Why the Crabapple Had To Go

OK, I guess if you've been reading my posts you'd think that instead of loving plants I'm a tree-killing maniac, running around my yard searching for my next victim.  Perhaps that lightning-damaged hackberry or that ugly lopsided box elder by the street?

How does a tree get such a weird tri-forked shape? 
It looks like it lost its main leader when it was young
or maybe someone topped it on purpose.

So, here's why that crabapple in our front yard had to go, despite its beautiful pink floral display in the spring.  First, I'm a big believer in growing plants that want to live and have some disease and/or pest resistance.  Our arborist told us that particular crabtree was a cultivar that is known for picking up diseases and pests as fast as it can.  Unless I felt like spraying it every year, it would always have problems.  Second, it had really bad branching and so was quite an ugly silhouette in the winter, not to mention it made for a weak trunk, which isn't good in a state with wild, wild weather.  Lastly, it was in a weird location, sort of by itself on the edge of the lawn, and was shading out trees and shrubs in more appropriate sites.

I have cedars all over my yard so if I ever plant another crabapple, it'll have to be one of the rust-resistant varieties.  Luckily there are lots of lovely new cultivars available.

Sad Cedar

We have a decent-sized eastern red cedar in our front yard.  It holds down an island bed and is beloved by the neighborhood birds.  Each fall, a flock of cedar waxwings clears it of its many berries in one to two days.  Their cricket-like chirps are really loud when they are massed together and their acrobatics are fun to watch as they hang upside-down to get every last blue berry.  I've seen mice, cardinals and chickadees in its branches. 

I wouldn't have planted it myself, though, if I was the original homeowner.  And I suspect the original homeowner didn't plant it either.  The arborist told me that cedars take a long time to grow and that this one has some years on it.

Eastern red cedars are on the Wisconsin DNR's invasive plant list as they can form groves in open fields and prairies.  They are suspectible to fire as they contain a lot of resin.  And they are a host for Apple-Cedar Rust.  In fact, when we first moved in, I noticed a highly rust-susceptible crabapple was planted right next to the cedar.  I searched the cedar for signs of rust and sure enough, there were dried rusty orange pods throughout its branches.  Our arborist told us the crabapple was a cultivar notorious for its many diseases so we took it down instead of the cedar.  (Which was too bad since it had such pretty pink flowers in the spring.)  Finally, one of its most annoying traits is its brittle branches.  Snow has no problem snapping off even large limbs.

I couldn't get a good shot of the
gap from the crushed branch

We took off some lower branches so average-height and short people could walk to the front door along our sidewalk without getting smacked in the head.  Those taller folks still might get a mouthful of foliage if they aren't careful. 

I figured that there wouldn't be any more issues with this tree but I was wrong.  This past winter, wet snow crushed one of its bigger branches.  It's located mid-way up the trunk so taking it out will leave a large ugly gap.   The branch is still alive despite a good mashing so I hesitate to go that route.  I haven't got a quote from our arborist yet on having it anchored.  What do you think I should do? 

You can see how completely the big branch
was crushed and yet it is just as green as its neighbors

My Spruce Dilemma

We used to camp every summer at Hartman Creek State Park near Waupaca, WI.  I would walk for hours in the huge stands of pine planted there years ago.  The floor was covered in needles and almost nothing grew under those trees.  Since they were planted in long neat rows it gave it a weird Alice-In-Wonderland feel to those strangely quiet woods.  I've been charmed by evergreens ever since.

So, when we bought our place, I was thrilled that it had a bunch of tall spruce hiding the house from the street.   There were pendulous Norway Spruce, White Spruce (aka Green Spruce) and Blue Spruce all grouped together along with some deciduous trees and Eastern Red Cedars.

It wasn't long though before I noticed that some of the trees looked pretty sickly and there were a bunch of dead branches where the trees had shaded each other out.  That fall I noticed needles on all the spruces except the Norway turning brown and dropping.  An arborist confirmed rhizosphaera, a chronic fungal needle cast disease that infects the trees in spring but doesn't kill off the needles until fall. 

Turns out my spruce are highly stressed.  They don't like heavy clay soil.  (Oops, that's what we've got.)  They like acidic soil. (Ours is about as alkaline as you can get.)  They don't handle drought well (There's always drought in Wisconsin in the summer.)  And, finally, they were improperly spaced when first planted, so not only are they stressed but will always have crowded roots and barely enough foliage.  My arborist said he doesn't like spruce because they get ugly and diseased as they age.  He recommended I clear cut them and replace them with something else,  like fir or pine.

I was horrified.  It was one of the features of our yard that I really thought was cool.  Trying to think of an alternative, I suggested maybe he could thin them to just a few trees but because they were spaced so close together, there were too many bare spots and they would look even worse.  It wasn't much of an option.  As for taking them all out, I really didn't want to do it.  The trees are a hot spot for birds (like my favs, the chickadees) and squirrels.  I know there are red squirrels nesting in them.  And, I really do like how they shield the house and yard from the street. 

Dead branches were removed from the ground to 10-15' up the trunks.

So, I decided to just have the arborist clear out the dead branches, which turned out to be a miserable job.  All that afternoon I had two young guys up in the trees, yelping in pain as they got poked hard by sharp dead tree branches.  They tried not to take any branches that were still alive, even if there were bare patches above them so the trees still look a bit ratty, but definitely better than before their trim. 

As for the needlecast disease, I put a layer of leaves and bark mulch under the trees last spring.  I plan to put another thick layer of compost and mulch under them this spring, along with some soil acidifier granules.  The trees didn't lose their needles like they did the year before.  I suspect that it was mostly due to our weirdly dry spring weather but maybe spreading that layer of organic matter under the trees helped too. 

So, that's my spruce dilemma.  I really should take them all out and start over fresh but I'm going to put it off for now and let some of the younger spruce and other evergreens in my yard grow up some so they can provide food and shelter to the birds/squirrels.  I may also thin them out a bit, even if the result isn't very pretty.  What do you think I should do?

The Pruninator Attacks

Can you believe there's four of these crammed in here?

I've been searching the 'net for info on how to prune yews.  Basically it sounds like it's a danged-if-you-do/danged-if-you-don't scenario.  Like many homeowners, we have inherited a poorly planned landscape that includes shrubs along the foundation that have no business being there.  In particular, our front foundation is packed with yews and a couple of viburnums, all shrubs that are just too big for their allotted space.

It sounds like if you shear yews, they get bushy on the ends and can shade out parts of the plant, killing off the leaves and leaving ugly bare stems.  If you don't shear them, they get too big which looks bad and if big enough, they become a safety hazard since burglars can hide behind them and break into windows undetected.

If you are going to prune, I've read that you want a shape where the bottoms are the widest.  However, most advice I found was to remove them and put in something more appropriately sized.

I probably should have been
more aggressive in my pruning

In theory I'm all for taking out misplaced shrubs instead of trying to control them by continual pruning but right now I don't have the funds to hire someone to remove them and buy replacements.  Also, I visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden several years ago and was enchanted by a grove of yews that were more tree-like than shrub-like.  Now I have a soft spot for yews in my heart.

So, I've decided to not pull them out (yet) and give pruning a try myself.   I opted for a hand clippers and spent the morning pruning.  I aimed for a generally globular shape which was hard to do since I suspect they had previously been sheared into the ultimate yew pruning no-no, a flattened reverse pyramid. 

I also pulled out our electric mini-chainsaw and hacked down an ugly, overgrown, diseased and poorly pruned European viburnum to the ground.  Last year I noticed several main stems dying and found borer damage at ground level, which was just one of several issues I had with this shrub.

On the 'net I found advice that viburnums should not be pruned (except in case of disease or injury) or they get ugly.  From my own experience, I'd say that's probably true.   I had to down a stiff drink though before I did it.  Long term I want to pull out this poor specimen but the birds love it. 

It's right next to the window so we've gotten to witness some amazing wildlife up close and personal...a cardinal pair and a flock of cedar waxwings that return each year routinely searching the shrub for its berries.   The brutal beating deaths of caterpillars the chickadees found curled in the shrub's leaves, which was disturbing but fascinating at the same time.  And last fall, a ruby-crowned kinglet freaked me out when I saw it among the viburnum's branches.  He had seen our cat sitting in the window and was singing and displaying his bright red head feathers which are normally hidden.  I've never seen one of these birds before so I initally thought the bird had bashed its head on the window and was bleeding but he was just facing off against Teddy.  Cheeky little bugger.  So, you can see that it has wildlife value, despite it's bad points.

Augh-it's so bare now!  What have I done?

So instead of pulling it out, I hacked it to the ground with the hope that it will send up new stems.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

And as a last note,  there's an American highbush cranberry (a native viburnum) that's growing wild on our property.  Despite no care at all, it's healthy and lovely, with beautiful fall foliage and red berries that the birds like.  It's a much nicer shrub than the European one I just hacked down.

A bit of green for St. Paddy's Day

Garlic Mustard-not the kind of green I wanted to see on St. Paddy's Day

A shadow lurks over my garden, and its not the rainclouds that we are expecting later today.  It's reality, smacking me upside the head.  Now that the snow cover is gone, I can see just how much work I have cut out for me this year.  Garlic mustard is rampant throughout my yard, despite my heroic eradication efforts last year.  It's just a big mess everywhere I look.  Last night I couldn't sleep well because I was just so overwhelmed by it all. 

American Heuchera-either 'Dale's Strain' or 'Green Spice'

So, today, I grabbed my notepad and just started looking around.  I quickly realized it wasn't all doom and gloom.  I was cheered to see some snowdrops getting ready to bloom.  Seriously, those little beauties just glow with happiness!  Most perennials turn to mush over the winter but I saw some green that wasn't my dreaded arch-enemy, garlic mustard.  I saw some epimedium, hellebores, sweet cicely, male fern, lungwort, thyme and 'Angelina' sedum that looked like they were ready for spring.  My new favorite plant, American heuchera, was looking quite well too.  I even saw fat red buds on my two tree peonies (this was their first winter) which put a big smile on my face to know that they made it.

Snowdrops-ready to bloom

My kitties are ready for nicer weather too.  I let Teddy out on his leash and he found a rabbit pelvis bone with two leg bones and furry feet.  He played with it for a long time, tossing it into the air.  When he saw me coming to let him back in the house, he grabbed it and brought it to me, tail held high, excited to bring the nasty plaything in the house.  When I foiled his awesome plan for indoor fun and wouldn't let him bring it in, he sat by the door, pitifully meowing, trying to get me to let him back out to get his grisly new toy.  I finally had to pull out the kitty treats to distract him.

Furry Frenzy



Not much snow left...

 Today it was gloriously sunny and warm (40s)...yay!  Since the snow has started to recede I decided to take some snapshots of the yard to get an idea of its "backbone."  I tend to get so involved in how individual plants look I often overlook the overall view of a garden space.  I wasn't the only one scampering around the yard today either.  The critters I share the yard with seemed pretty pumped about the warm-up too.  Some mourning doves and robins showed up a few days ago and I've noticed all the birds, even those who stick around all winter, are noisier and more active now.  I startled both some gray squirrels and those dang cute red squirrels and I saw the chipmunks out and about for the first time since Fall. 

I'm a bit worried.  I just read a book about shrubs that mentioned that many yard trees die in Wisconsin not because of the cold but because of fluctuating temps in the Spring.   I noticed that although my back yard is wooded, the snow on a steep south-facing slope where I planted a japanese maple and some diervilla (bush honeysuckle) last year is completely snow-free.  I hope that it doesn't warm up there too quickly and damage those shrubs.

Our front yard spruces-a study in poor plant placement

Tomorrow we're taking down 2 mulberries (the invasive morus alba, not the native morus rubra) and a couple of snags near the house.  I'm worried; I noticed one of our larger trees looks like it's dead.  I'm not good with tree identification so I hope it's an elm not an oak.  I can live with dutch elm since most of the elms in our neighborhood have already died but I'd be devastated if the oaks go since those are the only big trees left on our property.

I can feel Spring coming

It's another dark and gloomy afternoon here in southeastern Wisconsin but this particular gloom has me pretty excited.  It's a warm misty gloom, meaning that it feels like spring.  The damp inspired me enough to stop procrastinating on my seed catalog orders and get them placed.  I will soon be receiving almost every type of vegetable seed I could think of, berry bushes and a couple of fruit trees, which was kind of stupid considering that most of my yard is full shade and the rest is part shade with a smidgen of full sun areas located on steep slopes.  Still, I've got a couple of months to figure it all out before I have to start planting.  I got my Gardener Supply catalog with lots of container and raised bed garden products and ideas but my lack of cash flow is keeping me from those fantasies. 

If the misty gloom doesn't disintegrate into a full rain this weekend, I plan on bribing the hubby into chopping down some dead trees that have been making threats about smashing our house to bits.

Caution...new blogger attempts first post!

Oh so very proud of myself, attempting to stretch my mind by trying something new...blogging.  I'm going to try and keep focused on one subject for this blog...my yard and garden in Wisconsin.  And, since this is a new garden for me (although I'm not a new gardener) there should be plenty to yap about.  So, hello to anyone who reads this and wish me luck!