Garden Report: March 4

Today is a date and a command, and the garden seems to be obeying.

The Flavour Supreme pluot by the front path -- one of the two trees I got last year at the scion exchange that survived my indifferent watering -- is both blooming and leafing out. It seems way too small to set fruit this year.

I read a piece on peach leaf curl that suggested spraying when the buds had thickened and started showing the pink petals inside, so last week I gave the nectarines another spray, just in time for the first few blossoms to appear this week. Here's hoping we have a better year than the last two, because if the peach leaf curl keeps up I am considering replacing these trees with something else.

The apricot has some blossoms starting, as well. It didn't set any fruit last year, and we'll have to see how it does this year. It's still young, at any rate.

Also very tentatively starting to bloom are the Asian pears. We cut down one of them last year because it has never done well and keeps getting fireblight, and the remaining three seem to be doing quite well without it.

The blueberry bushes are also blooming -- they're pretty small and we seem to get 4-5 blueberries from each every year, but I'll be potting them up to larger pots this year and maybe that, and more consistent watering, will make a difference. I'm going to put a watering circuit in that does the containers at the back of the lawn. Right now they are watered by strategically placing the pots so the lawn sprinklers hit them, which is dumb.

Both apples and quinces are still holding off on blooms -- the quince is still recovering from a severe cutback to deal with fireblight a couple of years ago, and the apples never bloom this early. I was thinking of ordering some more plums to plant out front when we finish the retaining wall project, but have decided mostly against it since I'm not sure I will have time or energy to deal with them properly this year.

Also in bloom now is the hummingbird sage in the orchard. I need to get in there and move some of the plants around it, since the orchard planting bed has gotten very crowded lately. I think I can move a couple larger plants out and just let this sage crawl wherever it wants (weeding it back from the pathway when it makes forays in that direction), which will please the local hummingbirds.

The little crocuses I planted along the pathways and in the front of planting beds are also popping up now, which is very pretty (those are nigella seedlings on the right there -- lots of those right now, too).

In a couple of weeks, when it's officially spring, the garden will start to go really crazy. But it's off to a nice start.

posted by ayse on 03/04/11