also right next to them.  The spruce was planted.  I think the elms sowed themselves.

As I was working, I noticed I was getting pretty close to the birch trees I’d noticed when I was surveying the area a while back.  I had shown the pictures I took to my mother and she was happy to see them.  She had transplanted them from saplings she dug up while visiting her grandparents’ homestead up north, years ago.

I also found some apple trees further in.  A strange place to plant them.  The one closes to the power pole gets enough light that it is now producing apples, but these ones are practically in the dark.  It will be good when I finally go through that area to thin and prune.  Hopefully, they will be able to do better, next year, because of it. :-)

Not back for a couple of hours.

My branches piles are getting huge. :-/

Next time, I will finally start working further West down the rows.

The Re-Farmer

Clean Up: Maple Grove, evening progress

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I wrote up my last post while taking a hydration break from working in the maple grove.  By the time I was done, I found myself nodding off at the keyboard.  I figured lying down wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Three hours later… :-o

But, I’ve got it done as much as I can for now.

Here are the before and after pictures of the two North rows.

I cleared out two of the tree spruces in the foreground of the second picture.  The two I took out had a few green sprigs here and there, but were otherwise dead.  I also cut off the dead branches from the one in the middle.  I am hoping that, now that it’s open and clear, it will survive.

The remaining spruces in that northernmost row are doing pretty good.  I trimmed the lowest branches, as well as the dead ones that I could reach with a hand saw.  The dead ones were mostly on the south side of the trees, where they had no light.  The other living spruce trees, I only took off what was in my way as I moved around.  I will finish cutting away the dead branches when my birthday gift comes in. :-)

20180702.cleanup.maplegrove.eastside.raspberry.patch

This is the remains of a row of raspberry bushes.  I can see some dead canes from years past, but no fresh canes in this area.

To the right, you can also see a gooseberry bush I found.  I had cleared out a broadleaf tree that was between two spruces, and discovered the gooseberry under it!

20180702.cleanup.maplegrove.eastside.big.gooseberry

Then there’s this gooseberry bush, in dire need of having the deadwood cut away.  It’s growing next to a chokecherry tree, which was also overgrown and in need of pruning at its base.

20180702.cleanup.maplegrove.eastside.gooseberry.chokecherry.cleared

It was amazing how cutting just one sucker at the bottom of the chokecherry tree cleared almost everything up!  A few downward hanging branches to clear away, and various saplings, burdock and stinging nettle to clear away at the base, and what a difference!  I even found some raspberry bushes with baby berries on them.

The gooseberry, on the other hand, has almost no sign of berries on it at all, and what little it does have are not looking good.

20180702.cleanup.maplegrove.eastside.appletree.before

This is the very end of the “raspberry” row, with an apple tree near the compost pile.  There’s even a lonely little asparagus fern growing in here!

20180702.cleanup.maplegrove.eastside.appletree.after

I found more salvageable raspberry canes.  After cutting away some lower branches and saplings at the base of the apple tree (including maple and elm saplings), it was basically just weeding and removing old raspberry canes.  There are some plants in there I recognize as flowers my mother planted, so I tried to avoid taking those out.  Lots of creeping charlie and burdock in here.

At this point, I called it a night.  Which worked out perfectly, because that’s when I got a call from the second tree care company about coming over.  It was another father and sons team. :-)

When they got here, I showed them the areas I wanted work done on, plus the trees to come down.  He asked questions about how far back I wanted to cut things (basically, enough to not have to do this again for 5 years).  He wanted to know about the overhanging branches, which would normally be left if they are not touching the lines.  One of them is a very healthy maple tree, and cutting it back would mean removing pretty much half the tree.  When I pointed out it was from those overhanging branches that we got the burned branch from, and that it had happened before, causing a power outage, he understood why I didn’t want ANY overhanging branches at all.  They even measured the trunks of the trees that will be taken down, including the dead spruce.  They had to take into account being able to get their equipment in, too, and I told them about the three different gates that were available.  We also talked about cleanup.  He charges extra if they bring in a chipper, but I did say I wanted to keep the chips for mulch, and to keep the bigger wood, too.  He mentioned they don’t usually chip dead branches, because it dulls the cutting edges, but the stuff they’ll be cutting back will mostly be life branches.

He took a whole bunch of notes, and I will get the estimate emailed to me.

I told him about how we don’t own the land, and that I am getting estimates to talk to my mother and brother about before a decision is made, and that I’m hoping to get it done in the fall.  Or spring, if the cost is higher (which I suspect it will be, with these guys, but we shall see).  He was good with fall, mentioning after August is when they’d be available to do the work, so that works out.

And that’s it for the next while.  Tomorrow will be a trip to the city for my daughter, which should give my body time to rest.  Feeling pretty stiff and sore right now! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Clean Up: Maple Grove, garden path

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We had some much more pleasant temperatures today, so I headed out to do some work in the maple grove this evening.

After the tree care guy came to give us an estimate, I decided to focus first on clearing the old garden path.  Whether we hire these guys, or the company coming to give a quote on Monday, they will need to bring equipment in to access the trees they will be cutting clear from the power lines.  Good enough reason to start at the old garden path.

This is what it looked like before.

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The deadwood on the ground here is partially cut, and it made up of several trees.  Elm and maple, from the looks of it.

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This photo was taken back in May, and you can see where the path is supposed to be in the background.

I also worked my way along the north row of trees, bordering the garden, and heading towards the garden shed.  I started off by using the weed trimmer to take town the tall grass and weeds, so that I could at lease see the branches and trunks.

Then I started dragging stuff out.  This photo is of JUST the deadwood I pulled out of the grass.

20180630.cleanup.maplegrove.gardenpath.deadwoodpile

Almost all of this is just from that blocked garden path!  Even after this, I kept finding more, as I walked back and forth and I would step on something.  I’d then go to pick up what I expected to be a small branch, often finding myself pulling out something 6-7 feet long, and completely buried in grass and leaves!

After I cleaned out the stuff already on the ground, I started taking out the dead spruces on either side of the path, and cut back the other trees that I had pulled the deadwood out of.  They were mostly dead, already.  I also took out another small dead spruce tree that was near the big dead one that will be coming down when we get the lines cleared.  I almost left a young elm to grow, until I clued in to how close it was to the big dead spruce.  I looked up and, sure enough, the elm was directly below the power lines.

So that had to go.

Along with the dead stuff, I also cleaned up some suckers at the bases of other trees, or growing out of stumps.  Some of those suckers had been growing long enough to almost be trees all on their own.  For the trees I took down, I left fairly tall stumps to make it easier to see them until I can cut them at ground level.  A fair bit is being left until my birthday present arrives. :-D

I finished off with the weed trimmer again.

Here are the after pictures.

20180630.cleanup.maplegrove.gardenpath.after

A couple of the stumps near the centre of the picture were already there, hidden by the suckers growing out of them.  The old garden path is now open!

The big dead spruce tree that will come down is the one with the big rock next to it.  There is also a young maple kind of by itself there right now, and I will be cutting that down when my birthday present gets here.  It’s directly under the power lines, too, and already grown tall enough to almost touch them!

20180630.cleanup.maplegrove.near.gardenpath.after

This photo was taken from near the big dead spruce tree.  The main garden area is completely overgrown, but it was so roughly plowed, mowing is not an option.  It’s not a priority right now.

There are three spruces next to each other, just right of centre in the photo.  I am hoping the one in the middle can be salvaged.  The other two are too far gone.

On the garden side, starting from about where those spruces are (I think they are Colorado blues), is the old row a raspberries.  It’s completely choked out with crab grass and weeds, and overshadowed by mostly dead trees, with a very few canes trying to grow.  Another area that is not a priority right now.  When the time comes, we plan to have a raspberry patch with three different varieties, including one with gold coloured berries, that mature at different times.  That way, we will be harvesting berries from July through September. :-)

All in good time.

20180630.cleanup.maplegrove.near.gardenpath.lookingeast

I plan to work my way down these two rows of trees, next.  Where the big rock is, is the garden tap.  It’s got a couple of dead trees by it, as well as a live one.  They will all come down to clear the tap, and the buried pipe that leads to the house.  I’m hoping the roots haven’t caused any problems.  I have yet to hook it up at the house end to test it out, since it’s barely accessible right now.

There are two old tillers that have been sitting there for years, one covered with a piece of tin, the other with an old rug.  They should still be salvageable, so I am hoping to be able to move them into a shed or maybe the barn, to get them out of the weather.

Once this area is done, I will turn my attention to the West side of the maple grove.  Lots of deadfall in there, too.

The really big job is going to be dealing with the trees to the North of the grove, that has been so densely planted with trees.

While doing this outside, I also will be working on packing up the old kitchen, so we can get that cleaned out and looking good again.  I want to get that done within the next week.  I’d like to be able to open the door and not worry about the cats getting int. :-)

Lots to do!  :-)

The Re-Farmer