Avery loves the warm weather. He was watering some flowers (and brick) in these pictures.
Look at the pretty pattern it makes on the concrete!
This is how he smiles for the camera. Yep, eyes completely closed.
I love my back yard! The boys were in the back yard practicing baseball.
This is my favorite flower in my yard this year. I think it's columbine. Isn't it beautiful?
This is the tree (some kind of maple) we planted on my side yard last year. It has grown a ton in just one year!
This is my beautiful Japanese Maple. I love this tree. It needs some pruning, but it's still beautiful.
This is my other favorite tree. It's some kind of maple too.
A large area of my back yard is shaded for a good deal of every day.
Pictured above is some kind of willow, but I don't know it's actual name. I love it because it gives a ton of shade.
2 comments:
I love your yard and yes, the columbine is amazing! That's what's so nice about an established neighborhood.
The bottom picture is not a willow, it's a white birch. They are pretty trees and nice shade trees that were popular and planted here about 40 years ago.
What I find interesting about them is in the spring there are no leaves, then they all magically appear in one day. It seems almost impossible the volume and mass of the leaves that appear in one day. If you don't watch it closely, you will miss seeing this one day transformation.
It is no longer advised to plant these trees here in Northern Utah because they have problems. Their problem is bugs. A borer bug started here about 10-20 years go. It attacks these trees. You can tell if it has borer bugs because some of the branches will look wilting and will be dying. This usually starts at the top and works its way down. If it has borer bugs and you do nothing, it will take several years before it dies. The alternative is to have it sprayed twice each spring starting when the temperature starts to get hot. But tree spraying companies such as one called Stewarts charge about $60 per treatment, therefore $120 per year. If it is infected and you have it sprayed every year, it will slow down the death many years. But it will still eventually die of the borer bug damage.
Stinky tiny round brown bugs also like to live on these trees but they are not the borer bugs and they don't seem to hurt anything. I think the spraying for borer bugs also kills them. These trees are slowly vanishing along the Wasatch Front because of the borer problem.
If you have room for another small decorative tree, I suggest a Chocolate Summer Mimosa. It is my favorite tree for this climate. If you can get one to grow (they are weak when they are young), I guarantee it will be your favorite tree too! Knowing your mother and your upbringing, you have just GOT to have a tree named CHOCOLATE!!!
Regular Mimosa trees are from Japan and are normally large. They grow 40+ feet tall and have very delicate fern-like leaves that open up each morning and close each evening like an indoor prayer plant. Unlike most trees that bloom in the spring, these trees wait until hot weather to bloom and they keep blooming all summer. Their blooms are pink, maybe ping pong ball size, and very delicate and dainty and have a sweet perfume smell. Many wrongly think these trees are dead in the spring since they are the last to grow leaves. They wait until mid June to grow leaves since they like hot weather. This regular large mimosa tree with green leaves is NOT the one I suggest unless you want a large tree.
A few years ago the Japanese performed a miracle. They turned the above large tree with green leaves into a small mimosa tree with PURPLE leaves. Other than that the trees are the same. The small size and purple leaves is what makes it so special. The new fern-like leaves are dark purple, then they fade to a brown chocolate color. It's a rare tree. Most nurseries here will not have one. And if you find a nursery that has one, it will only bring a few of these trees here each spring and they are expensive, $70 to $100 for a small one.
I planted one a few years ago that was a small 2' tall tree. It is now about 5' tall x 6' diameter. It is doing really well. If you want to try to grow one from seed, I can send you seeds from it this October or November when the seeds are ready.
Do a Google search on Summer Chocolate Mimosa and you'll see how pretty it is. But pictures don't do it justice. It not only flowers all summer, the flowers have a perfume smell, and it is fascinating to watch the purple leaves open in the morning and close in the evening.
Brian.
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