Dogwoods

Location: Shepherdstown, West Virginia

Hardiness Zone: 6

A lot's happened since last post. The Dogwoods and Redbuds started blooming are are near done, and now the azaleas planted in front of the house are blooming. They have a nice rosy red color, though they do not have many blooms.

"OKLAHOMA SPRING - REDBUDS AND DOGWOODS" by Karen Orr

We managed to cut the grass in the backyard last Saturday, however the front yard has yet to be touched. Maybe tomorrow!! We also threw down some grass seed last Saturday, right before it rained. I checked on it today, no sign of sprouts. I hope it's been wet enough!!! It's rained a few times this week, so I haven't watered. I think I'll hit the area with a light misting tomorrow morning if I get up early enough.

On my last visit to Lowe's, I was able to wander around in the garden department. I was able to roughly identify some of the shrubs planted by the landscaper. I'm not 100% sure, but I think we wound up with a combination of boxwoods, arborvitae, azaleas, privets and yews.

I harvested a leaf from the trees in the front (left) and back (right) yards. Here they are!!

That's about it! I want to get a copy of the plans for the backyard and copy them into MicroStation. I want to start planning the landscaping for the back and side yards. I'll post those when I'm done with them.


Weather Conditions:

5:09pm





Temp: 81.1 °F / 27.3 °C

Clear

Humidity: 39 %

Dewpoint: 54 °F / 12 °C

Wind: 5.0 mph / 8.0 km/h from the SE

Pressure: 29.85 in / 1010.7 hPa (Falling)

Waning Crescent, 10% of the moon is illuminated

Passover

Location: Shepherdstown, West Virginia

Hardiness Zone: 6

What's new? Well, the Maple trees are starting to get leaves. They are a light green right now. The 'other' two trees are struggling, I can tell. The one has NO leaves, while the other is producing very FEW leaves. Will either survive? The pine trees is kind of 'eh' right now too.


The builder rerouted the drainpipe outflow pipe closer to the front of the yard and added a new ouflow pipe to the drainpipe that was washing away the soil from between the driveway, the house and the sidewalk. They were kind enough to reseed those sections and put new mulch down (they probably backfilled around the foundation too...).

The grass is getting high. In fact, we need a lawnmower!!! It's getting too tall and unsightly. Though we still need to reseed some areas because there are patches of bare soil.



Native plants I've seen blossoming... I've noticed the oak trees have their little pollen catkins, ready for the wind to distribute them on EVERYTHING. It's actually quite pretty, the yellow-green tinge of the oaks backdrop of the still-bare trunks of the other trees... It looks amazing on the mountains! I should get a picture...


What else? Um... I also noticed the little yellow wild flowers, I think they are yellow rockets (?) are blooming now.




Weather Conditions:

12:28pm

Temp: 77.7 °F / 25.4 °C

Clear

Humidity: 34 %

Dewpoint: 47 °F / 8 °C

Wind: 6.0 mph / 9.7 km/h from the SSW

Pressure: 29.91 in / 1012.8 hPa (Falling)

Waxing Gibbous, 99% of the moon is illuminated

Dandelions

Location: Shepherdstown, West Virginia

Hardiness Zone: 6


It is really starting to feel like Spring! The forecast high for today will be 76°F and plants are starting to kick into high gear. I hope the cold snap we'll have tomorrow won't cause them any stress.

Right now, the dandielions are starting to pop up all over the place (ha, but not in our yard, yet). We have different kind of weed, I think. It has really broad leaves and looks like some kind of cabbage. (??!!). We only have two, but man, they're kinda big.

Photo by Uwe Hermann

The red maple trees (according to a friend) are starting to produce baby seed pods (yay! helicopters!) .

Weather Conditions:

1:22pm





Temp: 68.4 °F / 20.2 °C

Partly Cloudy

Humidity: 57 %

Dewpoint: 53 °F / 11 °C

Wind: 4.0 mph / 6.4 km/h from the SE

Pressure: 29.54 in / 1000.2 hPa (Falling)

Waxing Crescent, 49% of the Moon is Illuminated

Cherry Blossoms

Location: Shepherdstown, West Virginia

Hardiness Zone: 6


I attended the community trash pick-up event this morning. Quite an impressive turn out! We had 25 volunteers--adults and teenagers. The number of volunteers made the job an easy and fast one. I volunteered to pick up trash between the town homes and the apartments. It wasn't the easiest place to pick up trash. It was on a steep hill with tall grasses and pricker bushes. Most of the trash consisted of empty beer bottles, plastic bags and Styrofoam cups, though there was the occasional broken skateboard and discarded carpet (ew!). After two hours, we quit and the HOA paid for pizza for the group.

The cherry blossoms are blooming, much later than the ones in DC.

I have to report not much has happened with regards to the plants and trees in the yard. Everything is pretty much the same. I'm growing more concerned about the maple (?) tree on the southeast corner of the property. It really does not appear to be producing any new buds and the growth that appeared to be new buds previously have turned black. I think he's a goner. :( His brother, however, appears to be doing 'okay,' with new growth on the upper limbs and buds throughout.

The pine tree seems to be yellowing a little... the browning on top has stopped, however the tree seems doing marginally okay. As opposed to having browning in patches, he seems to be getting color in those areas, but the overall color appears to be yellowing all over. I doubt it's lack of rain, Mother Nature's been more than generous with rainfall the last few months. Lack of nutrients? pH? I don't know.

The grass is starting to get tall, we need to look into getting a lawn mower soon!!

Weather Conditions:



Temp: 56.4 °F / 13.6 °C

Clear

Humidity: 55 %

Dewpoint: 40 °F / 5 °C

Wind: 9.0 mph / 14.5 km/h from the NNW

Pressure: 30.03 in / 1016.8 hPa (Falling)

Waning Crescent, 0 % of moon is illuminated

Easter Tuesday

Location: Shepherdstown, West Virginia

Hardiness Zone: 6

Today was the first day I saw forsythia blooming. It appears the blooms have been around for about a day, and some bushes are farther along than others.

Weather Conditions:





Temp: 49.4 °F / 9.7 °C

Clear

Windchill: 47 °F / 8 °C

Humidity: 34 %

Dewpoint: 22 °F / -5 °C

Wind: 6.0 mph / 9.7 km/h from the S

Pressure: 30.04 in / 1017.2 hPa (Steady)


Waning Gibbous, 84 % of moon is illuminated

Gray Saturday

Location: Shepherdstown, West Virginia

Hardiness Zone: 6

Not much to report. I examined the bushes out front of the house. The leafy ones on the left-side front (azaleas? rhododendron?) appear to be severely damaged by deer. I guess the other bushes have a safety barrier of the sidewalk to protect them. I placed moth balls along the border of the mulch in hopes of deterring the deer. I would like to find a more reasonable solution ~ the whole front yard smells like a closet now!!

I also noticed that the one gutter downspout is severely eroding the soil located between the sidewalk/house/driveway. Must talk to Dan about regrading, or installing a channel to divert the water.


Weather Conditions:




Temp: 40.9 °F / 4.9 °C

Overcast

Windchill: 34 °F / 1 °C

Humidity: 75 %

Dewpoint: 31 °F / 0 °C

Wind: 1.0 mph / 1.6 km/h from the N

Pressure: 29.93 in / 1013.4 hPa (Rising)


Full Moon, 99 % of moon is illuminated

Vernal Equinox

Location: Shepherdstown, West Virginia

Hardiness Zone: 6


Happy Spring!!! :)

This is my first blog entry documenting my yard and future garden. Right now, I'm trying to get an idea of what plants I do have (provided by the builder) and what to do with all the open space I have for plantings.

Checked on trees planted by builder. There are seven total: 6 unclassified maples and 1 unclassified pine.

The three trees in the northwest side of the house (front yard) have blossoming buds in the upper branches. They seem to be ahead of their other maple brethren with blooms and new growth.

Two of the trees on the southeast side (back yard) are still exhibiting the strange scaling on the upper branches and trunk. It does not seem to be interfering with the formation of buds (although they are still tightly compacted).

It is possible the trees in the backyard are experiencing a different microclimate, thus are behind their front yard brothers? I've noticed that when the wind kicks up (which it often does here), the backyard behaves like a wind tunnel as the wind is funneled between our house and the neighbor's house at a high rate of speed (I've had difficulty standing at times!!) I've read that wind chill does not affect plants.... could it be humidity or just the stress from the wind turbulence?

Image by Christine Klocek-Lim

I've also noticed that the pine tree is recovering from the browning of its needles on the lower branches of the east side of the plant (the tree is located on the southeast side of the house with some protection from the wind). I have also noticed the upper shoots on the top of the tree are starting to brown (white pine weevil?). I don't think this is a good sign! :(

The miscellaneous bushes planted on the northwest side of the house (near the house itself), seem to be doing okay. Some have developed new shoots, however I'm concerned about the deer problem with these plants. The deer seem to love them, and have done some pruning on some of these young plants. Got to get some deer deterrent out there!

The lawn appears to be doing okay. A decent layer of grass has poked up through the straw in most places except along the hill in the backyard ~ it appears the runoff from one rainfall washed the seeds and straw downhill, leaving a few patches of bare soil.

Hopefully, by my next post, the maples will be in full bloom....


Weather Conditions:





Temp: 49.2 °F / 9.6 °C

Partly Cloudy

Windchill: 42 °F / 6 °C

Humidity: 35 %

Dewpoint: 24 °F / -4 °C

Wind: 15.0 mph / 24 km/h from the WNW
Wind Advisory in effect until 10 PM EDT this evening...

Pressure: 29.88 in / 1011.7 hPa (Falling)


Waxing Gibbous, 99 % of moon is illuminated