We have good internet service here, probably won't have much after we move on Wednesday. We are at Atlantic Beach N.C. right now, it is the southern part of the Outer Banks and a really interesting place to come to. Wednesday afternoon we will be leaving here to head up to Duck N.C. the Northern part of the Outer Banks to meet most of the family for Josh's Wedding on Friday morning. Only my parents and DIL Debbie will not be able to attend. The rest of the family and Courtney's family will be hanging at a large private ocean front beach house from Wednesday night till Sunday morning. Then Ric and I will be meeting back up with our friends for another full week in Duck.
Your Neck Of the Woods part 12 Dog Daze
That sounds lovely!
ditto!
What they said!!! Enjoy
I'll post a few pics from the wedding. It will be Friday morning around 11on the beach.
We'll be thinking of you! Extra hugs & best wishes to the new couple. :-)
I can't wait for photos! We loved the story of their engagement, so it counts as an honorary DG wedding!
It was a lovely wedding, the whole 4 day event went off without a hitch. Lots of pre wedding planning and work really paid off and the weather cooperated perfectly.
Congrats to the newly weds! I'm glad to hear it went so well!
Wonderful!!
So glad to hear Holly! I thought about them many times this weekend as my daughter's sister in law also got married this weekend...LOTS of work , but a bit lacking on the preplanning (makes for 'family stories' and bonding laughs thru the years to come. Enjoy the rest of your time away.
Trumpets blowing, pipers piping, much merriment! Now put your feet up and enjoy the beach with a tremendous feeling of satisfaction -- ya done raised him up right and married him off!
We had a slow weekend, on purpose but not our first choice... We all came down with colds a couple weeks back; then Joyanna & I had secondary infections and started antibiotics last Wednesday. We're all doing better now, but figured we'd better have a relaxed weekend and store up energy for the coming week.
I usually prune by hand, but with too many to-do's staring at me lately, I got out Jim's old hedge clippers... turns out they're pretty lightweight, so after I gave the yew by the front door a major haircut I went after the vastly overgrown Stephan's Jasmine by the back deck. I chopped it back to an umbrella shape rather than a Volkswagon sized mound. You can actually see the main vines of its "trunk" and part of the obelisk supporting them. Not sure if I went too far... might wind a little burlap around the obelisk, just in case.
In the process, I discovered several self-layered starts that I can dig up in the spring, and I also found my other digger!! It's been lost for two or three years. Might could use a new handle, but it's in remarkably good condition for something that's been buried under twigs and leaves that long.
I spent my weekend finishing up this quilt. It is for a fundraiser/silent auction tomorrow for a friend who has cancer. I hope there are some good bids and it raises some money for her.
PRETTY!!!! I admire quilters.
We attacked the overgrown yew. I had let it grow, cuz I wanted to see how big it would get. Well, I'll tell you it was probably at least 25' across and 15' high. We cut the lower limbs off and are trying to let it grow vertically. We were amazed at the piles of cuttings. I'll take a pic tomorrow. We kind of like the openness under it. Now, I'll need ideas .
Meant to add my congrats to the happy couple!!!!
It sounds like a beautiful wedding. Congratulations to all!
Robin, that quilt is beautiful... like a meditation, soothing.. And quilters say triangles are tricky, so double kudos on all those pretty points!
Wow Robin, thats beside the gorgeous hexie you showed me...you're amazing!
Jan, I was reading about yews today. There was a picture of a H U G E old one with a partially hollowed trunk and several men sitting inside it! So I think a mutitrunked yew could be way cool.
That reminds me I need to get a pic.
I agree, you can do such fun things with some of these type of bushes. Both Juniper and Yews can be trimmed into such interesting shapes. Always fun to see the underlying branching. Would love to see a pic.
I think I can sneak in one more session of reading in the hammock....
H e r e it is!!! Still cutting the branches.
WOW, Jan! I don't remember this tree at all. Is this at the edge of your property?
You could have such pretty shade plants under it! What are you thinking of?
That looks great...the trunk structure is very attractive.
Do you know how old that yew is?
Just love it. Look at all the space you cleared up and the trunks look great. Reminds me a lot of my trimmed up Juniper corners. Definitely worth all the work you did on it.
really interesting.
I'd keep it clear enough for kids to play under it are there grankdkids close enough, or do you always travel to them? if they're more occasional, I'd sneak some hosta or other shade specimens under there, but mostly clear much.
It is in the front of the house. Most of the activity at the plant swap was in the back or side yard. We moved into the house in 79 and it was already there as a basic shrub. I just let it grow. We have a coffee table made from yew wood, so I guess I was thinking we could let it get big enough for Jeff to make lumber from it. Jeff has been wanting to cut the whole thing, but I suggested we just limb it up and see what it looks like and he was on board with that idea. He likes it. We figure the grandies will like to climb in it. Hostas did come to mind. Maybe a fairy garden....thinking the grandies will like to contribute to that.
SSG, it didn't look anything like this cuz it was a massive shrub with limbs along the ground.
I don't have to babysit today, so I can get out there and cut up some more branches. The township will pick up cuttings if they aren't too large, sooooo, we make it more manageable. Plus we'll have some campfire logs, maybe even some wood for Jeff to make some frames. We'll see.
Jan,
You could cut discs from the removed branches and make trivets out of them.
Juniper is fragrant--right? So--the heat from a pot woulf release the scent.
Or--if you have any artists in your family--the larger discs could be used
to paint things on.
Can Jeff carve? Some of the branches could be carved into spoons, spatulas
and smaller kitchen serving pieces.
I own something like that. There is an Estonian family who used to go back
"home" and they spent the summer on the island "Vilsandi" they owned a house
on off the coast of Estonia.
The husband made all kinds of kitchen utensils and spoons from the Juniper wood
that covered the whole island. Juniper wood is indestructible ans very hard.
He just spent his time whittling away.
I have some of his pieces. Look! Gita
Aren't those wonderful?!!!!! I love how they have a story for you.
Great ideas!
My 85 yr old neighbor came out to help me as I used the sawzall. We made a great team. He is coming for dinner tonight. He appreciates having something to do. He used to be the volunteer fire chief many years ago and he still goes down to the firehouse every day to clean it.
As I went out to the garage I was stung under my chin by a wasp. Man, it hurts!! I paid close attention to whether or not I had trouble breathing.
Jan--
I can sympathize with you on your bite---OUCH! Went through it with
the Hornet bite I had.
Hey! maybe your 85 yr. old neighbor would like to whittle on some Juniper pieces?
You say he appreciates having something to do--Tell him--that he could sell these.
Does he belong to a Sr. Center? He could do these there...
Hand made sells! Show him my pictures.
Here is my 2 Junipers in front of the house. They grow so big every year--
and I trim them back every year--just seriously cut the ends off.
These are from last fall--I know i trimmed then back (used my new Chain saw),,,
Then they look presentable for a half a year--but grow back,
Just FYI--these cane with the house in 1969! I have kept them semi-presentable since then.
Gita, Jan's plant is a Yew...Holly had the Juniper..
Oh, PHOOEY!!!
I had the whole thing wrong.....All my good suggestions for nil.
Sorry, Jan.
i DO have a yew--and it is quite old--and it also IS in front of my house...
and--i DO trim it every year--kind of, loosely, in a big box shape.
It did NOT come with the house--but i don't remember when I planted it.
This is my house (2011). The 2nd bush from the left is my yew.
G.
All of youse with yews... Do you prune by hand or with one of those electric hedge trimmers? I finally admitted hand pruning wasn't going ot happen ths year and got out Jim's old trimmer... worked like a charm! I'm writing an article about using that trimmer, called "Power Pruning"... I'd love to include a couple of before/after shots of shrubs other than my own, if anybody happens to have some photos.
Jan, I realize your tree needed a chain saw rather than a hedge clipper! Wow, what an accomplishment, and how wonderful it looks now!
I have quite a few young trees that are finally old enough to need some serious "limbing up" with the big pruner or even with my little folding saw. I worked on the dogwoods out front today; even Sally's little redbud lost a limb. That little trio of trees looks much better now, and it's easy to see the azaleas blooming under them. :-)
Earlier this summer, I limbed up the red twig dogwoods on our cul de sac island, and they look much better for it also. I'm becoming much bolder about pruning!
Critter, I busted up laughing, cuz, obviously I didn't prune mine.
I need to be more pro-active on pruning everything. I'm afraid of messing up. Look where that got me. My neighbor said that yew was there when he moved into his house in 1958. Apparently it had been pruned up til we moved in. Hehehe.
Yeah, but look where "neglect" got you with that old yew... it's really beautiful! I have no choice but to trim mine, or it tries to eat the front porch. I trimmed it back pretty hard, and I know it's not really the right season, but it needed doing... yews are tough; I think it'll be fine. And the "net lights" will fit better this year! LOL
Hoping it survives its haircut!!
If not, it'll need both lights and tinsel for Christmas...
Rainy the next few days, but it looks like there might be spaces between the showers to go out and dig in the nice wet ground... good for yanking up thistles and whatnot that took root while I wasn't looking. :-)
I'm a timid pruner as well. I'm not sure why. I just find it so hard to grasp figuring out what parts should STAY...on my old crabapple tree, my young peaches, things like that.
I inherited a Euonymus hedge, that gets electric shears yearly and hand thinning at times, and had a serious total makeover about seven years ago. Now its as big as before.
Take a kook at m picture above again, those 2 taller shrubs...
I would love to get rid of these two Canadian Hemlocks on either side of the
front of my house. They are old and bare inside and dead half way up the stems.
They always have had the Wooly Adalgae scale as well.
I have thought of limbing them up--but there would not be much left.
Digging them up would take a back-hoe and they would not be too easily accessible..
The one on the right (in the pic) also sits right next to the Junipers.
I take my life in my hands trimming these Hemlocks back every year,
I try to keep the height so I can still reach it to trim them--teetering on my
small, 5' ladder loppers in hand.
I need to buy an 8' folding ladder.... G.
It is....what it is.... G.
quote "I would love to get rid of..."
Well...you have a saw, I presume. And you have experience with the ' leave the stump till it rots ' method...and plenty of pots and plants to place on it while it rots.
If you can spare a couple hundred $- talk to a nursery that offers landscaping. Ask about removing the Hemlocks, the Junipers by the lower level windows, and installing just a few new young evergreens. I personally think it would look better opened up, and would reclaim gardening room for you. Or they could just remove the old shrubs and stumps, and mulch it for you to plant your own. It would not take a backhoe. Just some young backs, and maybe a chain and hitch on the truck.
"Oh it'll look so bare! Oh, where will the birds go?"
Yes, till you get used to it or fill it with flowers (8 months). They'll find something. They're probably overpopulated English Sparrows and house finches.
This is just my opinion from a curb appeal angle. You can take it or leave it. If you take it, you will be relieved of a huge amount of trimming and pruning. I think it's part of maintaining the home at that age, like replacing a roof every fifteen- 20 years or repainting trim. And you can finally buy some things without cramming them all together.
And everytime you say you teeter on a ladder with shears, I cringe. Please stop. It's dangerous for any of us.
If you leave my opinion, just leave it. No explanation needed.