We finally have night time showers and cooler breezy tradewind days.
Worked this morning so only 1/2 day in the yard. Focused on the voodoo Lily pots (Amorphophallus). A couple of years ago I had 70 pots that were put onto outside benches and left unattended. Now they are covered in weeds. So this afternoon I was clearing the weeds, upending each 6inch pot and looking for the Corms. They were there and just starting to sprout. Some of the larger baseball size corms I will leave alone as they are happy and are starting to bloom. Its the golfball size ones that need to be cleaned up and repotted. I have one variety, forget the name for now, but it multiplies like crazy by developing pea size corms like Gladioli bulbs do. They get everywhere and if you reuse the soil you find them coming up by the dozen.
I will probably end up with over 70 pots this year. In fact I have already filled a seed tray with rows of corms and there will one or two more of them with probably 30 to the tray. Mostly I will get pleasing foliage with a few blooms this year. The corms really need to be cricket ball size to bloom.
Hopefully I will get more time in the yard tomorrow.
Robin is taking one of our dogs for surgery tomorrow and if it stays dry a guy is coming up to paint one of our shed roofs. The guy is a tree trimmer so if he can't paint he will be taking 30 ft off the top of a tall, leaning pine tree in preparation for Hurricane season. Which reminds me, must test the generator this weekend.
Giant white and Giant pink shell gingers are blooming so will take some pics of those.
Water Lilies in the new ponds are putting up buds so that project seems to be a success.
Yesterday afternoon we took down about 50% of the trees with thunder booming in the background. Storms went around to the East and North with flood advisories about 10 miles away back we got very little rain. We stopped the chainsaw after and hour just to be safe. The tree felling gods were on our side as they fell between plants. Some soft tissue damage on some plants but they will grow back. Now I have a heap of trees on the ground to move to somewhere.
This morning I was up at 5.30am had a quick breakfast and drove up to Volcano National Part for the first of many planned early morning hikes. Arrive about 6.20 am, did about three miles around the area near the Volcano Hotel and visitor center. Started to learn how to use the camera and look for early morning lighting. Cloudless sky and cool. Lots of native birds around and some Nene geese flying by.
Unfortunately the bikes lined up in front of the hotel were for guests only.
Came back to Poached eggs on toast cooked by my wonderful wife. Nice start to the day.
Moved some swordtails from one mature pond to the five new ones. The female swordtails were huge, if that's what they are. Moved some sludge from the bottom of some older ponds that are being cleaned and put that in the new ponds to help balance the water. Hopefully the plastic liner has not polluted the water and they will be OK. Kind of use the small fish like Canaries in a mine. Night blooming waterlily was out again today and noticed two more waterlily plants putting up leaves in the bottom round pond and one putting up leaves in the top round pond. Not sure if they will bloom this year as they had a rough start with the sun blocked by surface weed which has now been removed.
Cut down a bunch of Bananas this afternoon. Small apple bananas and they taste good. Chickens think so too. Not sure what we will do with them all (bananas that is, not chickens) as there are only the two of us and not many neighbors and no family locally.
Worked on the dollhouse this afternoon as too tired to do more yard work.
Still no rain although it became cloudy. Hopefully we will get some showers this week as the trade winds return.
Have to work tomorrow morning. Need to cut the driveway grass tomorrow. Its starting to look a bit shaggy.
Dog bathing completed, weather starting to cloud up which is good. Will mean cooler temps and maybe some late afternoon rain. Friend coming to visit this afternoon to assist with felling some small trees. Trunks are about four inches and about 30 feet high. I think I counted 25 of them.
Now planning to clean out and relandscape 7 other small round ponds. They are getting too overgrown with weeds and the sludge in the bottom is about 5 inches deep. Will transfer some of the sludge to the new ponds to assist water plants to get established. Need to put a new liner in one of the seven and a couple need to be relevelled so the water line is level. The heap of bromeliads from Riley will be used for some of the new landscaping
Lots of clean up to do. Piles of weeds and trimmings in two or three locations around the yard. If we get the trees down this afternoon that will be another clean up project. Quick and easy to take them down. Clean up takes days.
Large woodpile in the back of the yard will get bigger with the trees we take down. Its about 10ft wide by 8 ft tall. When I'm finished I decided I will completely cover the pile with bamboo leaves and then put bromeliads and walking Iris over the top of the pile and allow the pile to decompose over years. It should be a nice feature.
All five of the new ponds are now finished. Still have to do some landscaping and get pond plants and fish into the ponds but that's on going for ever.
New Water Lily purchased yesterday is a night bloomer and had two nice dark pink blooms out this morning. The hot day time sun is not being kind to the bedding plants. They really wilt during the day. This weather should be over by Tuesday so hopefully the cooling tradewinds and more showers will help.
Now I need to catch up with the work that needs to be done following three weeks of pond construction. This morning I raked up three wheelbarrows of bamboo leaves and loaded the barrow with plants that need to be relocated and put in the ground - just got the call that it is time to bath a dog so more later.
I was able to get a couple of hours yard time in this afternoon. Got the liner in pond number 5, levelled it and filled it with water. Need a couple more barrow loads of soil to back fill the remaining areas and that one is finished. Then its back up to the long pond and landscape that area. Should finish the project this weekend.
Had a walk around the yard and found a couple more bamboos putting out new shoots. All I see are areas needing to be trimmed and weeded. Its endless Could use a bit more rain and I need to spread some fertilizer around to help the bamboos.
Must water the Epi greenhouse tomorrow. I think its been at least two weeks since the last watering. They should be OK.
