Forgot to post the maintenance work I did to clean up the front yard beds to prepare for the daffodil and tulip show.
March Blooms
Tag: gardening
Hardy Hibiscus Returns
With baited breath I closely watched my hibiscus plants for any signs of life. They spent the winter outdoors under a tent. I was fairly certain that the variegated tropical hibiscus I grew from starter plants bought on Etsy in 2021, Snow Queen and Rose Queen, met an untimely demise due to the cold.
Excited to see the Summer Carnival making a comeback.
Crape myrtle scale
What’s with all these white spots on my tree-pruned Acoma crape myrtles? The myrtle in Pond South had its trunks spotted profusely with white, while the crape myrtle in Pond North only had a few spots. Turns out the blight has a name to it: crape myrtle bark scale.
After surfing for an answer, I used the jet option on my garden hose nozzle to spray off the scale, which seemed to work pretty well. Except that some peeling occurred at the base of the tree. The damage was concerning, but at least the evidence had been washed off. However, I had a hard time locating a natural option for banishing the pests, so I have horticultural oil waiting in the wings should the insects emerge.
Hose Reel Repair
I finally got around to repairing my Eley Hose Reel. I purchased the Eley Portable Garden Hose Reel Cart back in 2020 after I got weary of storing my garden hoses and needed a better way to keep them stashed. The previous cheap “plastic” storage reel kept leaking and proved hard to roll up with each passing year.
Apparently a common point of failure on the original Eley hose reels was the brass swivel. Extreme cold temperatures would cause the fittings to expand and contract, which basically caused leaks starting in 2022. The fitting finally broke off in 2023, which rendered the reel rather useless. I was able to troubleshoot my swivel issues and determined that it had been subjected to that expansion, whereby the swivel fittings had broken loose.
The new brass swivel took about 15 minutes to install; instructions on how to replace the part were clearly printed on the box. A YouTube video also helped clarify the replacement process. Once I swapped out the parts, the swivel worked perfectly with no leaks and I was back in business again.
Will It Live: Fern Edition
I’ve been fretting about the ferns in the shade bed. Since nearly everything but the ferns and hostas have emerged, I’m getting a little anxious to see if they made it through the freeze.
The ferns in question are of three varieties: two specimens of Japanese painted fern, Anisocampium niponicum, and two specimens of Silver Brake ferns, Pteris argyraea (?), and a clover fern, Marsilea macropoda,
The marsilea overwintered in the garage, but perished when I moved it inside in March. But I had already anticipated getting another specimen from Painted Flower Farm.
The Silver Brake ferns were marked for zone 9 hardiness according to the Lowes plant tag, so they could have been misidentified/mislabeled. Instead of Pteris quadriaurita argyraea, these may actually be Pteris cretica, at least based on the image lookups I’ve performed. Regardless, I didn’t expect them to resurrect. But I potted up the rootballs anyway to make room for an assortment of new plants.
The Japanese painted ferns were giving me the itch to go buy new ones. But I waited them out.
