On Monday Tennessee had near record temperatures in the upper 60’s.
On Tuesday it got warmer.
According to the local television broadcast Nashville hit 71 degrees Fahrenheit which ties a record set in the 1800’s. The warmth has left us now but we took advantage of it while it was here! Here’s what we did:
Monday Morning:
I ran around the yard chasing my 2 year old daughter. She had a great time. Later we went for a walk up the street, ran around the yard more, and rode a tricycle. Well she rode the tricycle, I just watched! Here’s a picture of our barren winter landscape with the lone bright spot in the middle that is my daughter running down the hill! Some winterberry hollies would look great over to the right near the woods.
After Lunch:
Later I went to work (or play) in the yard. I started by re-potting some butterfly bush cuttings into 2″pots. If you read my post “Crazy Thought Maybe Not!” you can see what I did. Seven out of the eight cuttings have made it. The one was lost because the others grew so well they prevented any light from reaching it. It’s my fault really since I probably put too many cuttings in too small a pot, but an 87.5% success rate isn’t bad for cuttings. I can give myself a solid ‘B’ in Butterfly Bush Cuttings 101.
This picture shows the cuttings before I re-potted them. Take a look at the last update for them and compare its growth.
Here is the root system of one of the cuttings. It’s still covered in sand from the rooting medium, but you can make out several good starter roots branching out from the stem.
Here is where they are now. I lined a basket with plastic and put a saucer in the bottom to collect drainage water. Then I put the 2″ pots in the basket as best as they would fit. I will probably have to re-pot them into something larger in a month.
Late Afternoon:
I kept going. Here you can see a shovel standing in our grass. Not exactly a picture for your desktop, unless you really like shovels!
The shovel got tired so we took a break from digging to take a picture. The poor little guy had no idea that his life would be so hard.
We finished as it was getting dark with our work for the day. The channel to the pit might help you figure out what it is.
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I thought I remembered you mentioning a rain garden to fix that drainage problem.
Your daughter is definitely the bright spot in the garden.
Those butterfly bush cuttings look great. Are you going to line your property with them?
How big is your yard. It looks huge.
Gloria,
You are absolutely correct on the rain garden! Thanks for stopping by!
Tina,
The angle may be deceptive on the picture. The tree stand on the left side of the picture is the edge of our property. Unfortunately it’s kind of shaped odd. Our house was built after the houses on the other street and they already had their lines staked out. So when the builder fit ours lot in it probably should have had some chunks of the other yards to make sense. Total we have about an acre. I plan on reducing the mowing area to some extent with garden beds as I can.
The butterfly bushes will mix together with some other shrubs to make my deciduous hedge line. Good guess!