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Saturday, Aug. 23, 2003 - 6:58 p.m.

Fixing a problem spot in the perennial border, and a couple of close-up garden photos�

About 6 years ago, Dauber from work gave me a small Japanese maple tree for my garden. His dad runs a small greenhouse as a side business, and he specializes in rare and unusual perennials. He had received a shipment of small Japanese maples that spring, but several of them had come in puny and spindly. He tried to nurse them back to health, but they just weren�t good enough to put on the lot to sell.

So, to make a short story long, his son gave one of them to me. He said he would have just tossed it in his compost pile, and thought he would give them to his son as a challenge.

I brought it back to health, slowly but surely. The plant grew to an eventual height of 4 foot, and was covered with serrated-edged leaves that were streaked with maroon and dark green. I don�t know what the variety was, but it had grown into a plant I was pretty proud of.

Then, late last summer, about � of the leaves curled up and turned brown. It looked like a flame had burned them, the leaves were so damaged. I chalked it up to the very hot and dry summer we went through last year. I kept watering it all through the hot weather, but when they died I just assumed that the heat had won.

This spring, the tree came back with lush growth on all of the remaining live branches. There were quite a few dead branches, too, so I pruned them all off. The tree looked a little sparse but healthy, until July.

This time over half of the tree turned brown and curled up. This made no sense, because we have had plenty of rain and mild temperatures. There aren�t a lot of diseases that attack maples, either. I couldn�t figure out what I was doing wrong.

By mid August, over 90% of the tree had died. The branches were dried out, and easy to snap with one hand.

I hated to admit it, but I had lost this fine specimen plant. It was an accent piece for the east border and removing it was painful but necessary.

I cut it down to the ground, and hauled it to the curb for the garbage man.

Today, Lease and I did our weekly shopping, but we also stopped at Lowes. She had a couple of small projects that she wanted to work on, and I wanted to check out their summer nursery stock.

I ended up buying two small rhododendrons for the top of my raised bed, located at the north side of our side porch. This spot has needed something for elevation for some time now, and the fact that Jay and Tony have been using the area for a bedding spot during the heat of the day means NOTHING was vertical anymore. The grasses and impatient plants have been flattened to the ground. The two rhododendrons are about 2� tall now, and are supposed to grow to �up to 10�� (not likely in almost full shade) in 10 years or so. They are tall enough to discourage the dogs, and should make the spot look a little better to the eye.

We picked out a Rose of Sharon (tall hibiscus) to put in the spot formerly holding the maple. This shrub is covered with blooms now (a plus), and is already 3� tall. Its tag said it could reach 6� to 10� in time. I will prune it to keep it at the low end of that range.

The odd part is what I found when I dug the hole.

I got down about 8 �, and then I hit a rock.

Nothing new there. My back yard must have been made from fill, as many chunks of brick and stone as I find whenever I stick a shovel into the soil.

What made this one different was its size.

I started where I wanted the plant to be centered. I kept moving my shovel back towards the yard, hoping to find the end of the rock.

It turned out to be a large square piece of Indiana limestone, a common paving and wall-building stone around here.

How big?

Try 2 � foot square, and about 4 � thick. It must weigh over 100 pounds!

All over the top layer between the stone and what dirt covered it were the twisted roots of the dead maple. This was even thought the maple tree was about 3 feet to the south of the hole I was digging.

So I guess it all makes sense- the maple did good until its roots grew to long for the tree. They were then stuck growing into the area containing the stone, only to be fried the past two summers when the soil dried up.

After removing the stone, I planted the new hibiscus. I also had to haul two bucket full of garden soil from the lower compost pile to replace the space the stone took up in the ground.

I watered all three plants in, and covered their bases with leaf mulch.

Hopefully, they will add visual appeal and color to my border for years to come�


Took the camera down to the garden this morning. I was hoping to capture a few shots of the many butterflies working the blooms, but they wouldn�t sit still long enough for me to capture them on digital media.

Instead, I took a bunch of close-up shots using my Fuji�s macro mode. I decided to share the following two shots with you here:

This is shot with the lens completely inside of one of the Angel Trumpet�s (sp. datura) blooms. Each flower is over 9� long, and over 5� in diameter at the opening. They are almost pure white, and are held high on a plant that is almost 5� tall, and just as wide.

Not bad, for a volunteer plant�


This is a honeybee, feeding on the blooms of my oregano plant. He was so into his work, he didn�t mind me sticking my lens less than 3� from his head�..


It is Saturday night, and the original Dead Zone movie is playing on Encore in a few minutes. Somehow, we have never seen it. We love the USA network television show based on the movie, so it�s about time we see how creepy Steven Kind made the original����

Antique - Futuristic


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