Spring Garden Photos for 2018
by Jim Gerrish
I've been showing off my newly
planted apple trees below, so this Arbor Day I'll celebrate the
coming of fruiting age of my front yard trees and Cherry Bush.
They are all showing blossoms which will soon turn into fruits,
with the cooperation of friendly bees and other pollinating
insects. Don't forget to scroll to the bottom of the page and see
how the Cherry Trees are coming along in Branch Brook Park.
By Earth Day, the tulips are
really in full bloom, thanks to the warm sunny weather. This time
I am showing off my backyard garden and my new dwarf Macintosh
Apple tree which has been planted in time for Arbor Day which
comes on Friday, April 27th. It will take three to four years of
growing before it is ready to bear fruit; you just can't rush
Mother Nature.
The front yard tulips are
beginning to open up around the new Dwarf Apple Tree I planted
earlier in the month.
04/14/18 Another warm sunny day
and this day I can see that the Moonglow Pear is getting ready to
bloom for the first time. It is four years old now, and it's
about time for it to begin bearing fruit.
The Bartlett Pear tree next to it
is also four years old, but the buds are just starting to show.
Whether it will blossom or not still isn't known.
Last year, the front yard Cherry
Bush produced five sweet cherries (that we know of; the birds may
have gobbled a few). This year it looks ready to begin producing
enough for a Cherry Tart, at least. If it does, I may prune it
back in the fall so it doesn't grow so high next year. It's
supposed to be a shrub or a bush, not a tree.
04/13/18 It is a beautiful warm,
Spring day. There's a warning of a cold dip coming, so the leaves
will continue to protect the plants growing beneath them.
04/11/18 Spring rolls on, slowly.
As the rest of the daffodils
emerge, slowly because of the cold temperatures, I notice that
the dormant dwarf apple trees I recently planted are slowly
showing signs of life as the tiny buds appear.
My sister sent me a Strawberry
Bag for my birthday, and the Quinalt Everbearing Strawberry
plants get carried around to all the sunny spots, as well as
carried indoors for the cold nights we have been experiencing.
They seem happy.
04/06/18 First Daffodil Blooms in my garden.
The sun shone on this daffodil
all day long and by 4:40 PM it was ready to shyly open up and
reveal itself to the world. The others should start blooming
tomorrow and by Monday there should be a good display of
daffodils in my garden. After that... tulips!
This last Snowstorm of the season
(for East Orange) started about 4:00 AM, slowing all the Spring
bulbs growth rates down, but not stopping them. The winter storm
doesn't rate a special name, so it is just Snowmaker 1.
Snowmaker 2 will be right behind it, but will only produce rain
in East Orange, so we are finished with snow storms, although not
quite free of night time low temperatures. The leaves will stay
as ground cover until we are sure there will be no more overnight
frosts.
I'm too sick to go out and
shovel, but fortunately, I can put my bird crew to work on
clearing the front walk by scattering birdseed on it. Between the
birds and the sun, the snow should be gone in a couple of hours.
The glare in the photo is a reflection from my front door window
- every time I open the door to go out to photograph, the bird
crew flies off and goes on strike until I go back inside.
We seem to have gained a squirrel
supervisor who is taking advantage of the easy ground seeds (it
can't get into the bird feeders!). The bird crew is not very good
on making straight edges of the snow, but it does melt much
faster with them flapping around on it as they feed and
fertilize. The bird seeds are environmentally safe, cheaper and
better than salt, and now their shells and the extra bird
fertilizer can be swept onto the garden as compost to continue
doing good work all Spring and Summer long, feeding the fruit
plants and flowers.
Good job, crew! I'll call you
again next winter! I notice that the squirrel quit and went home
early. Tomorrow your birdseed will be back in the bird feeder
where the squirrel can't get it.
03/31/18 Forsythia blooms in East Orange today!
Right on schedule, after the
Crocus and before the Daffodil, you can count on the Forsythia to
bloom, and it did today. Unfortunately, this is not growing in my
garden, so I had to borrow this view of a neighbor's shrub. But
all over East Orange, you will be able to see the yellow blossoms
on similar shrubs for the next few days. March is going out like
a Lamb, just as it came in like a Lion, following the old
proverb. Today, it was warm enough for me to sit in my growing
garden and play a few songs to Spring on my guitar.
03/24/18 Suddenly it's Spring! The Crocuses are blooming all
around the yard.
This is the First Crocus we've been watching, and it brought along a friend.
03/22/18 Morning After Toby -
Breakfast With the Birds
Roads are clear, sidewalks are
being shoveled, birds are flocking to feeder. The First Crocus will soon emerge again. All's well with the world.
4:10 PM
By 4:00 PM, the snow has melted
enough that we can just see the purple bud of the First Crocus
poking out, unharmed by the experience.
03/21/18 Winter Storm Toby - Here We Go Again!
Winter Storm Toby, the fourth
"Nor'easter" in a row this year, begins its path from
south to north across East Orange. The snow has covered up the First Crocus (purple arrow) but
it won't stop the tough little flower from continuing to bloom
once the storm has passed on by.
The birds (Wrens) are worried,
but wait patiently for me to trudge out and refill the bird
feeder. Once it is filled with bird seed, it is the most popular
place to spend the afternoon, if you have wings and a beak.
03/20/18 First Crocus Appears!
Better late than never, the First Crocus
appears in the middle of my front garden, surrounded by tulips
and daffodils that are still struggling against the cold. Today
is the first day of the Vernal Equinox, otherwise known as
Spring, and I had to search around until that spot of brilliant
purple showed me where it was hiding. It has not fully opened
yet, and tonight the fourth snow storm (Toby) has been predicted
for our area, but there's no going back once Spring has started.
NorthGarden
03/17/18
Members of my family, who live in northern New York, make use of
the snow storms to keep their Sugar Maple trees producing sap
that they then boil and evaporate into Maple Syrup. The photos
were taken by my niece who will send us more so we can re-learn
the old art and science that once flourished at the end of winter
here in East Orange, on those streets that were lined with Sugar
Maple trees as shown below in the 1909 Annual Report of the Shade
Tree Commission.
 |
|
 Brian
Yaichuk fills jars and bottles with hot maple syrup.
|
03/16/18 Chilly
Temperatures Push Back Cherry Blossom Blooming Dates to 03/27 or more. That explains
why the crocuses have not yet blossomed in East Orange this year.
But what is bad news for the Cherry Trees and Spring bulbs, is
good news for those up north of us, like my niece and her family
who live in upper New York State, where they are just beginning
to harvest sap from their Sugar Maple trees and boil it down to
make Maple Syrup. At one time, large numbers of the shade trees
in East Orange were Sugar Maples, and some still remain, but the art
and science of tapping the trees for their syrup has been all but forgotten.
Skylar
03/13/18 - Winter Storm Skylar is
phasing out Winter and ushering in Spring. The light snow isn't
sticking to the paved areas and just provides a light dusting on
the places where snow from the previous Winter Storm Quinn still
lingers. By 2:00 PM, the snow had stopped falling and it mostly
melted away by then. There are still no crocuses in bloom but
daffodil buds can be seen forming on stems in the garden.
Quinn
03/07/18 - 5:38 PM The heavy snow
is going to break a lot of tree branches. Notice the way the
slender trees are bowing under the weight. I should have done more pruning. Oh, well! Nature is
going to do it for me.
03/07/18 We had Winter Storm Riley passing through on March 1st
- 2nd without much effect, and now Winter Storm Quinn is dumping
a load of snow on East Orange on March 7th. The garden will be
covered, but only for a short time, so Spring won't be delayed
very long by Mother Nature. Tulips, Daffodils and Crocuses are
used to it.
Riley
02/24/18 - The warmth of Spring
2018 arrived early again this year. On February 24th, shortly
after Winter Storm Noah last weekend, it was warm enough for the tulips and
daffodils to begin poking green sprouts up above the protective
blanket of autumn leaves in my front yard garden in East Orange.
As usual, the brown autumn leaves will remain in place until we
are sure that there will be no more frosts this Spring, then they will be gently raked away from the growing
plants that are waiting just beneath them.
Some of the street flowers will
need to be replaced owing to an "attack" by a weed
whacker last year, and the usual inconsiderate flower pluckers
who pass by. But the ones they missed are still in hiding and
ready to appear on a schedule of their own.
The first flowers to appear are
usually the purple crocuses. Last year, the crocuses arrived on March 2nd, surrounded by still developing tulips.
The first fruits are the
strawberries, having survived the winter in pots buried under
piles of leaves. They are already showing signs of new life and
just need a bit of pruning, a little fertilizer, and some loving
care to start producing the first berries.
I will continue to record the
arrival of flowers, fruits and berries as Spring continues...
This year Earth Day will be
celebrated on April 22nd, followed by Arbor Day on April 27th.
Previous Arbor Day Photos -2017 - 2016 - 2015 - 2014
If anyone else in East Orange
wants to share their garden photos on this page as their gardens
come to life during the Spring and Summer of 2018, please feel
free to send them to me at [email protected] .
