Wait...what was I saying?

 

begin with crocus and end the season with kohlrabi

It's been about six months since my last post; time to get disciplined and finish up some loose ends before moving on.

Recall those ginkgo seeds? 
 Here they are, 1 year old, in winter storage.  (17 of the original 22 seedlings)

that fat bud is the most hopeful sign I know.  Life finds a way.

 

 

  Coming in the spring of 2011-I hope-hackberry seedlings and more English oaks.  The hackberry, sometimes called sugarberry, is a gracious tree beloved by birds and usually left crowded into the understory with the buckthorns and Chinese elms; but given space to grow, it develops a lovely fine-textured canopy that turns a luminous yellow studded with tiny blue-black berries in the fall. It's a great native species for urban guerrilla gardening...but more on that idea later.  And the English oak?  I can't resist the acorns; must either plant them or wear them as jewelry, so the choice is obvious.

                                     
And the spider eggs?

This lady found the summer harvest so lush that she left two egg sacks

I moved both of these egg sacks to a hedgerow for more secure wintering over.  Since spring is the season of entomological fratricide, I separated them by an acre or so of snacking territory.  I'm sympathetic with their familial appetites; when you come to think about it, many things in life would be a lot simpler if we just consumed our siblings while they were young and tender.  (The writing spider disappeared about 5 days after making the last sack in early October.)