I actually found time to prune some lilacs this year. They’ve been neglected for a few years, and there was some dead wood to remove. They didn’t do much flowering this year. Several shrubs seem to have suffered. The nearby Calycanthus floridus (Carolina allspice) pretty much died back to the roots. That’s the first time that’s happened. So we got all that cleared out too. Some of our hollies have been looking sad, especially this spring. Then I discovered something called holly blight and decided I better just remove them. Now if I can get my nemesis juniper that’s twice the size it was supposed to be pruned out, I’ll be able to see where to go next with that area.
One improvement we made this month was replacing our anti-birdcage around the blueberries. The old one protected the plants but required two people to manipulate and was difficult to work around. So Steve designed and built a new and improved version.
The old version was two stacked rectangular wood frames wrapped in chicken wire, with a stiff metal grid covered in netting on the top. (The lid was a gift from a friend. They used to cover their pond with it.) To harvest the blueberries we had to remove the top half, which was awkward and required both of us.
The new version is a framework of four 4×4 posts connected at top and bottom. Each side has two removable screens. The wood is old deckboards, other than the 4x4s, which are new. We used deer netting for the screen. The lid is the same one we used on the old version. We made it taller to allow for plant growth and kept the screens light so one person can remove them. It works much better! (I think it looks better too!)
Here’s some of what’s happened this month.
