Sunday, February 10, 2008

Piddling in the back yard today enjoying the garden...

Today was a great day, the highs today were in the mid 60's and I actually made some progress in the yard. My back yard is in the midst of being transformed from a mess to a place that I hope will be a great place to hang out and at the same time serve as a propagation area for my clumping bamboo plants.

The day started by clearing the northwestern shade dominated part of the yard.
With two large trees in my neigbors yard, I had some major leaves to clean up and I had plenty of fallen bamboo leaves and sheaths that had collected over the winter. I filled a 90 gallon green waste container and had more to put in.
Got the bamboo plants organized from the bamboo trek from the day before. Have a space that spans about 15 x 15 (pictured, bamboo even goes beyond the wooden planter box) that includes most of my plants for sale, that not inluding the 6' x 30' space on the side of the yard that also has more plants for sale and some for propagation.
I was amazed as I did my spring cleaning how many surprises you find, my Japanese Maples that I have left over from the days I used to sell them were actually showing buds that were ready to open, a vivid culm from my "Candy Stripe" Bamboo (pictured) showing some really cool colors and my "Alphonse Karr" Bamboo (also pictured), not anything rare, but showing really bright and vivid yellow coloring on its culms with vertical green striping, very striking presence in the garden.
Finally, I even got around to planting a Dogwood tree in the newly cleared space that I had gotten from a co-worker about 4 years ago. I was amazed that it wasn't root bound, only to find that ot had adapted to my neglect by rooting straight though the pot deeply into the ground. Plants, gotta love 'em.
Get to get out, make some real progress in the long tranformation of my backyard, and enjoy the sunlight. Good day in my book.

Sean

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi there! Just wanted to say that I'm glad that I chance upon your blog and thoroughly enjoyed reading on your environment posts and gained alot of insights from them. Thanks and looking forward to more posts of yours!

kate smudges said...

Hi Sean,
I will be interesting to see how you transform your back garden. It was good that you got out yesterday - I am so envious of your temperatures.

I don't know much about growing bamboo or about all the different varieties, so I am looking forward to learning more as I read your blog.

It's doubtful there is a bamboo that I could grow in my garden.

Mad Man Bamboo Nursery said...

Teresa,

Thanks for the word of support... I have an environmental posting headed your way tonight.

Sean

Mad Man Bamboo Nursery said...

Kate,

Actually you'd be surpised, some of the mountain bamboos from the himalayas can take temps down to
-20 f. I can give you more info just let me know.

Sean