The utility companies come the night before and mark everything – see the red spray paint on the lawn sort of pointing to the electrical box? Right in front of the place where the giant blade is eating the tree stumps? Yeah. That’s a bit unnerving, especially for the guy doing the work. When he was done, he warned me about planting anything deep rooted there (like that giant pine tree we’ll talk about in a minute). Though I’d love to camouflage the electrical box, there will only be medium to small perennials going into that bed, nothing very woody or large.

The pine tree is a story too. It’s beautiful. Mature, pyramidal, lovely, and full of some bad news beetle – Buprestids probably and maybe some Cerambycids. I saw D-shaped holes when I came for the inspection on this house (I thought asking for an arborist to come inspect as well might be going too far), so I knew there was trouble. The tips of last year’s needles are yellow, another indicator. There’s also pitch on some of the lower branches. The trifecta of conifer woe. So today the tree is getting some much needed chemo – injections of strong insecticide to try and save it. I do not want this story to end with “We used to have a pine tree out front.” We’ll see.

Clean up after stump removal is fairly intense – there are huge holes in your garden and tree debris scattered around, I am good and filthy. An excellent start to the day and to spring and to the beginning of some sunnier, warm days.

I realize there are two more things I should do before buying any plants.  1. Pull apart the raised beds sitting right in the middle of the border in the backyard, so I can redistribute the media and shape the beds, and 2. Order a few/ten/many yards of mulch to go over everything and tie the beds together while tidying things up. Mulch is to your garden what vacuuming is to your house: instant facelift.

Happy spring weekending!

Instead, I turned my attention to the hydrangeas, 3 bushes, in need of some pruning and clean up. 

If we get another frost I’ll be sorry I did this, but it’s done. Maybe a frost would have the decency to kill the Pieris, which is covered in sooty mold, flowers, and loathing. It’s only still standing because I didn’t feel like more sawing today, but it’s on borrowed time.

In the meantime, along came Harvest Automation.  These little guys are so cool – efficient, precise, and tireless.  Their backs don’t spasm, they don’t complain, they space rows like a boss.

Robots in the Nursery from Vox Hortus on Vimeo.

Kicking around a vintage store in Eugene Oregon, we stumbled across these tiny pots, watering can, and in the back on the right, fruit pint containers made from wire and wood.  Darling containers + utterly impractical = win.

Laboratory glassware would make excellent kitchen and barware.  You could measure out extremely precise amounts of cereal or gin or what have you, order replacements as easily as you reorder liquid nitrogen or stirring magnets, and cook things over a Bunsen burner.  Cheers to feeling scientific in the kitchen; cooking is, after all, chemistry.

I realized when I saw this sign, I had thought invasive species and noxious weeds were a relatively recent concern – not so.  Only one year before the referenced law on this sign, Gorse introduced from Ireland helped burn Bandon, OR to the ground, so people were familiar with the dangers of introduced species.

Inoculate yer cow peas, people.

This planting is in a commercial parking lot and is about 6 years old.  The cultivar (I don’t know what it is, probably a varietal of ‘Compactus’) is about 3-4′ tall and wide this year, and it’s one of the softer-leaved Euonymus as opposed to the waxier-leaved species.

In the first picture, you can see how its light green to yellow foliage is bright where the leaves receive the most sun.  Plants that receive less light are a darker green.

The second picture shows this light chartreuse of the uppermost leaves – those that get bright light all day from their southern exposure.  Notice also how well this color contrasts with the dark red to burgundy foliage of the Crimson King maple in the background.  (In a perfect world, those two trees would switch position, with the CK maple next to the Euonymus and the green-leaved maple behind it for alternating color palettes and maximum contrast).

In the bottom panel, you can see the open habit of the Euonymus, how the branches arch out and away from the plant’s center.  Note another nice contrast: the light green foliage with the dark brown stem structure.  The berries are just setting, and they’ll turn to bright red Christmas lights of interest this winter.

It’s not always easy to do hedges and grouped plantings well, and this one is quite nice, especially for a commercial landscape.  I’m always happy to see something besides Laurel, Rhododendron and Oregon Grape.

(1) Most of the Euonymus alatus that I see looking rough has insect, disease and/or irrigation problems.  These plants benefit from a regular water supply, especially when they are young. They aren’t plant-it-and-forget-it shrubs, but they’re close.

“Through Calbug, any volunteer with Internet access can help read and transcribe hand-written field notes accompanying a million insect specimens, many dating back more than 100 years.”

If I do this, can I put UC Berkeley on my CV?  No?  Still – it’s science, from the comfort of your bunny slippers and Aeron chair.

Below are specimens I photographed from Taiwan National University’s collection.  You can read the labels, but many of them are in German.  Good times.

(Link discovery via pterostichini blog)