gardening requires patience

I recently walked home from church and went past some American Holly trees that were about20-30 feet tall. I picked a handful of berries and brought them home. I looked up information on growing Ilex species from seed, and found that they can take 2-3 years to germinate. Also the seeds are usually spread by being eaten by birds, which strips the flesh off the seeds, and broadcasts the seed in the manner you can imagine. So to prepare the seeds, you need to soak them in warm water to ferment and soften the pulp. I did this by putting the berries in a glass of warm water, which I perched on top of the crock pot which Mindy had cooking some beans over night. This kept the water just warm enough to turn the berries soft and brown by morning. Then I rubbed them over a window screen I had in the basement, and rinsed the pulp off the berries. I dug a trench in the back yard in a place where I've been wanting to put a hedge and planted over 300 seeds (there are four seeds in each berry) I figure this will increase my chances of getting enough to germinate and grow, and I can thin out the ones I don't need.

So in 2-3 years I'll have some tiny shoots, and then in about 10 more years I might have something resembling a hedge. God knows whether we'll even be living here by then.

New veggie patches

Mindy and I decided to grow more vegetables next year. Up till now I've just been growing tomatoes in a narrow strip next to the house, and I've tried zucchini in a little hole dug through the sod, but that wasn't very successful. To save work putting in the beds I tried the lasagna gardening method, where you just lay down newspaper on top of the grass and then pile on layers of green and brown compost.

I wanted to be able to walk between the rows of plants, and have it look a little nicer, so I left grass in between the rows. I know this will be more work, keeping the grass from growing into the beds, but I thought I'd give it a try.

Leafless transplants

Fall is a good time to transplant bushes and trees because all the energy of the plant can go into re-establishing its root system rather than supplying the leaves with moisture. Also the cool temperatures prevent moisture loss.

I have been intrigued by Witch Hazel because it is a native tree that blooms in fall, and the seed pods when ripe, pop open and the seeds fly out up to 30 feet. Here's my new small Witch Hazel (Hamamelis Virginiana), I put burlap around it because this spot is quite windy, and the winter wind could kill it. I'll try to remember to post a picture in Spring when it leafs out.


I also transplanted an unknown sapling from the far back corner of my yard out into a spot where it will have a little more room to develop. I went through the indentifying key for Ohio native trees and the closest I could come up with was the Pawpaw tree (Asimina triloba) but the leaves on my tree aren't as big as the description says.

It was very difficult to dig up because it was right at the base of a clump of American Hazelnut (Corylus Americana) and the roots were all intertwined. Also my unknown sapling had a taproot 34" long!

I had to use this post-hole digger to dig the new hole. Even then I hit rocky soil after only 26" so I had to cut off the last 8" of roots. The spot where this tree was originally growing was near the corner of the black chain link fence. Just behind it is the Hazelnut, which unfortunately didn't produce any ripe nuts.