A Gardener's Notebook » Photos

Photos: Peaceful garden, home office and waiting room

Douglas E. Welch — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:18:09 +0000

One of my client’s has an amazing home office set amid this equally as amazing garden. I was visiting for a computer support call today and asked if I could take a few pictures to share with you.The garden is Asian-themed and is such a peaceful spot even in the midst of the San Fernando Valley. I could imagine myself working quite happily in this garden.

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Photos: Peaceful garden, home office and waiting room is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

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Photo: Rose in the garden today via Instagram

Douglas E. Welch — Sun, 20 May 2012 19:46:13 +0000

See all my Instagram pictures at Instagrid. Photo: Rose in the garden today via Instagram is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook Related posts: Photo: Morning Glory from Instagram Photo: Garden work today. Volunteers gladly accepted! via Instagram [...]

Photo: Rose in the garden today via Instagram is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

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Photo: Central decoration by Rose Parade Float Designers

Douglas E. Welch — Fri, 18 May 2012 14:45:21 +0000

This large central decoration at the Souther California Spring Garden Show was designed by Fiesta Floats, who regularly design parade floats for the annual Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California.

See the complete set of photos from the Southern California Spring Garden Show.

Photo: Central decoration by Rose Parade Float Designers is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

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Photo: Carrots emerging

Douglas E. Welch — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:07:00 +0000

We trying out a method of planting small bunches of carrots in deep vertical containers. We don’t really have a good ground plot for carrots, so this container allows us to have decent, soft soil and move it around to get the best sunlight. Right on cue, the seedlings emerged about 2 days ago. I’ll report further as they develop.

Photo: Carrots emerging is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

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Photos: Engaging Nature Design Garden at Southern California Spring Garden Show

Douglas E. Welch — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:28:12 +0000

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Garden designed and created by:

Sarah’s Gardens
Sarah’s Garden 714.916.3106

Garden Pros Landscape & Construction 714.387.4753
714-397-4753 or 714-387-4753

See the complete set of photos from the Southern California Spring Garden Show.

Photos: Engaging Nature Design Garden at Southern California Spring Garden Show is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

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Photo: Morning Glory from Instagram

Douglas E. Welch — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:57:23 +0000

See all my Instagram pictures here Photo: Morning Glory from Instagram is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook Related posts: Photo: An amaryllis from my garden via Instagram Photo: Garden work today. Volunteers gladly accepted! via Instagram #Gardenchat [...]

Photo: Morning Glory from Instagram is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

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Topsy Turvy planter finally put to use

Douglas E. Welch — Mon, 14 May 2012 18:20:17 +0000

We finally got around to planting this Topsy Turvy tomato planter that our friends gave us last season. It took a fortuitous combination of events to make it happen, though.

First, I made a batch of homemade potting soil to use in the planter. Second, our local Orchard Supply Warehouse had a sale on all edible plants and third, we had planned to spend a lot of time in the garden this weekend working on our big path mulching project. See the post from yesterday for more info on that. )

With all our mature trees, we don’t get a lot of sun, but I tried to place this in the sunniest area I had that also gave somewhere to hang it.

There are 2 plants in this planter — one a Early Girl and one a Celebrity.

Topsy Turvy planter finally put to use is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

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Photos from Saturday6 Kick-off meetup last year

Douglas E. Welch — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:53:00 +0000

As I enter my second season as part of the Troy-Bilt’s Saturday6 program, I thought I would re-share the pictures from our big kickoff last May at the Troy-Bilt world headquarters. It was great meeting all my fellow Saturday6 bloggers, playing around with new equipment, seeing and eating great food at Chef’s Garden and finally, visiting my family who live nearby. All the recent work on launching this season of Saturday6 made me go looking for these photos to relive some great memories.

If you don’t see the slide show above, you can view it directly on Flickr

Photos from Saturday6 Kick-off meetup last year is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

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Mulch for the garden paths…and a little unexpected excitement

Douglas E. Welch — Sun, 13 May 2012 15:24:10 +0000

We noticed a tree service truck in the neighborhood that had a load of wood chips that was mainly that, wood, rather that the typical load that contains more leaves than wood. We had been thinking of a project for a long time and this finally set it into motion.

After visiting Descanso Gardens years ago, I noticed that they used their own wood chips to lay the paths through the more wild area of the garden. After fighting with the pea gravel that covered the paths when we first bought our house, I have been looking for an alternative for a long time and I thought the idea of wood chips was one of the best. We have been creating our own wood chips using our chipper-shredder, but simply didn’t have enough material to even begin to cover the paths in the garden. Pea gravel can play havoc with the blades on a chipper-shredder, so finding a solution that allowed us to clean up leaf litter without picking up the gravel was high on my list of needs.

The wood chip as it arrived

Spreading the mulch out and then onto the paths.

Is it not in here?

Of course, not major project like this goes without a hitch and we had our own little bit of drama.

As you can see in the top photo, the mulch was dumped off the truck into a fairly large and fairly deep pile. While I had learned about spontaneous combustion¹ in my farm town childhood – it could lead to fire in the barns in the area — I hadn’t really though about it much since moving to Los Angeles. Spontaneous combustion occurs when materials start to breakdown in an organic process. It is the very same process that creates such wonderful compost for our gardens, but if it runs away it can actually cause piles to smolder, or even ignite. Yikes!

When I went out to move some of the mulch onto the garden paths that evening, I noticed something quite worrisome. From the deepest part of the pile, steam was rising. Not only that, but there was a faint smell of smoldering wood. Hmmm, not good. I knew immediately what it was, although I hadn’t thought that it could occur in this relatively small pile of material.

Sure enough, after digging around a bit I found some areas of the pile to be extremely warm. Opening up parts of the pile would release heat and steam almost like walking into the room after someone had taken a hot shower. Time to get to work. We spent the better part of 2 hours breaking down the large pile into a wider, flatter pile — opening up any areas that appeared to be steaming. I wasn’t worried so much about the pile catching fire, but rather that a neighbor, seeing the steam rising, would call the fire department.

Luckily, spreading the pile out reduced the amount of heat any area could hold and the steaming stopped. I did notice that as we began spreading the mulch onto the paths in the back garden, there were still a few areas that were quite warm. It is my guess that the hot areas are where there were a large collection of wet green leaves. These leaves can start their breakdown very quickly and the mulch around it acts as an insulator, allowing the heat to grow more and more.

So, if you are planning on a delivery of mulch, wood chip or compost, you might want to keep an eye on it and spread it out a bit. Leaving it in a large, deep pile — even for a few hours could result in a little more excitement than you might wish.

Mulch on the paths

Resources:

Mulch for the garden paths…and a little unexpected excitement is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

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Photo: Garden work today. Volunteers gladly accepted! via Instagram

Douglas E. Welch — Sun, 13 May 2012 01:20:25 +0000

Garden work today. Volunteers gladly accepted! Photo: Garden work today. Volunteers gladly accepted! via Instagram is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook Subscribe to A Gardener's Notebook using RSS | Follow @gardenersnotebk on Twitter | Like AGN on Facebook Related posts: Photo: An amaryllis from my garden via Instagram Take 10 minutes to just sit [...]

Photo: Garden work today. Volunteers gladly accepted! via Instagram is a post from: A Gardener's Notebook

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