Category: CT Backyard

   

Dear are a major problem in my garden. They have entirely destroyed my hostas, oak leaf hydrangea, and butternut squash. They also defoliate do  bunch of my raspberries (they eat around the thorns). I hate coming out to a previously lush garden and finding bare stems!
   

A more effective fence is on my to do list. I’ve read that 8 feet is effective but I don’t that’s feasible for us. I will update if I succeed at keeping them out.

This is year one for my go Goji berries. So far it’s going great it seems like they are going to be good producers with a long season, and vigorous growers. I’m hopeful that next year will see a significant harvest, if they survive the winter…

  
I’m a little shaky on the id but I caught this guy crawling on my oakleaf hydrangea.

  
 
These are some pictures of my Passionvine. It was about 5 inches tall when I bought it last spring. Last summer it barely did anything, growing to 10 inches. I brought it in for the winter and it grew about 5 feet. I put it out for the summer this year and it grew to 30! I had hoped to get passionfruit but for some reason the flowers just kept falling off even after I tried to pollinate them. I’m not sure whether this was a problem with the pollination, whether the vine is not self-fertile, or whether the water conditions made it so that the fruit were dropping because of the lack of water because our summer was pretty dry. 

I’m going to prune it by about a third and then bring it back in for the winter. Hopefully I can get another year of flowers out of this vine. I read that they usually last 3-5 years and sometimes longer. 

I will also try to root some of the cuttings, hopefully creating some new vines.

  
I’m hoping that this is not raspberry mosaic disease. Only one leaf is affected. Fingers crossed.

   
 
It has been a year since I rescued a little limetree that my mom would have let die in the winter. So far this year I have two little limes, basically the same as my mom had last fall. Growing citrus in pots seems to be a slow endeavor. I’m hoping to keep it alive again in my Wintergarden and hopefully next year I will have more limes. Fingers crossed.