Tag: Corten weathering steel

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10/02/2023 feeding the world

Bright yellow composite flower stalks are fluffy with small blooms. They are in a rusted steel planter.
Probably Solidago rigidiuscula (thanks for ID, Mom!). This was an accidental but fortunate stowaway in the caliche from TX home!
Big arcs of flower covered Maximilian sunflowers are in bright sunlight in front of shaded and dark leaved Datura in the background.
Heavy work, feeding the neighborhood. The maxes hadn’t fully dropped yet here like they did after the rain.
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07/11/2023 bizarrely wet summer

We got another 2.8 inches of rain overnight according to the Oklahoma Mesonet. I went outside to look at the puddles and remaining sprinkles and saw the partridge pea in the caliche planter had produced a new beautiful yellow flower and the whole plant was covered in little raindrops.
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05/25/2023 Thursday shenanigans and winecup looking

On the left is this year’s soil to bring the level up. To the right is last year’s winecups!
A baby two leaf senna in one of the caliche planters!
The guard flamingo is keeping a careful eye on Briar. Gotta keep her from squishing the Oklahoma penstemon.
Every night Gram wants to go past Briar in the hall. Every night she waits for her chance to slobber him. This only happens at night. It is now a ritual. She smiles. As soon as he attempts it and she slobbers him, then they saunter into the room together. Photos by Paula.

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01/16/2023 creating a special caliche/barrens habitat in containers

Visited home last weekend and Mom and Dad kindly let us take home some calcareous soil from an already disturbed area – the “lake”.
I had planned to shovel the soil but they kindly offered the much easier method of front-end loader. 🙂 We did scrape in a few small little bluestems and other plants that I have kept!
Since the soil was heavy, I carefully moved it into a bucket I could lift, and also searched for those little plants I mentioned got scraped in.
Paula and I put careful layers of soil and water to get it compact in the planters by the front door.
Paula smoothed them nicely and added water.
You can see the plants I found in the background, sitting on the porch. This is the final picture with a dusting of cactus/succulent/citrus potting soil on top.
Shackleton helped me sort the calcareous soil/barrens specialist seeds that Mom gave me.
Here are all the seeds in place with little markers! I also put one each little bluestem in the pot, a possible Oldplainsman in each, and a mystery round-leafed green plant. We’ll see what they become!
I did the two planters symmetrical but mirror images since they are on either side of the porch. Fingers crossed we get some sprouts in the spring!
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08/20/2022 fruit tree check-in and pruning

I was going to trim the granny Smith back carefully to see if any life remained in the tree, but it broke right off at the base, completely dry, in my hands. So that one’s a goner. I’m not sure if it was too much water or too much heat. I don’t think it was too little water, as the soaker hose leaks prodigiously near here.
The north star pie cherry died this year and I checked the trunk- no green left. I think it was irregular watering (boo, me) and heat.
The surecrop pie cherry lost all its leaves a bit later, but I found a bit of green as I pruned back its branches. I think this winter we will move it to where the Granny Smith apple was, and then replace the soil in the corten planters and do native calcareous barrens flowers there instead.
Paula found a magnificent preying mantis and it helped us look at clouds in hope of rain.
We pruned the remaining apple and pear trees back. The first summer ones are supposed to be down to three short branches, so it’s especially sparse looking. This is supposed to help them stay small. The two remaining second-summer ones are trimmed back but more branches left in place. They’ll all get pruned again in the winter for structure and shape.
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How can things grow this much in a week?  Front yard edition

Wow!!

Rouge Vif d’Etampes squash seedling.
The Brunswick cabbage apparently had enough and has gone straight to flowering.
Dutch corn salad greens have bolted too.
I got wild after seeing soil temperature is above 60°F and planted some beans and all the basil.
Sedums are blooming! Thanks for these, Judy!
I found surprise kale seedlings (two, the second is not pictured). I believe they are Russian red but I had thought they all got eaten so there’s no label anymore.
Perennial coreopsis are big and just starting to bloom!
Black coat runner bean making good progress at the base of a crepe myrtle.
Mealy blue sage about to bloom.
So many strawberries and there’s still more flowers!
Sugar peas are blooming.
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These daffodils better be good

When putting in edging yesterday, we dug up and divided a cluster of non blooming daffodils. From reading the daffodil people’s website, either they hate me or need more sun. It took two hours to get them all in.

It took a long time also because i needed to fill in the dirt along the edging more tidily. You can see the clumpy spot on the sunny side in the middle. I didn’t want to step on the daffodils later, so that needed to happen first.
All the daffodils in place between each Salvia and all the front edging with tidier fill.
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Corten weathering steel garden edging!

Wow! What a day of work! Many thanks to Wes and Paula we now have a lovely edge to the vegetable garden.

Briar is not impressed, mainly because she had to stay inside while welding happened. She only got to help us at the end, once the welding was done.
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The survival report

Well, on the way out to walk the dog, I started lifting up some tubs and towels to let things have sun and see what survived. I’ll go out again later and see about the kohlrabi and one cabbage as the chef wants them for dinner. Any feedback on whether to trim back the damaged perennials (irises, garlic, rosemary) would be appreciated!

The saffron leaves seem intact.
Strawberries with the saffron seem okay too! These were all under a towel and a tub.
The cilantro was under a tub. It died. The leaves of cilantro in the cactus planter also died, but there appeared to be some live bright green at the base. We’ll see if it grows back.
This native plant rosette (I think Gaillardia?) seems fine and i didn’t cover it or its neighbors at all. It had more snow on it during the coldest cold.
The oregano in the herb bed by the plant window looks a little worse for the wear. It had two plastic tubs over it. Some leaves look damaged but some seem maybe okay.
Both the front and backyard faucets and pipes seem to have survived!!! That’s a relief. I opened both slightly for a few minutes, just in case to clear any bits of ice out, but it was all liquid coming out that I could see or hear. Whew!
Front yard strawberries seem overall okay on the northwest side. These had towels and tubs in the center, and just towels around the planter base.
Even the un-toweled leaves seem okay so far.
Other parts of the bed had an aluminum trash can lid and leaves over them. I’m feeling pretty optimistic.
The irises by the mailbox got frozen. Anybody know if I should trim them back or just let them regrow on their own?
Most of the rosemary is now a very dead looking brown-green, but at the base of at least one there is still life (the brighter green branches) so I hope they can all grow back. Presumably insulation from snow helped the base.
Like the irises, the garlic is very unhappy. I hope they too will grow back from their roots.