Monday, February 23, 2009

Sunshine, chainsaws and Rot at Rose Villa



We've had absolutely wonderful weather the last few weeks here at Rose Villa. Sunshine, warm days with cool nights. Hopefully the last few mornings of frost, I have gotten real tired of scraping frost off my car windshield in the morning!

The garden plots I am getting ready for planting are finally ready for planting, just have to wait till time to start popping seeds into the beds. It took longer then I had figured to dig compost into the beds and create raised rows and put newspaper and straw on the pathways. It's called no-till vegetable gardening. Which at this point I find rather a humorous choice of words. Between spreading compost by shovel and wheelbarrow, digging it up into raised beds, putting down newspaper and straw and then wheelbarrowing and shoveling more compost onto the raised rows I've spent a good long time with a shovel in my hands. Here's before and after photos of the same bed, just a different angle.














But it's done now and the first thing I will be planting are the strawberry starts I got from a nursery down the valley about a week ago. I'm thinking I will need at least twice the starts as I first purchased which was 25, so that will give me a chance to get something different. I'm trying to get at least two whole rows of ever bearing strawberries going so we can have lots and lots of berries as time goes on.

Otherwise, I'm starting to hang out at seed displays at the local garden centers, it's amazing to me how many different kinds of beans, lettuce, corn and etc there are, how I am going to decided what to get and what to plant is still a guessing game. I'm leaning toward fast maturing veggies and veggies that can be companion planted together. Things like onions in with the strawberries, at least until the berries start to take over the row. Which shouldn't happen till next year.

Another project that is getting started is the cedar split rail fence going into the English Meadow. I will be planting and espaliering 9 fruit trees on this fence. I know that this year I cant expect a very large fruit crop, but by next year and the year after we should be able to harvest a goodly selection and quantity of apples, pears, and plums from this fence row.

The big news from Rose Villa however is what's been going on in the front entrance area. We have had three full sized Douglas Fir trees and a medium Blue Spruce tree in the front circle lawn area since before the Villa was built, back in 1959. The firs were between 3 and 4 feet in diameter at the base, unfortunately they have been battling a root rot disease for at least the last 10 years. After several treatments for this disease we came to the decision that the trees were not savable and needed to be cut down before they fell down. So after some rather spectacular work by the tree climbers who cut the trees down and several days of brutally hard







work by the grounds crew splitting the wood into firewood the trees are gone. Here's before and after photos of the front area from the side, I think it appropriate that it's raining in the after photo.
Only stumps and mounds of sawdust left now. And what stumps, they all showed signs of rot but this one was particularly spectacular. That's all punky wood in the center of the stump and it went at least 20 up the center of the tree.









So now we have around 10 cords of firewood curing down in an empty garage and the entire front entrance looking, well, pretty bare and unlovely. Now it's up to the Grounds boss to re landscape the front area and make it look good again. I'm thinking this will be a dramatic change from what's out there now and what was there before the trees came down. Something to look forward to for sure.














Wednesday, February 11, 2009

























It's been a month since I last posted anything here and lots has been happening at Rose Villa. The third snow storm of the winter I wont even mention as it was such a small insignificant event compared to the snow storm before Christmas. Instead I'll talk about the exciting new developments in the resident vegtable gardens.

Mainly that I have been assigned 6 garden plots to use to supply the main Rose Villa kitchen with produce this summer! Which is exciting because despite having worked in the landscape maintenance industry for well over 35, almost 40 years, I have only actually had maybe 10 or 12 vegtable gardens. And while I know the principals of growing plants are the same I also know there is a world of difference in growing plants for ornamental reasons and growing plants for food.

So the first photo is of one of my plots after I had put 4 to 6 inches of compost on it and then worked it up into raised rows. As soon as I get some more dry weather, newspaper and straw will go in between the raised rows for pathways and then more compost on the raised beds and then they will be ready for planting. It is a modified no-till / intensive gardening method, which, once you get the beds created shouldn't require the regular tilling or digging up that most gardens need. We shall see.

The second photo is of a compost bin I built from plans I found on the local Metro website. It's three bins with removable slats in front for ease of working. The grounds dept will be suppling me with appropriate material to get the composting operation going. Leaves, small clippings, dead weeds, other select material that will work in a bin that is only 3ft by 3ft.


















These next two photos are of one of the three big fir trees in Rose Villa's entrance circle. All three of the trees will be taken down because they are all in varying stages of terminal root rot. Which is soil disease that is fairly common in firs. It's too bad to lose them, but it's better to cut them down now rather then wait to have them fall over later. The photo on the right is of the top of the first tree, it was topped maybe 25 years ago and you can see what happens when you top a fir. The tree tried to 'callus' over the cut, but the cut was so big that is started to rot out right down the trunk. Looking at the next several cuts I could see that the rot had proceeded to make it down about 8 feet into the trunk.

We got about 4 1/2 cords of firewood from this first tree, anyone want to buy some firewood?
















The next photo is of the last section of the tree being cut down, it landed between the blue spruce and the big piece of trunk already on the ground. Really precision falling. The next two fir trees in the front circle will also have to come down, they are are even more badly affected by the root rot. However, because they are so close to the electric wires special rules apply to working on them. We will have to get a different company that has different training and insurance to clear the wires. So it will be a week or two before they come down, but come down they will.

The final photo is what I saw in my walk around today. If you look really closely you can just make out the eagles mate sitting about 6 feet down the tree. I talked with one of the people who live here and she told me that she and her neighbors have been watching these two bald eagles hanging out in this tree all winter. I wonder if they will be nesting here? I'll keep you posted.