Monday, November 26, 2007

Maple, Dogwood, Cardinals

I'm obsessed with seeing my Japanese maple through its first winter. Bought it for 1/2 off at Home Depot and the tag said "acer pulmatum." Big help. Google image search makes me think that--based on the leaves and bark--it's a bloodgood. It's on the east side of the house, but still seems to get plenty north wind.

I heard wind is a big enemy, so I thought why not try a mild windbreak. Oh, looky here, I have a pallet left over from the delivery of stone steppers (I was going to use it for SOMETHING creative). It's only 4 feet tall, and not solid, but it might help. Is it pointless? Pic below.

Also take a look at the young isanti dogwood twigs. Nice and red in the sun, also red in the snow, but on just your average cloudy day unimpressive.

And last week during our 1/2" snow a couple visited us for Thanksgiving. They were sort of loud and a might peckish.



4 comments:

Katie said...

Cool dogwood! I've always wanted one like that. I'm sure it looks mighty awesome in the snow.

Annie in Austin said...

Good luck with the Japanese maple, Benjamin - I couldn't keep them alive in IL back in the mid-to-late eighties, but there were some record cold years in that stretch of time.

I saw another IL gardener use a chicken wire surround filled with dry leaves. She may have put a top on the wire cylinder to keep the leaves dry - it was a long time ago!

Did you see Ki's current post at MucknMire? He has a lovely collection of Japanese maples, including Acer palmatum.

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

Benjamin Vogt said...

Annie,
Thanks for the tip; I enjoyed those pics over at Muck. I usually don't baby my plants so much, but for this one I make an exception. Especially because I bought it for $60, otherwise I couldn't afford a Japanese maple.

Benjamin Vogt said...

Katie,
Hopefully we'll get a storm this weekend and that dogwood will glow!