Tag: plants

Uncategorized

Baby Robins Flew the Coop

Christine

On Friday, I snapped these pictures of the babies. Mother Robin was not happy, so I was quick.

By Monday, only this defiant little guy was left in the nest, and he took off just after I snapped the second picture.

I thought they might come back, so I quickly gave the plant a drink, its first in weeks. I’ve had a watering can sitting by for days with room-temperature water, waiting for them to all be out of the nest on a flying lesson. Mother Robin seriously objected, and tried to dive-bomb me. Neither she or any of the babies have been back to the nest since. I hope it’s not because of the water. The poor plant was so parched, most of the water ran straight through, anyway. On the upside, it seems like my sweet potato vine will make a comeback, but the asparagus fern looks a bit worse for the wear. Oh well. I won’t be overwintering this plant this year. I don’t want it in the house because the birds may have had mites or something, and as we’ve established, I don’t like bugs.

Next task: put the porch back the way it belongs. It looks all haphazard and more junky than usual because I moved furniture (so it didn’t get bird droppings) and I move plants to create a natural barrier to protect the babies from any predators (like the neighborhood cats that ignore Oliver and strut around on his porch at night).

Uncategorized

Tree Identification Needed

Christine

The tree on the left is my biggest tree, and the only one that offers any substantial shade on the house. (The one on the left is a junk locust, and it has tripled in height in the past five years. It’ll grow fast, but need to be taken out sooner.)

But my big tree is old and majestic. And I love it. I just don’t know what it is.

It offers a lovely canopy under its willow-y branches. It makes cool, sun-dappled shade on the hottest part of the house.Here is a close up of the leaves:

As I’ve mentioned before, it has seen some storm damage, and I’m worried it may be near the end of its life cycle. I wouldn’t be too surprised if this tree is as old as the house.
Can anyone tell me what kind of tree this is?
Uncategorized

Front Crescent

Christine

We made substantial progress on the front crescent-shaped planting bed last night. And when I say we, I mean I did all the work and Oli supervised. He’s good at that.
This is what the bed has looked like for the last couple of months. The plastic and other weighty objects were my attempt to kill the weeds. I pulled it all off a few weeks ago and found a lot of hearty crab grass. So I scraped the top layer of soil out of the bed, and onto the concrete, and covered it all back up. Not pretty, but effective.
When I pulled the plastic, pots, mats, bricks, and stepping stones off the area tonight, I found that it had worked pretty well, and I only had to pull a couple of weeds, which came out easily because they were not thriving. Please forgive the photos, I snapped these well after the sun went down, but it was still light enough to work.
Oli is still not allowed on the front porch because of the baby robins, and he’s not happy that he has to be so far from the activity. We all know how much he likes to sink his paws into fresh soil.
I broke up the soil a bit with the hoe, and scraped it around with the metal rake, then I added two fresh bags of topsoil, and did my best to level it all with the rake. It was kind of hard to tell because it was getting pretty dark by then, and I was working by the light from the porch and the citronella candles.
I put my potted plants in position, planted two more cucumbers in the ground, and placed the recycled rubber stepping stones. Now I just need to fill in the gaps with plants, or I’ll have the same weed problem I started with.

I have some seeds that will probably work, but I’m going to see what Mom and I find when we visit Noggle’s Sweet Meadow Greenhouse. They are having a buy one, get one sale. I’m thinking that this late in the game, I’d rather not mess around with seeds, grown up plants will be better. Plants: at the far back, against the porch pillar, one cucumber, with twine to climb, next to it, Lewis’ frog belly plant. In the yellow pot, chives. The two plastic terracotta colored pots (16″ and heavy), one each of Better Boy and Sweet Millions tomatoes. Lavender in the white pot at the front, flanked by two more cucumbers. The marigolds came up on their own, and I’ll probably plant more. Marigolds keep the bunnies away.

Now I just need to find something for the two cucumbers in the front to climb…

Uncategorized

Every Mother Thinks Her Babies Are Beautiful

Christine

My once thriving hanging plant is looking awfully sad these days. Mother Robin is guarding it carefully. And who can blame her when she’s protecting such cuties.
A far cry from just one week ago.
They are surprisingly quiet, but Mother isn’t. She makes quite a ruckus when she thinks I’m near. Like when I’m snapping pictures of her babies. Or when I’m minding my own business, working on the yard.
I keep checking the nest, hopefully I’ll catch it when they are all out learning to fly, so I can quickly water this poor thing. It has come back from this level of neglect before, so if it can just hold on a couple more days, I think it will be okay.

Uncategorized

Always Look Before You Water

Christine

Looks like a perfectly ordinary hanging plant, right?

Well, to Mother Robin, it must have looked like the perfect sheltered spot for her soon-to-be babies.

I guess there is no way to water this poor plant now, so I’m just going to hope it hangs on until the baby robins are out of the nest. It is used to a bit of neglect.