Winter's Setting In

Slowly but surely, winter is starting to take hold in our neck of the woods. We have some persistent snow on the ground (maybe an inch or so), but it sure has been cold the past few days -- below zero on pretty regular basis. The pond has a thin sheet of ice on it, but the bubbler is keeping a section clear. No fish in there, so it's not as critical as it might be. There are a number of potted plants on the pond bottom, however, so I can't have it freezing solid.

This winter I will also be closely watching my Cercis canadensis (Eastern Redbud) to see if it survives the cold. It is right on its border here in Z5, so we are really pulling for it. It is such a nice tree and it is in a very visible front yard location. If it sadly does not make it, I will have to search for something similar to replace it.

The wind has been nothing short of brutal on a couple of occasions over the past month or so -- much worse than when we had the remnants of a few hurricanes blow through our area a few months back. Many people had many things blow over. In our case, a large and heavy cedar arbor bench that I built went down. This had the unfortunate side effects of shattering two lights that were on it and ripping in half the Dutchman's Pipe vines that were planted on either side. Fortunately they did not rip out of the ground, but they will be starting from about six inches tall next spring. I have weighted the arbor bench with some large bricks for the time being and when the ground thaws I will drive a couple of steel spikes into the ground behind the bench and attach the bench to the spikes so that this doesn't happen again. The vines will overgrow the stakes in short order and they won't be visible from the front regardless.

That's all for now.