Funny Garden Moments

Do What I Say, Not What I Do

It is winter, so I’m constantly reminded of good garden practices that I fail to follow through on. Maybe a public confession here, of what I know I should be doing. “What I should have done” is my garden motto.

I love my garden enough to spend almost all my free time looking for new blooms, or watching leaves unfold, smelling the flowers or just dreaming of what to plant next. The one thing I don’t do much of in the garden is WORK. Some of the basic good practices that should be second nature to me are the first things I ignore. Confession is said to be good for the soul. People ask me so many questions but do not pay attention to what I do.  Or maybe I am like everyone else!

Biggest thing is I don’t add enough organic matter to the soil

I couldn’t believe the growth boost I saw after adding the first few buckets of compost to the garden or flowerbed. I could see and feel the difference in soil texture in that bed months later. Unless you garden in a former peat bog, your plants would practically kill for more organic matter in the soil. Building the soil’s organic content is an ongoing process, as organic matter also breaks down throughout the growing season. You can buy peat moss, find an OLD manure pile, or make compost. Any added organic content benefits almost any soil by improving the fertility, pH, water holding and drainage characteristics.

I ignore problems

What degree of laziness keeps me from taking quick action when I see sick plants? Ignoring them only has two possible outcomes. Either insects or disease persist, and spread, in my garden, or I advertise my ineptness as a gardener. To a real pro, every yellow leaf is a neon sign blinking “Neglected!” I guess I want to think that a shriveled stem on a potted plant will “heal” like a minor scratch on my arm, and turn green again, but it just doesn’t work that way.

Yellowed leaves, distorted stems or entire ailing specimens are a sign that something has gone wrong. The sad news is that damaged plant parts never get better looking even if that problem is corrected. The good news is that once you ease their suffering, most plants have an amazing ability to regenerate all the parts of a healthy complete plant. Removing a sick plant in the flowerbed or garden should really be done.  It is hard yanking out that shriveling cucumber plant or the wilting tomato plant. Prompt correction of problems lessens the plant’s suffering and hastens its recovery.

I don’t harvest all my ripe produce

How many pounds of summer squash is laid off to the side from my garden just because I wasn’t ready to eat it? In the disorganized meanderings that are my daily normal state, I’d go to the garden for one reason, notice a few ripe berries or perfect lettuce leaves, and leave them to pick later, only to forget them later. It just seems downright wrong to waste good homegrown produce.

A May to September rule might be “Don’t go out to the vegetable garden without a small knife and a colander.” Five spinach leaves? That’s enough to stuff an extra healthy sandwich. A dozen zucchini ? Leave them on all the neighbor’s doorsteps that night. (Only one perfect asparagus spear? Eat it right in the garden and don’t tell anybody.) You are more likely to use garden gatherings when they are in the kitchen before mealtime, rather than down and dirty in the veggie patch.

I forget fertilizer

I bet my plants are hungrier than I imagine and starving them is going to lead to poor growth. I need to educate myself about the needs of plants, and what is available in my garden. Then I need to plan a menu and go grocery shopping for my plants.

Early last spring I yanked a weedling that I too late recognized as a Cleome seedling. Oh, the humanity, err, botany! I forgot I had planted the seed because that Cleome had been sown a year earlier. And I wasted a precious plot of flowerbed and suffered many fruitless searches last year for those Spider flower seedlings, all because I didn’t know what the Cleome needed to sprout.

Those gorgeous specimens at the nursery or in the catalog are at their peak, but what will they look like at other times of the year, and under the conditions they’ll find in your garden? Making educated plant selections can prevent disappointment and save money. Unusual perennials may thrill experienced gardeners, yet sorely disappoint the novice with innocent misconceptions of short blooming season. With modern merchandising, a literal world of plant choices need to be carefully weeded through to find the ones that really meet our expectations.

I don’t prune properly

Persistent trial, and my fair share of error, has given me many chances to see the results of my pruning and learn what works. As I said earlier, most plants have an amazing ability to grow new parts when given half a chance. Still I hesitate to prune. I felt faint when I read instructions to reduce my new apple’s canopy by almost half!

Pruning questions plague many gardeners. Don’t let fear of hurting the plant keep you from pruning when it’s needed. Good pruning can prevent injury or disease. Good pruning does not damage a plant, any more than a haircut damages you. Proper pruning is just a management technique that allows us to grow a wider variety of specimens, or that modifies a plants natural growth to achieve results more pleasing to the gardener or farmer. Deadheading flowers is though and time consuming.

Can I remember 7 rules?

Read about new plants

Build the soil

Prune when needed

Treat problems before they become problems

Feed the hungry

Harvest (maybe learn to process) when ready

Do my best

Home Selling, Real Estate (Residential)

7 Tips In Pricing a Home

7 Pricing Myths to Stop Believing If You Ever Hope to Sell Your House (also in selling land and business)

  1. You always make money when you sell a home

Sure, real estate tends to appreciate over time: The National Association of Realtors® estimates that home prices will jump 5% by the end of 2017 and continue rising 3.5% in 2018. But selling your home for more than you paid is by no means a given, and your return on investment can vary greatly based on where you live. This always depends on if it is a seller’s market or buyer’s market.

  1. Price your house high to make big bucks

I know what you’re thinking: “Hey, it’s worth a shot!” But if you start with some sky-high asking price, you’ll soon come back to Earth when you realize that an overpriced home just won’t sell.

While the payday might sound appealing, you’re actually sacrificing your best marketing time in exchange for the remote possibility that someone will overpay for your home.  And this can lead to problems down the road (as our next myth indicates).

  1. If your home’s overpriced, it’s no big deal to lower it later

Sorry, but overpricing your home isn’t easily fixed just by lowering it later on. The reason: Homes that have lingered on the market for months—or that have undergone one or more price reductions—make buyers presume that something must be wrong with it. As such, they might still steer clear, or offer even less than the price you’re now asking.

Price your home appropriately from the beginning for your best shot at having a quick and easy sale.

  1. Pricing your home low means you won’t make as much money

Similarly, sellers are often leery of pricing their homes at market value. But as counterintuitive as this seems, this strategy can often pay off big-time. Here’s why: Low-priced homes drum up tons of interest, which could result in contingencies in favor of the seller.

  1. You can add the cost of any renovations you’ve made

Let’s say you overhauled your kitchen or added a deck. It stands to reason that whatever money you paid for these improvements will be recouped in full once you sell—after all, your home’s new owners are inheriting all your hard work.

The reality: While your renovations might see some return on investment, you’ll rarely recoup the whole amount. On average, you can expect to get back 64% of every dollar you spend on home improvements. Plus that profit can vary greatly based on which renovation you do. It all depends if you are adding to the original value of the home or if it is maintenance (like if I were fixing kitchen countertops that needed to be fixed).

  1. A past appraisal will help you pinpoint the right price

If you have an appraisal in hand, from when you bought or refinanced your house, you might think that’s a logical place to start to price your home. It’s not!

An appraisal assigns your home a value based on market conditions at a specific date, so it becomes old news very quickly. In fact, lenders typically won’t accept appraisals that are more than 60 days old.

  1. Your agent might overprice the house to make a bigger commission

Don’t even go there, while it’s true that an agent’s commission is based on the selling price of a house, the disparity will end up being negligible.  For example, the difference in commission between a $200,000 house and one that’s $210,000 is about $150. No Realtor is going to lose a sale for the sake of a couple hundred dollars.

Gardening & Landscape, Shade Trees and Shrubs

One Tough Shrub

Are you are looking for a shrub that easy to grow, drought tolerant, winter-cold resistant, and mostly insect, rodent, and deer, that comes in a variety of leaf and flower colors?  Sounds impossible, try the ninebark (Phyysocarpus-genus)

 

Commonly named for the attractive, exfoliating bark of the species, growing ninebark shrubs is simple. Learning how to grow a ninebark bush successfully is primarily in the location and soil you choose. The Physocarpus ninebark, a North American native, prefers neutral soils.  I grow 6 different varieties on the north and west side of the house without any troubles.

Growing Ninebark Shrubs

Though the Physocarpus ninebark family is small, ninebark shrub info indicates there is a cultivar for every landscape. Most ninebark shrub info varies on climates that support growing ninebark shrubs, but most agree the Physocarpus ninebark and newer cultivars do well if planted in USDA Zones 2-7 (we are in zone 4).

Learning how to grow a ninebark bush includes the proper location and correct planting of the ninebark bush. Dig a hole as deep as the container holding the shrub and twice as wide. Make sure the crown of the ninebark is even with the top of the soil surrounding the planting area.

After planting, fill in with backfill taken when digging the hole. Gently fill in around the roots to make sure there are no air pockets and water well until established.

Physocarpus ninebark shrubs like a sunny to lightly shaded location. With correct ninebark shrub care, the species reaches 6 to 10 feet in height and 6 to 8 feet in height, however, there are smaller varieties that can be found.  Allow room for the well-branching shrub to spread out when planting in the landscape, as ninebark shrub care does not necessarily include heavy pruning.  These shrubs are very easy to prune to keep in-bounds.

Ninebark Shrub Care

Established ninebark shrubs are drought tolerant and can thrive with only occasional watering and limited fertilization in spring with a balanced fertilizer as part of ninebark shrub care.

Pruning for shape and thinning inner branches will likely be all that is necessary to keep growing ninebark shrubs healthy and attractive. If you prefer, renewal pruning to a foot above the ground can be included in ninebark shrub care during dormancy every few years, but you’ll miss the excellent winter interest of the ninebark’s peeling bark.

Some cultivars of the shrub are smaller and more compact. ‘Seward’ Summer Wine reaches only 5 feet and displays reddish purple foliage with whitish pink flowers in spring. ‘Little Devil’ reaches just 3 to 4 feet around and in height, with deep burgundy foliage to accent the pink blooms.

Ninebark ‘Burgundy Star’ (Physocarpus opulifolius) and Hardy Hibiscus