Lights, lights, bug lights

Still thinking about mosquito traps, could buy some outdoor traps any day now.  One issue is that all the units I am interested in require A/C power.  I have only one fully suitable AC power outlet on the side of Lyndhurst.  I could power one trap in that vicinity easily, but not other traps elsewhere, without adding additional outlets, an additional expense.  Although, right now I keep Lyndhurst doors open for outgassing, I can just run wire out, until I close doors sometime in October, then worry about additional outlet wiring next year.

But in a way the more bewildering decision is how to re-do the security lights, now that it has become clear the old security lights were a big part of the mosquito equation because they attract tons of bugs, including mosquitos.

I've already planned and purchased 12 small solar lights for lighting trees and such around the perimeter of yard.  Current backyard security light didn't even do that very well, but did do a good job of lighting out to 25 feet from house.

The front and back door lights need not even be security lights anymore.  I could have pole light somewhere in yards for that purpose, keep from attracting bugs near door.  But that involves a lot of planning, work, and expense.  I could easily imagine spending $2000 on front and back pole lights, including new electrical installation.

So in the short term, it makes sense to continue using front and back door lights with a continued security function, if not identical performance with existing lights, but using less bug attracting lights.

So soft back lit sconces are probably out.  But a open light taking standard screw in bulbs (which seems to be A21) either as a panoramic light-in-a-box or as quasi-spots would work using bulb bolbs, which are commonly available in A21 incandescent, CFL, and LED.  I had been thinking also of real spot-light type LED bulbs, but I'm having a hard time finding suitable outdoor "wet" lamps to hold them.

Here is a two A21 bulb quasi-spot bulb, very traditional, and traditionally inefficient with incandescent bulb.  Light is only emitted out of the type of the bulb cover, and A21 bulbs emit light all around, so much light energy is wasted.  Still, it could do the job with two bug lights of some kind.  With suitable LED bulbs, it would be quite efficient.

A friend liked my idea of modifying the existing panoramic lights with transparent yellow filters.

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Took a look at Lowe's today and they have standard outside dual floodlights in white or black.  Also available in both colors with dusk-to-dawn photosensor intended to work with halogen bulbs.  The non-photosensor variety is also available with short bulb covers or the full sized bulb covers.  The photosensor variety had full sized bulb covers, which I suspect are compatible with PAR38 lights.

I'm thinking the photosensor ought to work with dimmable LED floods.  They had some nice looking 15W floods by Sylvania in 2700K.  They also had GE's and a few others.  It didn't seem hard to find 2700K lights, though typically integrated CFL/sensor lights use 5000K and up fluorescents which I now know are bug magnets.

more mosquito and light links

I spent two hours on my backyard patio on Saturday night with security light turned off, and no mosquitos or other bugs bothered me, though I did notice a couple of disoriented mosquitos which could have been disoriented by Mosquito Cognito.

I turned on the light to watch the sprinklers when I cycled them on for a few minutes to check the tree coverage.  In just a two minutes, I had several mosquitoes after me, and ducked back into the house.

I am thinking this shows that the security light is bad for attracting bugs, including mosquitoes, and is better if it can be replaced somehow.  I set up my first 27 lumen solar powered wide angle spotlight from Target on the back of Lyndhurst as an uplight, and it works great.  I have purchased 11 more similar lights, including 5 more identical 27 lumen units, 4 different wide angle spotlights from Frontgate which might even be better, and 2x 20 lumen rock lights.  One idea is that with good enough perimeter lighting, need for central security light is reduced or eliminated.  And it looks much prettier too.  The big security light makes the fabric security shield around my patio opaque, so it doesn't actually improve visibility from the window, can actually see farther with the light off, though it might give intruders a sense of being watched.

I can see why Mosquito Cognito is not recommended for indoor use.  It's quite smelly.  And it gets much much worse if you turn the unit upside down to install the scent cartridge.  Then any part which has already been liquified will spill right onto the floor.  It was a good thing I did this in the garage, as I had only the hard garage floor to clean up, and I did that with scads of wet and dry paper towels.  The unit is designed so that you can install the cartridge right side up, then no spilling.  It took about two days for the smell to fade away from my garage.  Perhaps I got a bit of extra mosquito protection from that.  As I was cleaning up spilled Mosquito Cognito in the garage, there was clearly a mosquito in there.

The indoor Dynatrap 3 has been successful in catching a few mosquitoes inside my house.  But it failed to catch the one that was bothering me for several days in the master bathroom--a key test.  Finally, I killed that one with the Lentek Koolatron bug zapping wand.  I've decided you always need one of those close to hand.  I gave a couple of them to my friends.

Here's a link describing that you can grow lemongrass, marigold, and even citronella around your home to deter mosquitoes.

Here's the best link I've found arguing that warm white LED's are ignored by bugs, but not true for cool white.

Here is some discussion of natural mosquito and bug repellants.

No Mosquitoes Inside on Wednesday morning

I got home from work on Wednesday morning at 1:00 AM.   I closed the garage door using the remote in my car as soon as I had finished pulling in the car.  Usually I close the door only after I have gotten out of the car and shut off the security system, but why leave the garage door open longer than necessary?  Leaving the garage door open allows bugs, possibly including mosquitoes, to enter.

I then decided not to open the back door of my house (a sliding glass door that exits the kitchen and enters the patio).  I have a very bright 27 watt fluorescent security light above that door which always attracts lots of bugs.  I'm now thinking that when I go out there at night, and then come back into the house, mosquitos in the vicinity follow me back in.  I reprogrammed my Rainbird controller in the garage to water the trees at 3am for 15 minutes, and enjoyed watching through the bedroom and kitchen glass when it ran.  This was the first watering since the rainfall on early Sunday morning; I skipped the Tuesday AM watering.  Since I am now worried about mosquitoes, I appreciated greatly not having to go into the back yard to do the watering by hand.

I also put a towel underneath the front door of my house.  The gasket under the door is in very poor condition, and conceivably a mosquito could fly underneath the door.

But in order to get the mail, I did go out and return through the front door, which has the same kind of bug attracting security light as in back.  I could do better on that by getting the mail before I pull the car into the garage.

It occurs to me now that the security lights front and back are a key issue in allowing bugs and mosquitos to enter house.  It would be good to redesign them somehow so that bugs do not swarm near the doors of the house.  Here are some ideas:

1) Get new lights that don't attract bugs so much.  This much require new fixtures also.  I haven't seen anything yet that I'd like.  What I'd like is an LED light with brightness equivalent to what I get with a 27W fluorescent, with automatic lightsensing switch.  This would run on household AC.

2) Get new lights in a different location(s) so the lights by the doors can normally be turned off.  If a new light is positioned at least 10 feet from the door, I don't think bugs would be as much of a problem.  Then I could also put mosquito traps in between the new lights and the doors.

3) Put the door lights on an X10 switch so they can be turned off a few minutes before using the doors.  Then, at 9 in the morning, my X10 central controller can turn them back on again, ready to provide security the next day.  The problem with an ordinary switch is that I always forget to turn it back on until days or even weeks later.

For the front and back security lights, I do like always-on lighting, which I believe provides better deterrence than motion detector based.  Motion detector lights,  especially the solar powered kind, are great in a pinch, for temporary lighting, but not as good for deterrence I think.

Just in Time Weekend

On Friday evening I pressed onward to make a new software release.  I did get it done but didn't leave until 1am instead of my usual midnight.  I still got home in time to re-program the Rainbird system not to water my trees on Saturday at 3am.  Since it waters twice on Thursday, early morning and evening, a re-watering of the trees wouldn't make sense until Sunday at 3am, just over two days later.

On Saturday afternoon I hauled 6 bags of topsoil and one bag of sand from the driveway (where I had hurriedly stashed them on Thursday night, hidden just barely behind the trash cans) to Palmhurst for safe storage.  I also hauled several Xeripave pavers to Palmhurst.  The pavers I had placed temporarily on the driveway were forcing me to leave the trash and recycling cans pushed way out from the garage door, which wouldn't be good for my end-of-the-month party during which one guest likes to park in the driveway.

Then, I pruned the Viburnum near the northwest corner of the back yard because it was looking waterlogged and prone to fungus.  It had several branches on the ground, many rotten leaves on the ground, and there was no good ventilation underneath.  I cut back the branches and leaves so the ground is visible from all sides and no leaves are touching the ground.  I cut off some of the yellowed leaves.  On Monday afternoon it was looking very nice again, so I think I did the right thing.

I also put on my full face respirator and swept the garage, which had gotten very dusty during the installation of the Rainbird controller (much of the dust being nasty sheetrock dust from cutting the hole in the wall) and hadn't been swept in about 6 months anyway.

Looking at the clouds I checked the forecast and decided to close the doors to Lyndhurst.

I had been planning to do more garden work this weekend, but on Friday evening I decided instead to see two plays that a friend had told me about, so after getting up and  ordering tickets online on Saturday afternoon around 3pm, there wasn't much time.  I just barely got to the Jump Start theater to watch the play The Importance of Being Earnest at the 8pm showtime.  Near the end of the play, an intense thunderstorm started.  It was still an intense downpour when the play let out, so I holed up in the nearby brewpub until midnight, when there was a three hour break in the rain.  At 3am the rain started in force again, ulimately dropping more than 1.5 inches.  So it turned out to have been very wise and timely to have done all the things I did, otherwise I'd have had soggy topsoil, wet pavers needing a few more days to dry out, a sticky garage floor, and a rotten viburnum surrounded by mud.

The rain came just in time, too.  During the great tree planting on the previous Thursday, I had been hoping for promised rain that weekend but none had arrived.  So now, mid August, and finally my trees got a good raining.  Now it looks really good that all of them, with only the possible exception of the sickly looking Wild Olive with just a few leaves still functioning, will come through my outlandish summer planting just fine.

There wasn't any time for me to do anything on Sunday before getting to the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at 2:30.  I did get there on time and it was a long play.

But after that I was a bit out-of-sync.  I went to North Star Mall afterwards to have my combined dinner and lunch just after 6pm, only to find that North Star Mall no longer has a Luby's Cafeteria where I had been planning to fill up.  So I ate at Subway and had ice cream at Marble Slab because I was still hungry.  The mall was closing at 7pm as I was leaving, and then I went out to Gabriel's Liquor Superstore on 1604, where I'd been meaning to go for 8 months (!) to get a special kind of tequila (single barrel) that I had been introduced to at the company Holiday Party last year.  I had some difficulty finding the store amidst all the new construction and developments up there and was worried that by the time I got there, well after 7pm, they would be closed.  Well, I needn't have worried, since it turned out they were closed all day Sunday.  That meant it would have been more timely to go to Home Depot to buy new garden gloves instead.  I wasn't sure how late Home Depot would be open.  I got to Home Depot at 8:04 and seeing cars still in the lot was relieved.  But it turned out they had closed at 8pm.  So I got a different type of gloves at Target instead. It was very hard to find any work gloves at Target.  I spent much time thinking about the discontinued solar lights on sale and finally bought one of those too.  Then I did my weekly grocery shopping.  The best part of Sunday was that my lady friend finally called me around 11pm, after a week of worrisome lack of calls and ambiguous texts.  She had been apparently suffering from the milder form of West Nile Fever, and lacked energy all last week.  I myself had just been thinking about mosquitos all last week (see earlier posts).  Coincidentally, her daughter had just named a new cat Kronos.

On Monday afternoon I did some work on the AC drain which wasn't draining very well at the terminus of the new 30 inch splashblock which had replaced the original 12 inch one.  A few years back I dug an artesian drain of sand going out 5 feet, but it has since been covered with clay soil and the new splashblock wasn't connecting well with the subsurface sand...making it a possible breeding pool for mosquitos, I feared (though it wasn't exactly still water, it might be still enough).  I dug up the grass and clay soil at the terminus of the block.  There was still sand underneath the soil, I was pleased to see.  I replaced the soil and grass I dug up with more new sand to restore proper drainage away from the house.

I did NOT use any kind of pesticide on the block, because I have seen dragonflies drinking there, and I had just learned from reading on Sunday night that dragonflies (which I had always thought were just a nuisance) actually eat mosquitoes.  No wonder there were so many dragonflies in my yard last week.  I now realize it wasn't just me with my new sprinklers suffering from mosquitoes.  In fact the whole state of Texas is having an epidemic of West Nile fever from an intense outbreak of mosquitos everywhere, and they're even spraying for mosquitoes in Dallas (which I think is a very bad idea because it also kills the dragonflies and honey bees).

Instead, I ordered some natural bacterial mosquito control which is toxic to mosquito larvae but not to pets or anything else, and I plan to put some on the splash block periodically, and perhaps in other areas around the yard that tend to stay moist too long.  I also ordered some electronic mosquito wands that are claimed to be the best of their kind, and only $6.50 apiece.  You may recall last week I ordered what appeared to be the best indoor mosquito trap.  It hasn't arrived yet but actually there are no mosquitos haunting me inside now, I think the last one finally died or left.  I've been investigating outdoor mosquito traps, more on that later.

Mosquito Traps

Here are two links.  More discussion to follow:

http://www.beyondpesticides.org/mosquito/documents/mosq_traps.PDF

http://www.cheapism.com/indoor-mosquito-traps

Every authoritative source says the first thing to do wrt mosquitos is to eliminate the breeding ground if possible.  I have been unable to find any standing water on my property.  It's interesting and suggestive that the mosquito problem arose when my sprinklers were being installed.  But all the new water drains within an hour of application, leaving no standing water on the ground.  This is not fast draining soil, but water on the surface doesn't stay long, though the ground itself can stay muddy for awhile.  If it's just mud that mosquitoes can breed in, well perhaps I do have that, but there's nothing I can do about it except leave all my grass and plants to die.  Perhaps there is standing water on a nearby lot but it might be hard for me to find.

Though it's not clear where the two or three mosquito bites I've gotten in the past two weeks happened, and it's possible I got them while being outside late at night watering, it also seems quite possible it has been from one or just a few mosquitos that somehow got into my house. I've been hearing one in bed and when brushing my teeth for the last week. They may have gotten in when opening the back door, or perhaps the garage door.  I did make the mistake last weekend of leaving the garage door open from about 7pm to 2am.

Those mosquitoes are quite annoying.  I've sometimes run my Lenco sonic repeller (a device which was forced off the market by lawsuit because of unproven effectiveness) and it often seems it keeps them away from the immediate area.  The batteries ran down a few days ago, so I haven't run it for the last few nights.  I may have gotten my most recent bite then.  Also, on the "dragonfly" setting it makes a noise which makes it impossible to hear mosquitoes, which at least helps in getting to sleep.  I've never been sorry I bought it, other than that it might have prevented me from getting something more or actually effective.  I have always thought it wouldn't protect you from a bunch of mosquitoes but it might protect you from just one or two.

Anyway, with just one or two mosquitoes in the house it makes great sense to me that I should have a mosquito trap inside the house.  It would probably cut down on the bites and almost certainly the in-house distraction.  So I researched indoor traps today.

To me the most obvious idea would be to have a trap emitting small puffs of CO2, just as humans do.  There are many outdoor traps that do this, usually by catalytically reacting a tank of fuel such as propane.  And there are others that use actual tanks of CO2.

But I could find no indoor mosquito traps that emit plausibly effective amounts of CO2.  You wouldn't want to burn (or even just "react") propane inside the house, for a number of reasons, including that it would be illegal.  But with sufficient safety measures, or simply a small cartridge of CO2, it seems to me like there could be indoor traps that emit CO2 from a small CO2 supply.  They could also generate it with some reaction, such as with baking soda and a granulated acid that reacts over time.  But I could not find any that did anything like that.  Typically, they simply attract mosquitos with fluorescent light tubes (often UV) and a fan which sucks nearby mosquitos in.

Instead, there are some traps which claim to emit CO2 not from any chemicals supplied, but simply by having an inner surface coated with TiO2.  Many reviewers on Amazon.com say they can't believe it works.  I thought about it for awhile and decided the TiO2 could be reacting VOC's in the air itself, which come from manmade sources (cars, painted surfaces, etc) and natural sources like trees and flowers, and cracking and oxidizing them on the TiO2 catalyst to make CO2.  That could work, but it's hard to see how you wound generate more than the tiniest amounts of CO2, such as in the parts per billion or even parts per trillion using such a process, and such quantities would be totally masked by the 390PPM of CO2 in ordinary air (which is probably somewhat higher than that inside an occupied house).

Anyway, even if these traps don't generate significant CO2, they still do attract flying insects including mosquitos with light, often UV light, and a fan sucks them in.

I'm referring specifically to the Dynatrap, such as the Indoor/Outdoor model the DT1000, which I read about on many websites.  I saw it even won some design award given to it in Germany.  And it gets more positive reviews than the cheaper traps that only use light and fan.  So however effective the CO2 generation is, perhaps the other parts are designed pretty well.  I finally decided I would get something like that because I couldn't find an indoor trap emitting larger more useful amounts of CO2.

I finally decided to get the Dynatrap 3 sold by Frontgate.  I couldn't find it anywhere else, it looked like a custom more attractive-than-usual version of the DT1000 with a more specially made UV light.  Frontgate has been selling mosquito traps since I first heard about them (in fact, I first read about them in a Frontgate catalog) and it looked like Frontgate may have gotten the lead on the manufacturer's latest generation, or a slightly upgraded model.  I've always enjoyed items I've bought from Frontgate, often they have actually been exceptional values worth the added cost many times over.  It cost about $34 more than the Dynatrap DT1000 from other websites, and that cost did not seem like that much more to me to get something slightly nicer and give Frontgate some of my business again.

Arguments against (and for) mulch rings

The more I read about planting trees, the more different recommendations I see.

Most of my new trees to not actually have mulch rings.  I am planning to add them to some to keep the weeds down.  But here is an argument against mulch rings:

http://landscapeofmeaning.blogspot.com/2011/01/case-against-mulch-rings.html

Here's a step-by-step planting guide from NCSU.  This one recommends having the top of the root ball level with the soil surface (not slightly--0.5 inch or so--higher as I have seen recommended elsewhere).  In fact, it suggests you could cover the root ball in soil, but less than one inch (that seems to be disasterous with my high clay soil).   It recommends a water retention ring around the tree, covered with 3 inches of mulch.  So, yes, mulch ring, but also water retention ring around it.  And they even have a partly above ground planting method, where the root ball is about 1/3 above regular soil level, but surrounded with topsoil to 5 times the width, and once again mulch above that.  That is recommended for poorly draining soil, but said to be a problem during dry spells.

Progress, or is that possible?

I ran sprinkler programs on Saturday night, or actually 1:00 am Sunday morning.  This was a lot of fun to watch, truly amazing.  5 operating zones.  I took note of a few things that didn't seem quite right, so was able to report them to sprinkler guy on Monday morning, who at that time made some adjustments and promised a new head for one sprinkler.  He programmed everything and explained generally how to work the system and answered some of my questions.  Interesting that I am only legally allowed to operate system from 3am to 8am and from 8pm to 10pm on my allotted day, which is Thursday.  I would have had him start the watering at 1am, at which time I am usually home from work, but not have to wait too long for it to start.  I have one zone that waters just the trees.  I had him not water the back grass as much as he wanted as it is mostly weeds anyway, but everything else is at his recommended levels.

He believes the system will be able to adequately water all my new trees.  I was skeptical of that before seeing the system operate, and testing moisture levels on Sunday.  Now I think, especially after he upped all the zone times, it may actually water too much and I'll have to cut it back.  But I can easily do that now.  He's OK with me adjusting timer panel and even sprinklers (though he said to give him a call first before adjusting sprinklers) without voiding my 5 year warranty.  He was relieved to learn I am a computer programmer.  He says he has the most trouble with lawyers, who can never figure the system out, and next with doctors.  I told him that did not surprise me at all.

Actually, on Sunday night, I went around checking trees and watering as necessary, and now just as I have installed full automation, I have figured out the best hand method.  That is go around the yard and soil test and water each tree as needed.  To water properly, I adjusted spigot so that on "shower" the nozzle delivered one gallon in about 40 seconds (using a new one gallon plastic water can to test), making for about 1.5 gallons per minute.  Then, each tree gets between 3-8 gallons depending on how big a tree and how much moisture it needs.  That means 2-5 minutes per plant, directed at the root area.  Easy.  Biggest problem was carrying around chair, flashlight, soil tester, and hose all at the same time.

Using a soaker hose curled around tree--as I had been doing for a month--turns out to be a pain in the neck because you don't know how much water is being delivered.  And then if you have two soaker hoses, it gets worse because it's hard to get both adjusted properly at the same time.  And then after all that, with a single manifold like I have, you have to turn both adjustments back to off so you can use other hoses.  So that means you have to do the adjustment every time you water, and the adjustment alone takes about 15 minutes, and then there's re-checking and re-adjusting at 30 minute intervals.  It's an easy way to kill an hour and a half and likely way overwater...since you have now way of knowing how much water or even if it's the same as last time.  It actually took me less time to top-up all 13 plants in back with a hose nozzle than to just water two plants with a soaker hose.  And it's more rewarding as you get to sit and visit with each plant, and not keep running back and forth trying to get the flow rate right.  I had purchased a couple additional flow adjusters but never got around to installing them.  Even if I had, theres an issue that the water pressure isn't always the same.  The sprinkler system has its own internal pressure regulator.

Even Tree-IV doesn't work quite right.  As you are filling each 5 gallon Tree-IV bucket, the water is simultaneously flowing out through the ground spike nearly as fast as you are filling it.  So it's not really 5 gallons, more like 20, if you can even ever get the bucket filled.  Finally I found I could slow this down by putting a cap over the ground spike inside the bucket.  Even that doesn't stop the water from running out, because the cap doesn't fit tightly when you use it that way (it was intended to cover spike when bucket is not on it) but it only slows it down enough so you can actually fill the bucket.  I think Tree-IV sells a separate bucket cap separately, but that is for filling up the bucket elsewhere, and then moving to a tree.

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On Saturday afternoon I picked up 10 more Xeripave permeable pavers to start on the pathways and patios I plan to build.  Remember that on Thursday I borrowed two of these from the side near the power box so the planting guys could install over my gate threshold, an area that needs to stay moist to keep gate poles from shifting.  So I was able to replace those two back by the power box, which is another corner of the house that badly needs to stay moist.  I put two at the edge of my existing patio, and then two in front of the gate opening.

As I was installing, however, I found a problem with these that means I will probably not use them 100% (besides the high cost).  They can get slippery especially if covered with mud.  After that, I decided to mix paver types, keeping the existing concrete pavers on both sides of the gate, and adding more of the concrete paver extras I had.  I had been thinking that the Xeri pavers had less traction when wet than concrete pebbled pavers.  However, on Monday morning, this proved to be untrue--I slipped on a concrete paver that had some mud on it too.  So right now, I can't say which has the more reliable traction.  The Xeripave may be ever so slightly smoother, but the water flows right through so the mud likely isn't as moist.  So it is, as they say, a wash.

Another mark against Xeripave--I broke one somehow.  I suspect these are no where near as strong as concrete.  Of course, even concrete pavers can be broken, as I have done.

Part of the reason I slipped on Saturday when installing the pavers was because the little circular pavers leading up to the gate from the inside were just sitting on top of ground after being disturbed by the sprinkler installation digging..very high and very unstable.  I fixed that on Sunday afternoon, digging the first paver into the ground so it is fairly stable.  It is also lower now, and sits just slightly above the Xeripavers at the gate threshold (instead of way above it, as it was when I slipped).

But because of my fear of Xeripave slipperiness, I decided not to put one immediately on the outside of the gate as I had planned.  Instead I used two 6x18" cement pavers staggered slightly to match the desired path.  That spot doesn't need xeripave so much because it is shielded by the house (immediately to the south) from excess sunlight.

Anyway, right now i can walk from the west side of the patio to the front of the house and only on pavers (however some of the old ones near the A/C are almost covered by grass and ground and need to be replaced with bigger ones anyway).  So this should help keeping my shoes from getting 1" of mud buildup...now that I'm turning my yard into a swamp.

*****

Speaking of which, I discovered a pencil-thin dark nearly black colored snake in my hallway on Sunday afternoon.  I almost killed it, but was too paranoid to get close because I didn't have any clothes on.  Fortunately I didn't touch it at all, but at least scared it away from going into master bedroom.  After some later reading, I believe it is nothing to worry about.  It can't really live inside the house.  It's not interesting in biting me--even if it was the biting kind.  It's interested in avoiding me, and finding the way back outside (which I hope by now it already has).  It probably slipped in when I was testing the sprinklers and left the garage door open.  Actually, I left the garage door open most of Saturday after I got home around 7pm.  So I should remember not to do that.

A reptile expert at works says it is likely a Rat Snake, and possibly a Corn Snake.  These are not venemous, they kill rodents by constriction.  They are essential to the ecosystem or we would be overrun by rats.  The Corn Snake in particular is the most popular snake species for pets, also most recommended for snake newbies, though it is recommended to buy young snakes from stores.

Pictures of new trees on Saturday (Day 3)

I've been pushed to the edge of my time and wits on this tree planting thing, so that's why I didn't get around to taking pictures on Days 1 or 2.  The trees looked perfect on Day 1, the day they were planted, but not quite as perfect now as the stress of planting and probable overwatering at that time are setting in.  Not to mention the extreme heat, I believe Friday reached 102 but fortunately storm clouds began dimming the the light around 4:30 pm.  No actual rain arrived in San Antonio, apparently the intense line of storms dissipated when faced with the urban heat island of Bexar County.

Watch that over watering, Oliver

Growing up, I loved watching Green Acres (sometimes right after Beverly Hillbillies) during the original broadcast era on CBS.  I felt sorry for Oliver Wendell Holmes, who could never seem to get the farming going well, despite his best and never ending attentions and fairly unlimited funds.  If there wasn't one problem, there was another.  Meanwhile, nobody else seemed to have any trouble, despite lack of funds and hardly paying any attention at all.  Have I mentioned there is a farmhouse near where I live that looks exactly like the one that showed during the credits?  I was singing the theme song to my mother when we bought this house in 1991.

Well here I am now in that role.  The dense clay soil around here is extremely difficult to work with in every way.  Mostly, it doesn't drain anywhere, so water you pour in just sits there forever until it dries out.  But if you don't water during the intense summer heat, you have hard cracking clay that might as well be broken pottery.

Despite the 102 degree heat on Friday, the day after planting, I was shocked to find my moisture meter peaking at several of the new plants Friday night.  It looked to me like the Pomegranate, the tree I love the most, had suffered from that, it appeared to have much more wrinkled leaves than when it was planted, and it's soil seemed to dampest of all.  Poor plant was drowning.  The base was also very loose, and the tree leaning forward slightly, built-in support and all.

So Wednesday night, around 3am, scooped excess loose muddy almost dripping soil off of the root base (the soil had apparently flowed over it at some point) and brought out the black pedestal fan from Lyndhurst, set as low and downward as possible to blow air over the root ball all night and dry it out.

By morning, around 9:30 AM, the soil was looking and measuring better, midway on the meter.  The tree still seems loose but I'm not going to try to fix that.  I removed the fan around 10:15.  Then, taking a picture of all the plants, I decided the Wild Olive was suffering similarly, so I put the an on it.

The problem I believe stemmed from the very uncontrolled watering during planting.  We just let the hose run on each plant until whenever.  I think some plants got barely enough, whereas others got more than an hour of medium hose flow, possibly as much as 60 gallons.  That would be fine with a draining soil, but not with hard clay.  With hard clay, you need to count the gallons.






I brought the

August 9: Twelve Trees Planted

On Thursday morning around 11 am, two very nice workers unloaded nine new trees off of the back of their truck, straight from the wholesale nursery.  They proceeded to plant them in locations I designated, along with planting three trees I had previously purchased.  That makes twelve trees newly in the ground.  Wow!!!

Each and every one of the new trees was very beautiful.  That is probably the benefit of dealing with professionals who obtain their trees from a wholesale nursery which actually grows trees on their various local farms, as compared with a retailer who gets new trees from the same nursery, or one like it, and then has them sitting around in their side lot Garden Store for a few months and watered, or not, by store staff.  Ironically on Thursday night when I dropped into Home Depot to get more topsoil, I saw a dead looking tree that must have been beautiful once at 12 feet high.  The recent hundred degree heat is surely no help in keeping such trees alive, especially when they are parked in an asphalt lot.

I hope that irony doesn't come back to bite me.  Ever since I agreed to have trees planted and irrigation installed simultaneously for lowest cost and practicality and promised planting despite my wire loaded yard, about a month ago, I've been very worried about how this was going to turn out.  The need to get irrigation done NOW (really should have been done 15 years ago) itself was mainly driven by concern about my home foundation, which is now facing intense summer heat and dryness now that we're no longer getting tropical storm rainfall several times a week as we were (very unusually) in early summer.  I hope I am not sacrificing poor little living trees for vanity and concern about my mostly inert foundation.  I would feel bad about that, but then just get more trees to replace them come October.  I believe the main thing here is that after many years of procrastination, I am finally doing something about my back yard.  My lady friend is very happy about this.

Most of the new trees were in 15 gallon pots, but the two Vitex were in 5 gallon pots.  I had specifically chosen the smaller size to make them easier to plant in my backyard full of telecom wires.  I would have chosen to get many if not most of the other trees in a smaller size also, had it been available from the nursery.

As it turned out, wires were not a problem except for the four trees planted along the south side of my back yard where all telecom and electrical service wires run to my house panels.  That area of the yard is riddled with cable TV cables, probably many of which are no longer in use, but who knows which is which, and they all got marked.  And it wasn't just the markings.  A snarl of wires was quickly exposed at the southwest corner of my lot, and the planters balked at planting the 15 gallon Viburnum.  Leaving that spot open for awhile, they just barely managed to get my existing Crepe Myrtle into the ground nearby, and then the Wild Olive, by pushing wires far enough apart to squeeze them in.  Then they found that at the spot closest to the house, they could simply pull the wires from the ground and lay to one side...making for the largest ground opening on the south side.  So then I had to make a hard decision quickly, and I agreed that they would put the Viburnum there rather than where originally intended, and the little 5 gallon Vitex I had chosen for that spot should go back near the southwest corner.  I am very ambivalent about that decision.  The Viburnum is rather big for a shrub nearest the house (I paced exactly 5 feet from the SW corner of my house).  I have half a mind to pull the Viburnum come October and plant something smaller there.  But then what would I do with the Viburnum?

More Changes

Bought three 16 inch Xeropave pavers for the electric and telecom hookup area at the SW corner of my house.  I hope to grow grass here, but expecially after sprinkler installation it is soft dirt.  The Xeropave pavers let needed moisture into the ground.  Moisture is especially needed in the ground here as it is where my house settles slightly in the summer, making a tiny crack appear in my bedroom.

These Xeropave pavers are wonderful looking, lightweight for a nice 16" size.  I plan to investigate how they are made.  Main downside is high cost, about 3 times the cost of a comparably sized paver.  Speaking of which I also bought three 3/4 moon 16 inch round pavers with tiny pebble surface.  I've decided those would be best to make a walkway to Lyndhurst.  Only one width is OK at 16 inches (12 inches is too small, needs doubling up), they are much lighter than 16x16 pavers, and make curves nicely.

A friend and I found a new place for Palmy, in the NW corner of my lot, but 15 feet or so diagonally out from the corner (what would have been the edge of a large gazebo...which I no longer plan to have).  This is actually a better more visible spot for Palmy, and away from wires and easements.

We also found a place for Spindly Bamboo right next to the other Alphonse Karr.  It is possible to put clumps fairly close together I've read (but not exactly confirmed).

Neighbor to the south no longer wants Texas Mtn Laurel on her side, so it will replace the 2nd viburnum on the north side, and may put viburnum where the TML was going previously.

Still need to decide what plant if any to put nearest the house along the southern fence.  Can't be big, I had thought bamboo would be perfect, and it would except the expanding clump problem.  Very small tree or shrub needed.

And need to decide what plant to put where I was putting Palmy.  One possibility would be Anacacho Orchid, a pretty tree, I would have chosen it before but I thought it was deciduous.

So two spots now remain to be filled, nearest the house (if any) and at the sw corner of the back fence near the CPS transformer.

Changes

OK, the bamboo will not go in the electric and telecom hookup corridor.  Instead, I'll move it to a convenient spot near the north wall, just like the other bamboo.  Problem is the inexorable growth of the base and rootsystem.  On the north side, there is only one wire, which I've never seen dug up.

Instead, I'll choose a deciduous small tree/shrub.  Why?  Because I can't put deciduous trees in the privacy screen, but behind Lyndhurst it doesn't matter.

The palm will not go in the back easement, filled with wires that go through the neighborhood.  If I keep it, and I'm not sure I will, I'll plant it in the SE corner of the front lawn, far enough back from the driveway to allow expansion, or in the south side yard.  It cannot go in the NE side of the front lawn because that's where the drain is.  Another possible spot is in the southern corridor beside the house near the back fence.

With regard to the palm, though, it has a mass rootsystem of consistenly finger-sized roots.  Perhaps that's not so bad back near the fence in the easement.  The palm does not have expanding roots, it grows new little roots.

In the spot originally intended for bamboo near the house, I'll put an evergreen tree shrub.  Photinia?

More clumping bamboo, but is this best choice?

For my monthly discussion party, I asked that guests discuss trees suitable for my back yard.

During a short tour of my back yard as it is (or was) I proudly pointed out my clumping bamboo.  One guest said this was a very bad choice, bamboo is invasive, and I will cause damage to natural ecosystems by growing it.

I replied that I had chosen a clumping bamboo, which is not invasive, it grows outward very slowly, and in fact barely survives the heat, cold, drought, etc.  You can see how slowly it grows, I said.

The guest was not impressed, adding that birds would spread the seeds and wreck natural ecosystems as well as neighboring yards.

I dropped the topic there, though I think I should have pointed out what one of my friends had said earlier that afternoon, that bamboo produces seeds very infrequently, maybe 20-100 years (an online source says "less than once in a lifetime") and only when the bamboo plants of a particular variety are dying out all over the world at the same time.  Then the only thing left is the seeds, and they don't grow very easily either.  It is apparently an ancient strategy to dump parasites.  I have confirmed this story online since then.  It seemed to me not worthwhile to argue with someone so obviously misinformed and opinionated.  In retrospect, I should have been the better host, and repeated what my friend had said.

But lo, there are even some who say that running bamboo really is not that bad (it would have taken over the whole world millions of years ago if it was as invasive as some very vocal anti-bamboosers claim nowadays).  It can and should be controlled with simple techniques (it is the lazy folks who don't follow directions that are to blame).   Further, clumping bamboo, though it grows very slowly in just one expanding clump, tends to grow inexorably though whatever is in its path, so don't plant near foundations or driveways.  And they say for various reasons clumping bamboo does not make a good privacy hedge, the tops tend to droop to the sides rather than remaining tight.  Clumping bamboos are also more sensitive in various ways (cold, heat, drought) and then there is that slow growing thing.

I fear those "simple techniques" may indeed be too troublesome for most people, including me, however.  The best thing might be to have your running bamboo grove set up by a professional who knows how to do just that, I feel now.

But now, somewhat, I fear the clump.  What happens when my clumping bamboo hits my concrete fence?  Eventually, probably measured in a decade or two, I will have to remove my first bamboo on along the north fence, though that neighbor literally does nothing in or with his back yard and wouldn't even notice if Bambi One started growing on the other side of the fence.  I would make a nice counterpoint to his volunteer garden of hackberry trees that got started in the unusually wet early summer this year and a 10 foot high sunflower.  So I think I leave Bambi One alone, she can just clump there to her hearts content.

On Thursday I just got a second bamboo plant, which I have named Spindly Bambi.  Initially it was over 8 feet tall, but the nursury gave me a scissors to cut at 7 feet so I could squeeze it into my car.  I watered it well on Thursday night, expecting all my trees and plants to be planted today (Friday).  That did not happen as the sprinkler guy knew quite well that it would do no good to plant plants until the system can actually be operated, and that won't occur until after City inspection and after final setup next Thursday.

Spindly Bambi did not like the area near the SW corner of the house.  Even Thursday night in gentle breeze she blew over.  That area somehow channels wind between my house and the southern neighbor from the E, SE, and S into a jet stream.  Then today in 15 mph winds it was hopeless, even with Spindly Bambi propped right up against the doorway of Lyndhurst.

So I've relocated Spindly Bambi near the Palm (Palmy) and the CPS electric utility transformer (Hummy).  That spot is spared the worst winds I think.  But there are lots of wires in the ground there, and it might not do to have an inexorably growing bamboo clump pushing through them.

So now I don't know what to do.  I had been thinking about getting a third bamboo plant for the location I had originally intended for Spindly Bambi.  But that area has lots of wires too.

Article on watering plants

Here is one article railling against the danger of overwatering.

"try to water no more than once a week"

OK, I'm sure all my summer planted trees would now be dead if I did that.  By soil moisture test, I need to water the two Crepe Myrtles every 2 days, and the Oak every 2-3 days.  Mind you these are newly planted container plants, and the afternoon temperatures reach 102.

Why don't they simply tell everyone to get a soil moisture gauge?

"when you do make sure you give them a good soaking"

What's a good soaking?  They don't say.   No way to judge.

The guy who planted my Oak gave me a suggestion I now know was wrong.  Let the soaker run 2 hours he said.  That might work if I had it turned down extremely low.  The problem with that is you have no idea how many gallons of water are being delivered.  Soaker hoses vary, water pressures vary.  Did he really consider I have 25 feet of soaker hose wrapped around each plant?

What seems to work for me is a one hour soak at rather low level.  This is probably too much, it could be as much as 20-30 gallons.  I think 10 gallons or so would be fine.  Every 2 or 3 days as requried.

The oak planter also suggested deep soaking.  But since he comes from West San Antonio, he possibly has no idea how non-draining clay soils work.  You don't want to over soak especially because the water just sits there until it dries out.  Especially just past the root ball (within the root ball, the container soil drains well, and the plant drinks the water, so it gets dry by the second day.

For a newly planted tree, the critical part is the root ball.  It MUST have enough water for the plant to survive, because roots aren't going much anywhere else.

So two hour soaking at full pressure is definitely out.  Both water quantity and frequency should be controlled.

Unfortunately, short of installing a drip system (as I plan to have done tomorrow) you simply don't know how much water you are delivering.  That is maddening I think.  There should be water flow gauges that can show how many gallons are delivered.

Plants Recommended by City of San Antonio

The City of San Antonio also has a list of recommended trees and plants.

Mexican Petunia...terribly invasive weed identified

The terribly invasive weed I have been fighting for 4 years in my north side yard has now been identified as a version of Ruellia called Mexican Petunia.  It comes over from my neighbor's hardly ever touched yard.  It spits seeds, loves disturbed soil, survives long droughts, and has impossible to uproot by hand roots (which break off just at the active part).  After a long drought kills enough lawn grass, Ruellia quickly takes over at the first light rain, and spits seeds into the next area.

There are some nice forms of Ruellia, I have also learned.

Big Week (little time to post)

The new Tuff Shed (named Palmhurst by me) was installed on Monday.  It looks beautiful!  It fits the yard very well, blocks the view as intended, makes my back yard feel cozy and private for the first time, and I love it.  But they didn't have time to paint the trim or install the flower boxes.  That gave me time to decide not to put a flower box under the left window (which gets in the way of the 4 foot passage way to the power company transformer...4 feet being the minimum allowable) and instead install it on the north side, on the otherwise blank wall facing the "Gazebo" area (which probably won't have a Gazebo after all, but perhaps a permeable paver patio).  Tuff Shed will come back to paint the trim and install boxes on Saturday.

The Tuff Shed installers insisted the shed be at least 2 1/2 feet from the back wall.  I had them angle it slightly so that the minimum 4 feet clearance from Lyndhurst is maintained.  So on that side, it is about 2 feet 2 inches from the wall.  Nevertheless,  is easy for me to walk behind it.  That little gap is actually another potentially useful area.  I was thinking of putting pervious pavers to prevent weed growth.

They worked all afternoon.  (I had suggested they come in the morning, but they couldn't do that.)  I ran a big fan (resting on the CPS transformer) to help keep them cool, and a friend gave them plastic cups of chilled RO water.

*****

Also on Monday I made the final decision on trees.  An email was sent to the planter who will pick up and plant on Friday (in addition to the 3 trees planted in July and the Palm):

Mexican Wild Olive
Texas Mountain Laurel
Yaupon Holly (x2)
Viburnum (x2)
Pomagranate (Wonderful)

And not a tree, but a non-invasive clumping bamboo (identical to one I already have).

Bambusa Multiplex Alphonse Karr

The planter's nursery may not have the bamboo, it's not on their list, so I have been looking for it elsewhere, with no success so far.  All the bamboo that was easily found in stores a few months ago seems to have disappeared.  I wonder if that's because of the bad reputation of running bamboo.

This followed a party I had on Sunday in which friends of mine discussed various plants.  That was interesting, but strangely I'm not sure it affected my final choices for various reasons.  People weren't getting the fact that I needed evergreen or semi-evergreen small tree/shrubs.

One guest got angry when I said I had a bamboo and planed to get another one.  I carefully explained that I was getting a non-invasive clumping bamboo, not a notoriously invasive running bamboo.  She was not satisfied with that, and claimed birds would spread bamboo seeds all over.  That was completely contrary to what I know about bamboo.  Bamboo doesn't spread by seeds normally (only in something like 50 year intervals does all of one variety die out and go to seeds).  When it does produce seeds (every 50 years or so) the seeds aren't very good.  And even the most heat and drought tolerant bamboo has difficulty in in central texas.  It demands irrigation here.

I asked for and got permission from neighbor to the south to plant a Texas Mountain Laurel along the fence on the south side.  It may drop a few poisonous seeds on her side of the fence, and I was worried about her dogs.  But her dogs are mature and only eat dog food she said.  A friend of hers with 4 dogs has TML's, and she likes them a lot.  Actually even if a dog happens to eat a few seeds, they usually simply pass through a healthy dog's gut unchanged.  It's when really stupid or hungry dogs eat a bunch of them that is a problem.  And yet, I've never heard of dead stray dogs being found next to TML's.  It might happen, but it's rare, dogs simply aren't interested in TML seeds.  TML is one of the trees highly recommended by the city, the power company, etc.  By the way, TML is only one of hundreds of plants with poisonous seeds.

*****

Also on Monday I did the last critical edging and whacking: south side of house, south side of sidewalk, north side of sidewalk, both sides of driveway, walkway to house, east side of house, north side of house.  I also whacked my way through the 4 foot weeds and Mexican Petunias on south side of my north neighbor's house that were gradually encroaching on my lawn.

*****

I changed to using Plant-IV for watering my oak on Wednesday morning.  The root ball was totally dry but the surrounding soil much too wet from letting the soaker run too long on Saturday night, I have now determined.  Plant-IV let me water just the root ball, which sucked up 10 gallons instantly from two Plant-IV buckets.  I was worried about the yellow leaf stems, but later determined that is the normal color.

*****

Several bags of topsoil acquired.  I laid down one more bag around the southwest corner of Lyndhurst on Wednesday morning.

I called sprinkler guy and confirmed Friday at 8am for sprinkler installation.