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Garden journal entry

 

December 26, 2013. Well, that spells the longest hiatus of journal entries here at robsplants.com since I first started posting... Other activities pulled me in different directions since mid-summer, so my garden activities were mostly limited to a) de-algifying the swimming pond (a futile but relaxing activity, especially on hot summer evenings), and b) damage control in the weedling department. Neither of which lend themselves very much to journaling about. But a new season of seed-starting is here (I plan to start this evening – a month later than most years, but still in time to get plenty of littluns underway for spring planting), so I'm looking forward to a renewed horticultural vigor in months to come.

None of which is directly related to my reason for posting today. This morning we had another light snowfall – just one in quite a sequence of snow events, more than I ever recall seeing this early in winter. And once again, the collection of hypertufa troughs on the patio table got covered in snow. Temperatures zig-zag quite a bit around here (we had temperatures into the 60-degrees-Fahrenheit range earlier this week), so every time it snows or rains, those troughs get drenched again. Not good for those finnicky alpine plants that will rot if their feet are too wet through winter. So I finally got around to moving most of the troughs into the garage, onto a table near the window where they will get a bit of light. Now, I tried to do the same thing last year (when my collection of pots was much smaller), but my attempts at preserving the plants were frustrated by the resident rodents, who found the succulent foliage (as well as the underground bulbs) much to their liking. Not a living bit remained by the end of winter.

So I'm trying to outsmart them this winter, by placing the pots underneath a wire cage I built with some hardware cloth and left-over lumber. We'll see how that goes. Now I have to remember to water them very once in a long while, so they don't completely dry out by the time spring arrives.


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Last modified: September 09, 2009
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