Colorado State Open Thread, 3/20/17

Colorado Community comes through again.  I welcome Spring today — still hoping for moisture from the sky — Denver has been extremely dry so I’ve been watering the yard and the flowers.  According to Channel 7, www.thedenverchannel.com/…, the area has had only half the normal snowfall, though the mountains are still doing a bit above average, but they’re melting in this warmer weather.  They predict the next few weeks, starting in a few days, will bring moisture to our area — I certainly hope so.

Last week, Merry Light sent me a box of her iris bulbs from Grand Junction.  She has previously sent me multiple volunteer apricot trees from her yard — the first three seedlings were killed by me through over-watering and over-fertilizing, but when she had a tree a bit taller, about three feet tall, she brought that by on a trip to the Denver area.

Shortly after it was planted, I sent this picture to Merry to show it was surviving. 

I have been anxiously awaiting blooming from the tree (and having that lead to fruit).  I planted another apricot last year (Chinese apricot) to help with cross-pollination but that new one was the only one to bloom (and it was frozen in a blizzard that killed the blossoms despite my best wrapping of the tree).  

Here is Merry’s tree today, about 8-10’ tall.  There’s some damage at the bottom of the trunk because I left a collar on too long.  I’ve been told to put a ring of mulch around it.

Greeting Spring with its first blossoms.

The Chinese apricot is a bit behind in blossoms, but it will hopefully start blooming this week.

Now for some young peach trees:

Peach blossoms in the foreground, forsythia in the background

I had a harvest of about a dozen peaches off these two trees.  I’m looking forward to many years of delicious fruit.  It all depends upon Mother Nature cooperating and not freezing them.  And providing moisture.

This tree has led a hard life — it’s already lost the original main trunk to some cause, as well as another main trunk to a raccoon climbing after peaches last year.

Merry Light’s iris will be planted in the area to the left of this tree.  Hopefully they will spread — I’ll see what colors they are and I promise to try and make sure they’re well watered this first year, especially.

My third peach tree is a volunteer child from the peach tree here when I moved in.  The parent has since died from trunk borers, but I was very happy to discover that one of the two babies was still growing.  It has its first flowers as well.

The new iris.  I’ll get them out today or tomorrow.

One last tree image — I didn’t get a picture before clouds moved in today, but the flowering pear tree is in full bloom.  It looks very much like this image from a few years ago:

Sometimes old pictures are nice to realize how much trees have changed over the years.

I am always happy to have a show for the passersby.

The hyacinths in the front and the daffodils are going well this year, there are some tulips starting to open, and still some crocuses and other flowers.  This is an old picture as well, but still works for this year too.

So, another photo diary about gardens and plants rather than Colorado politics.  I was in Kansas for most of last week (which was a bit further along in the season) so I invite you to tell me what’s going on here in Colorado, now that I’m back and can pay attention.