Consolidated Kansas

[chicken danz]

I've hatched about 2000 birds this year and put them all (except for ducks) on pine shavings and/or stove pellets. They don't eat them. They might pick at them but they aren't dangerous. Ceder will kill them however so make sure you don't use that.
Ok, the not so funny thing about my trees and gardens is that I have run a landscape design business on the side since 1993. I just don't do much with it any more because I can't do the physical work and my yard is now ruined by chickens.
Loralee, I am actually allergic to evergreens, but I love blue spruce. Thanks for the info. I assumed the high temps is what killed these two.
As far as your tulips go, dig up the bulbs and plant them more shallow than instructions tell you. The bulbs work their way down in the ground and don't have enough strength to make it all the way up. I've found if you dig and raise bulbs about every 3rd year you have good luck with them. The same goes for daffodils, however you can leave them undisturbed for longer.
I planted a wheeping cherry at my other home about 22 years ago. It's a huge beautiful tree. It stands over two ponds and a stream I constructed. Everyone stops to ask what it is when it is in bloom.
I bought this last WC at Home Depot but couldn't find my receipt or I would have gotten my money back for sure.
Elephant ears and cannas etc have to be dug each year around here. You might get by in a very mild winter but that is rare. I didn't even bother putting my elephant ears in the ground this year. I guess I had a feeling it was going to be a bad year.
One of the biggest problems with my gardens right now is time and the cost of rural water. I feel guilty watering.

 

[Ivywoods]

We moved to this area in 2006, but didn't get moved into this house until 2007. We tore out the old delapidated house and hauled off tons and tons of junk and trash. I've been working on planting things every year since then. I can't even list all the trees I've planted, but here is an idea: Oaks-scarlet, kimberly, swamp white, chinkapin, cutleaf emporer. Also, cleveland slect flowering pear, red maples, tulip tree, ginkgo, some kind of elm (heritage, maybe) yoshino cherry, kwanzan cherry, several kinds of magnolia and a host of fruit trees.

I don't think I've lost a single tree I planted, except several of the fruit trees that I planted as whips that never came out of dormancy. I've always had good luck with my trees. Many times I buy the ones that they put on discount because they have dropped their leaves. One time I bought several trees at a local nursery. He threw in the heritage elm because it was bent over really bad, and he threw in a swamp white oak that had dropped its leaves. It looked deader than a hammer, but came back the next spring and has grown like crazy and the elm is completely straight now.

We have been lucky here with our rainfall. I do all the yardwork, and have planted lots since we moved here. I have about 8 grapevines I planted this past year, but I'm going to move them this fall or in the spring because the ground where I put them is not good and they haven't grown well. They haven't died, but they haven't grown. I think I have a better place for them.

MY PROBLEM IS THIS: I can't keep up with the weeds! I should have put down landscape cloth in several places. I couldn't keep up with the weeds in the garden this year and didn't get that much produce just because the weeds were so bad. Later I will just mow it all down. It was so hot and humid all of July and much of August that I just didn't feel like being out in the heat to do that.

I think next spring I will concentrate on making my yardwork and landscaping duties easier by installing landscape fabric and whatever else I can do to inhibit weeds.

 

[Hawkeye95]

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you made a pond?? Do you have any pics of that? I want to make a water feature some year. I say that every year. I would like to have a bubbling stone in a rock bed where it recycles the water up thru a tube thru the rock. There is a place near me that will drill a hole thru any rock or boulder. I think that would be cool! But I'd like it to be a bit cooler than just that... like maybe another kind of a little waterfall or more splash to it. But I'd rather not have a pond to clean to deal with. I have nearly bought those little water recycling pits you put in the ground a dozen times over the years. Other projects keep coming up.

I bet my tulips aren't even there anymore. I've only seen just a few green tips sticking up and thats it. BUT what you said- that sounds about right. Maybe next spring I'll dig them up. I had planted maybe 300 of them, I really don't want to dig all of those up! I don't think I'll ever plant bulbs again. I'm all for shrubs and trees that you don't have to mess with other than fertilize or water. Too bad you are allergic to evergreens! That's awful! They are so gorgeous. They just take forever to grow. Our silver maples have been the fastest growing. Well, I'll come to you if I have any design questions! So far, I've just planting where ever.

 

[Ivywoods]

On another side note, I was going to work on the set of stacking cages I was building for my chickens. That isn't happening today. Last night we had a water line connection break (Darn chineese plastic junk!) and it flooded half the house upstairs and two rooms in the basement. We have been moving furniture, pulling up carpet and soaking up water. I am exhausted. So much for my day off work.

 

[Hawkeye95]

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Oh I love tulip trees! They are actually a Yellow Poplar- my grandma had a couple in her yard, so I HAD to have one in my front yard, too! It grows really well! It's not big enough to bloom yet, though. I think it'll be a few more years yet, since I got it at Lowes a couple years ago. I've had good luck with the red and silver maples, too. I've heard of some of the other trees- but some I haven't! There is a beautiful ginko tree at our Botanica Gardens that is HUGE and gorgeous. I'd love to have one -- do they require a lot of water too? I'm a little weary of all the watering, I realize that it's because they are young, but still. I would love to have grapes too! I have wisteria, honeysuckle and trumpet vine on my trellis. I did have silver lace- and I was told it would grow better than any of the others, but it was the first to die.

Okay, so here's what I did with the weeds. I put in my herb garden this year, and it was only an 8X8 bed. I used rail road ties and layed them in a square and then went to Walmart and spent about $60 on mulch and topsoil and dumped it all in. Then every single morning I went out and pulled out any weed that started. I only had to pull maybe 2 or 3 a day. So when the horrible heat hit -- I had already gotten my plants to a decent size and they had taken up a lot of room in the space, and weeds were just not growing. Even at that, there were weeds- and since it was so hot, I didn't go out every single morning like I had been. But every couple of days I'd go out and just pull up one or two. It was very manageable. I didn't use any weed barrier or anything in the garden. I use a weedeater around my vines. I didn't put in a bed- just planted them and mow around them. It looks pretty nice. I keep thinking about adding edging next year, and if I do, I'll weed it all out, throw down a weed barrier and mulch when I put in the edging.

WOW- so cool that you all are into gardening like I am!! FUN!! OH, Danz, BTW, we only have well water here- so no guilt about watering. We have no cable, no sewer, no water.. nothing out here. We had to build a lagoon, dig the well, and put in a broad band dish for internet when we built our house.

 

[tazcat70]

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$20!!!! Yikes! I would sick, too! I'm so sorry! I saw elephant ear bulbs for $3 a piece at Walmart this spring. If you do it again, check them out first.

It was an upright huge bulb (about 11") and I really didn't like it last year. I thought I had gotten it in too late and it would look better this year. Nope, so I bought a $3 clearance Spyria.

 

[Hawkeye95]

oh, I am soooo addicted to this board. Today I was on here all day. In my defense, I'm sick and not feeling well. Laying here on the couch. I think a cold? Bit of a sore throat, achy body, that kind of thing. Just an overall feeling of 'yuck'. I didn't want to do anything today. My youngest got sick this afternoon unfortunately and I had a mess in the bathroom to clean up. Sigh. There must be something going around. Gosh, I wish the summer weren't over. I don't know if we're going to get much of a Fall, either. I'm already looking forward to this coming spring!

Taz, I'm not a big fan of elephant ears, but I think it's just because its a lot of work to dig them up once Fall hits. I'm no longer a fan of anything with bulbs anymore- anything i have to dig up after I've dug them once... too much work for me! ha!

 

[chicken danz]

Hawkeye RIGHT NOW is when you need to dig those tulips. If you dig them in the spring you'll kill all the growth energy in the bulbs. If you get them in now so they can root before the ground freezes you may even have blooms next spring. I know they say to plant them about 6 inches deep. I usually plant the tops of the bulbs about 2 inches from the surface. I also normally just dig a large shallow hole and set them in there a couple inches apart. Nothing like the spacing they say to use. As they put on offspring they will fill in the spaces so in a few years when you replant again you will have 3-4 times as many. I have over 30 years experience professionally planting. I just can't do the maintenance any more and the soil here is hard hard clay which makes it worse.
Yes I've built many ponds. I'll see if I can find any pictures on my computer I can upload of my own ponds. I am building one right now for my mandarins which should be really nice but without the lilies and stuff. I can also tell you how to build a working water feature like you described. It's really not that difficult. But anything is going to take some maintenance.

 

[chicken danz]

Here is an old picture of my front yard at my old house. If you look carefully you can see the two ponds, the stream, a bridge, and off to the right is the edge of the weeping cherry. This was a very early spring picture taken when the landscape was only a few years old. There is also a pagoda you can't see over the pond nearest to you with the dolphin. A 4 foot diameter water wheel hooks to the tower you can see at the far end and water actually runs it. The dolphin squirts water. We always took down the water wheel and shut down the dolphin during winter due to ice build up but the stream ran year round. I built this landscape out of an overgrown featureless front yard. We also built a wrap around front deck so we could sit out there and enjoy it.

Here is a fall picture of the same front yard on the corner on the other side of the sidewalk looking toward the house. This one was taken about this time of year.

 

[Ivywoods]

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OH! I LOVE IT! I put in a water feature one time when I lived in Salina. It was pretty and had a beautiful dolphin bronze bowl and fountain that was 5 feet high (cost a pretty penny!) Anyway, after my divorce my ex moved back into that house but didn't maintain the water feature. My youngest son would explore the leaves and muck in the pond. One time he told me it was full of "ugly worms." Not sure what he was talking about and I didn't want to find out, ether!

Since then I've always had water features... like two oxbows of the Solomon river, a sandpit pond, and now creeks and springs that run year round.