Hackberry Trees, etc, #2

Wish we could be together and help each other.

Now there's an idea!

Good work Sharon! But don't overdo it. Slow and steady wins the race.
And anyway, who are we supposed to be racing?
Agree with Christi, 'Old age is not for sissies'.
Achilles' ankles are one thing, but it's Achilles' knees that are the problem for me too.

Coffee machine wouldn't work this morning. Could have been bad - but have a number of coffee shops nearby.
Off gardening. Only a couple of hours at a time.

Aaarrrggghhhh...nothing worse than no coffee.

I have to go to my gallery today to hang a quilt. It's just as well since the clouds are moving in pretty rapidly.

You all have a good day, I will be up and down a ladder.
Back later.

oooooooow. I don't climb anymore. Too dangerous.

Yes, well, if you don't hear from me tonight, you will know it got the best of me, too.

I'll be careful, promise.

Sharon versus the ladder - life in the fast lane.
But glad you promised to be careful - Sharon.
Find you need pretty good knees for ladders, so tend to avoid them myself too.
Going to the big plaza this evening to get a coffee maker.
Not sure what 'gallery' is?

Back all safe and sound now. No ladder problems. I have good knees, just back situation.

I have an art gallery that I direct, it shows the work of local artists and is part of the County Admin Program. Nice place, and I can do with it as I want. I was putting the finishing touches on a show today.

Now I have a ton of stuff to do before the rains come....again.

Luck with the coffee maker. I prefer Bunn actually. And they usually have a long life span.

Another coincidence. Bunn is the best of all. Can get them at JCPenny for reasonable prices. Well, I have surery for the back and somehow the last several days I have injured my knee and can hardly walk...again.

Snipped 55 blooms off the gardenia today and it is still loaded with buds. The Easter Lillies are beginning to bloom and they, too are loaded.

Pictures Lou, we need pictures.

Maybe I can do that tomorrow.

Thanks for info re coffee makers.
The gallery sounds very interesting.
Used to be very big on counting and measuring (objectivity/replicability/etc)
but also getting interested in art as well. As said, very interested in why people like what.
Gardenias sound very exotic to us - beautiful plant.
We have major problems with easter lilies, fritillaria, toad lilies. Have lily beetle (bright orange adults), which eat especially the leaves of lilies away. Same in England. Can't keep blocks of lilies. As much as I like them, don't use them. Daylilies not affected. At least that's good.
You probably know that the pollen of easter type lilies is very poisonous to cats (ingestion: apparently, kidney damage and death, without immediate veterinary intervention). Was quite surprised to read this recently.
Following: two pictures of the biggest garden I have put in and maintain. And two of a former customer - trillium woods and 'sad garden'.

There's a formal garden (was there, without plants) behind right side and garden continues to right at back of pool wing. Love working on this garden.

'sad garden'
Part of a garden I put in, which has been maintained by a lawn maintenace company for the last two years. Financial problems? Divorce?

still beautiful - the trillium wood at the back of that property.

Oh, I thought the top two pictures were breathtaking, but look at those trillium....how stunning, Charlie. Now that is a perfect garden setting, all natural.

Yes, the sad garden is indeed that, very sad. How can anybody let that happen? But I see it every day, and it touches me in much the same way as do those kitties that are left by the wayside all on their own.

The house, though, that is beautiful.

As David said, gardens die with their gardener. The qualification would have to be, if there is nobody else with the knowledge and time to maintain them.
But they die for other reasons, as well. I suspect, in this case, it was to do with the changing economic circumstances of the property owners.
If you want to be hard-nosed about it - now, it's just floral succession.
I can actually see sumacs invading some of the flower beds, or are they just reclaiming what they would have had, if I had not been paid to put a garden in?
There are/were over 140 foot of flower beds in this garden (located (in this case) according to the specifications of an owner). I actually offered to put this garden back into reasonable shape last year, doing a few hour every week, rather than working on a contract basis. Never heard back, but I had been kindly told that I could take bits of plants. The garden is actually very easy to work, because it is one of the only two sandy-soil gardens I have worked on. Most gardens around here start off as heavy clay.
Rightly or wrongly, I think the kitties are more important. They are sentient, like us - fellow mammals.
Carol and I were speculating on what would happen if cats could drive. Carol felt there would be an aweful lot of road rage (= cat fights). I felt they would be trying to drive each other off the road (= territoriality). Seriously: we believe in indoor cats, as you do.

Speaking of cats...

My two have been fighting over a little sort of seat thing that I made for each of them. DAisy eats always from her bowl on the right, Jazz always eats from the bowl on the left though they are side by side.

The two little seats are both red, and sit side by side. Daisy always sits on the right, Jazz on the left. Today for some reason, Jazz claimed the seat on the right, and they have fussed and argued all day.

I have pictures, give me a minute and i will regale you with their silly antics.

Cat fight 1...

Cat fight 2...

And Cat Fight 3.....The End. BTW, Daisy won....she is the b/white tuxedo on the left. She usually wins.

Sharon - the pictures are spectacular.
I laughed and laughed. A touch insensitive though!
With the last picture, first impressions are that they are posing for the camera.
Then you remember that they are cats. They mean business!
Carol is going to love the pictures tomorrow.

It was pretty funny, they rarely fight, but when they do, it's serious.
When Daisy knocked Jazz off the seat, Jazz mumbled and grumbled his way down the hall.

They both are sleeping now, and I don't know what made Jazz decide to take over Daisy's seat, but that's when it all started.

It did look like it was posed, but no, my cats aren't quite that smart.
Tell Carol the girls always win at my house!

Sharon,
Still laughing.
Pebbles and Buddy were so different - they never clashed.
Pebbie used to clash with the girl next door (named: Geronimo).
Sometimes Geronimo would sit on the fence and look at Pebbie.
This drove Pebbie insane.
Geronimo used to come over the fence and poop on my pile of potting soil.
On these occasions, if Pebbie came out, Geronimo would beat a hasty retreat. Pebbles would try to sink her one remaining fang into Geronimo's bum as she left. I believe she succeeded once and gave the gawking hussy an abscess.
Had better let us get some sleep.
Charlie

Cute story!

Good nite, Charlie, y'all have a good day up there tomorrow.

Nothing sadder than a neglected garden.Its what we inherited 2 years ago when we bought this house.

JoAnn,
I think renovating a neglected garden is more difficult than putting in a new one. One problem here is working out what's in the garden in the first place
and you need to see it over the year to be sure. Can see you've got yours under control - I know the labor (and knowledge) that went into it.
Think you said you have clay soil - much harder to work (as you implied) that sandy soil - but I think it is a better base for upgrading the soil.
Question on arthritis: Am finding it worse in colder, wet weather than warmer, wet weather. Is that your experience?
Sharon,
Carol loved the pictures - she was amazed that you were able to get the action in such close sequence.
Charlie

Charlie!
Cold and wet is worse

Do cats have PMS? Funny, how women are described as getting in a "cat fight". Usually meaning vicious words to go with it.

Yep, Charlie, cold and wet is worse as JoAnn says.

I think my cats were saying vicious words last night. The air seemed a bit blue around them.

And Charlie, tell Carol I directed the scene and told them exactly what to do. I'm sure she'll believe that.

JoAnn and Sharon - Thanks for info - thought I was getting paranoid.
Love Christi's question - trying to make sense of the cats behavior.
Pebbles (the girl) was much more territorial than Buddy (the boy). We've seen her thrown herself against the window of the sliding doors, trying to get at a trespassing cat. She was quite hostile against anything in her garden, at least anything bigger than an insect (e.g. the doves - don't think she ever thought of them as meals). In her case, she was in a cat hostel for years, before we went to get cats. Maybe she waited so long for her own property, she didn't want to share it with aliens. Everybody said how sweet she was - but she certainly had a tough side.
Sharon - It's kind of bad when your little dears use bad language. People would think you didn't bring them up properly. Maybe you could say they had a history before you met them. Or it's just in their genes. Carol said 'Oh yes!" You would be some animal trainer.
Off to Merlin's Hollow (to check some primulas) - get a few pictures if sun OK.

Heh heh, Charlie.

I have been known to turn the air around me a pale shade of blue, but only when in the presence of no other ears but my own. Maybe they were hiding and listening. Nahhhh, surely not.

Jazz is territorial, too, slams himself against the window door with great regularity. I fear it might shatter just any day. Daisy is the calm one, she just looks at the squirrels or maybe the birds, or Cupcake next door, and hardly reacts. Jazz and Cupcake go at it, though, and heaven help us all if that door shatters.

But Jazz is afraid of most things that might be noise related. Foil, paper bags, vacuum, a knock on the door...my sneezes...doesn't take much to send him for cover.

Sure they learned it elsewhere!
Odd about Jazz - lots of courage when he sees a cat, but little courage when he hears a loud noise. Buddy lacks any courage: he and Pebbie were in the garden one time and another cat came into the garden. Buddy (who was close to 30 lbs) 'ran' in the house in panic, upstairs and hid under the bed. Pebbie went for the cat and Carol and I had to break the fight up with a broom. It was the stereotypic cat fight - a screaming ball turning round in the air with fur flying out in all directions. We were happy nobody (including ourselves) seemed to get injured. Three years after her passing, we still talk about Pebbles, every day - what a little character. She loved her people. Can see some parallels with Jazz.
Was at Merlin's Hollow (David's 3/4 acre garden). A lot was in shade (4 p.pm.). Two pictures:
perennial garden (part)

Merlin's Hollow contains about 2500 different perennial plants.
Below looking across part of the alpine garden towards arch into fragrant garden.

Very beautiful, Charlie, what is your average day time temp there now?

Does David do his own gardens, or do you help or contribute in any way?

Have to check temps with Carol - let you know.
David built the whole thing (perennial garden, alpine garden, fragrant garden, pond, knot garden) himself, while landscaping design work was in low demand during the depression of the 1980s and 1990s. It's quite a history. All of the hardscaping was done by him, except for the gazebo, arches and art work. It's quite a wildlife garden too, with snake, bumble bee, bat and bird boxes and the like. The research has shown that a (very) large well designed garden, with a wide diversity of plants, has something like ten times the amount of wildlife that an equivalent 'natural' area does.
The garden is designed for easy maintenance. Dierdre, David's wife is doing more and more of the maintenance of the garden now, as David is involved in local environmental projects. All I have done is, in recent years, helped Dierdre and David sell plants on their (annually) four open days. There is no admission charge to the garden, but the sale of the plants (raised by David), during open days, has financed the whole garden construction.
What impresses me most about David is his intelligent pragmatism. His landscaping work marries horticulture and environmentalism. Some of it has been public projects on a very large scale.
Had better get to bed - didn't do much this morning, as was raining quite hard.
Kind words to Jazz and Daisy.

That is a very interesting comment: "...research has shown that a very large well designed garden with a wide diversity of plants, has something like 10 times the amount of wildlife that an equivalent natural area does."

Something to really think about. Makes me wonder if we could possibly cure the problem we might be having with the dwindling honey bee population if something like you mention was considered and planned. Or perhaps those other critters who are also on the endangered list.

Just a thought here before I turn in for the evening. I'll get something like this on my mind and never go to sleep!

Ahhh well...you all have a great evening. I am going to see if I can get the cats back to a friendlier mutual understanding...They still aren't speaking.

Interesting points Sharon,
That statement approximates that of the late evolutionary biologist, David Lack, who was something of a pioneer on bird population studies. I just checked Lack in Wikipedia (Just realized he is the same Lack who wrote 'Darwin's Finches' (on Galapagos Islands; related to teaching Biological Anthropology - latter, my former specialty)). It was certainly based on his quantitative research on living bird populations at the Oxford Botanic Garden. American studies, which I have not seen, apparently support the statement. Seems odd, doesn't it, that a human-made (and maintained) environment can be better for wildlife (which?) than a 'natural' one.
I guess (wild speculation) human energy has to be expended on the human-made environment, to construct and maintain it, so in terms of energy input/output, the 'natural' one is more cost efficient.
I think you make a very good point about artificial environments for some endangered species, including at one end of migration routes. Speculation - think the real problems for bees and large insects is pesticides. I can say categorically that if you garden here, in the way I do, you don't need (shouldn't use), pesticides. It damages the predatory (etc) relationships that hold potentially harmful insects populations in check. David has a garden with 2500 different perennials in it, but has not used pesticides (except for the birch tree: now stopped). He does use a herbicide occasionally - I don't.
Good luck with the mediation between Jazz and Daisy.