Yard work...

DMD123

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Front yard, Black Dragon Cedar starting to finally get a bit of shape
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Love when this thing blooms
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sir_keith

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It's been pretty quiet around here lately, so...

@DMD123- this one is for you concerning your Bloodgood Maple growth. This is a tree that I planted in 2016, just a scraggly little thing that I picked up at Home Depot, but with a nice multi-trunk habit. A bit of training, and a few years growth, and it now looks like this-

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DMD123

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Thanks @sir_keith for the inspiration picture! The growth has been really good on my Walmart Bloodgood. We fell in love with it because it has a bit of a crooked trunk. Lots of personality in the tree.
 

DMD123

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Still need to do some sprinkler head movement in back yard due to patio put in. Did a large fill in and patch of a low area in backyard lawn. Its seeded, just waiting...
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Been very disappointed in red tree to the left of the lantern. Its called a Sand Cherry, and its kind of more like a shrub. It is just so scraggily and not full looking. I want to replace it with something fuller... possibly evergreen but maybe not. Would consider maybe something like a Crimson Queen Japanese maple there.
 

sir_keith

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Still need to do some sprinkler head movement in back yard due to patio put in. Did a large fill in and patch of a low area in backyard lawn. Its seeded, just waiting...
View attachment 12873Been very disappointed in red tree to the left of the lantern. Its called a Sand Cherry, and its kind of more like a shrub. It is just so scraggily and not full looking. I want to replace it with something fuller... possibly evergreen but maybe not. Would consider maybe something like a Crimson Queen Japanese maple there.
How about some grasses? I'm a big fan of grasses of appropriate heights along a border. In the pic I posted above, there are grasses between the trees, and a mature Juniper hedge behind everything.

BTW, that's a gorgeous blue conifer on the right in your pic; what is it?
 

DMD123

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How about some grasses? I'm a big fan of grasses of appropriate heights along a border. In the pic I posted above, there are grasses between the trees, and a mature Juniper hedge behind everything.

BTW, that's a gorgeous blue conifer on the right in your pic; what is it?
Ive slowly added a few grasses into the landscape, kind of a newly found thing so Ive been experimenting with a few varieties around the yard.

As to the blue conifer, I believe it is an Arizona Blue Cypress. A very fast grower with really nice coloration.
 

sir_keith

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As to the blue conifer, I believe it is an Arizona Blue Cypress. A very fast grower with really nice coloration.
Ah, nice. I planted a Leyland Cypress to replace a large spruce that died on my property line, and in a matter just over 4 years it has completely filled the space. Amazing growth. I'll have to look for an Arizona Blue; it's beautiful.
 

lloyd378

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Dmd, if you want a nice little fairly local nursery, I have friends that I worked with a decade or so ago that have opened up their yard and started a business. It’s called backyard nursery in Puyallup. It’s about 1.5 acres but absolutely full of plants and it’s by appointment only, so makes it a nice shopping experience.

They have and have had some real nice red maples from small to fairly large forsale and for good prices.


This spring , I went there to buy a purple rhododendron that reminded me of my grandparents and also picked up a nice little magnolia tree ( daybreak) for my wife as she loves the large pink and white blooms they have in the spring!

It’s definitely worth checking out for a nice peaceful Saturday of Sunday morning stroll.
 

DMD123

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Thanks for the info @lloyd378, I will have to check them out. I have one of the Maple listed, "Lileeannes Jewel". It is a really interesting variegated red/pink longer leaf (not sure if its classed as a lace leaf) type maple that can get up to 12ft tall.

This is it:
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Too sunny for good leaf pic but it is not solid red
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DMD123

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A few plants that looked good this year:

A shrub we just call "Cousin It" (Addams family)
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Next to it is a dwarf Korean fir that get these really cool white needles
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This thing really is a dwarf, I believe it is said to reach 3 ft in 10 years!

How it all looks in the front bed. (Column tree is my Black Dragon Japanese cedar, which is finally kind of getting some shape to it.)
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DMD123

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My little unused corner that got turned into a rock garden is starting to fill in. The Hens-n-chicks plants look like they are rooting in now.
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DMD123

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Got out over the weekend and worked on the front yard sprinkler. Previous person installed a head in the corner of the yard and it had been hitting my mailbox post for a few years and I noticed some rot.
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Also hated mowing around this so I removed the grass. I am still working on moving the head since it turn out the thing leaks horribly and needs replacement.
IMG_20230729_115156605.jpgWill move head into lawn area, put in some plastic edging and fill the corner in with rocks. oh yeah, need to pull off rotten wood off the mailbox post and redo that too.
 

DMD123

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Been waiting for cooler temps to replace the head of the sprinkler I moved. I need to get motivated to do it in the early evening as temperature goes down. Not a huge rush since I have let the front lawn go dormant since I dont want to spend that much to keep it green. I do run the sprinklers in all the beds where there are tons of expensive plants and have kept the backyard lawn green. Ive also reused all the old fish tank water that I can on watering.
 

sir_keith

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Set out this year's crop of oyster seeds on the beach. The seeds arrived via FedEx from Taylor Shellfish at around mid-day, but it was low tide and pretty warm, so I waited to put them in grow bags and set them on the beach until ~4 p. m., just before the tide would cover them.

Here are the seeds; Kumamoto's above and Pacific Triploids below-

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Cute little guys-

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On the beach, just before being covered up by the incoming tide. I've been cultivating oysters on my beach for 6 years, and have 20 grow bags going at present. That's a lot of oysters! :eek:

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lloyd378

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Set out this year's crop of oyster seeds on the beach. The seeds arrived via FedEx from Taylor Shellfish at around mid-day, but it was low tide and pretty warm, so I waited to put them in grow bags and set them on the beach until ~4 p. m., just before the tide would cover them.

Here are the seeds; Kumamoto's above and Pacific Triploids below-

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Cute little guys-

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On the beach, just before being covered up by the incoming tide. I've been cultivating oysters on my beach for 6 years, and have 20 grow bags going at present. That's a lot of oysters! :eek:

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I can’t remember, but don’t you do clams too?
 

sir_keith

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I can’t remember, but don’t you do clams too?
Yes, but I don't need to cultivate the clams, as they grow wild on the beach, and they are so abundant that it is borderline ridiculous. Last week I harvested about three dozen Manilla clams for a chowder and clamcake dinner for four by digging up an area of about three square feet just below the oyster bag waterline, and digging about 5-6 inches down. Back East it's a bigger task because the clams are much deeper, but here it's easy. No complaints from me!

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