Pictures: 255 Growing Degree Days (B42)

The Asian pears and the earliest European pears are blooming

This is a picture of Potomac Pear.

Korean Giant Pear.

American Plum "South Dakota" on the left is now in bloom.

An important part of grafting is to peel off the buds below the graft.  Growing buds produce growth regulators that inhibit other buds from breaking.

Close up of two buds beneath the graft that need to be removed.

Wild Leeks.  I was looking at using these in the orchard as a ground cover but they do not spread aggressively enough.

Common violet plant that produced flowers that are an exceptionally velvety shade of purple.  Sadly, the color was lost in translation.

I am looking for Long Spurred Violet but I don't think this is it.

I drove to Charlotte, Michigan which is the county seat.  I needed to buy some plumbing supplies because I have a couple of leaky toilets to deal with.  I took the scenic route.

I heard rumors of an American Chestnut tree.  I think I found it.  It is the straight trunked tree on the right side of the photo in front of the house. You can click on the photo to embiggen it.  Based on tree form, the five other chestnuts to the left are Chinese Chestnuts so all seedlings are likely to be hybrids.

Buzzards drying off after a rain.

The lower bird.  Crappy light makes for crappy photos.  The wing feathers are significantly lighter on this bird than on the other.

The upper bird.

Nursery stock at "Farm Stores"
I visited the two farm stores in Charlotte looking at plumbing supplies.  Both of them had nursery stock, apple trees and such, for sale outside.  Both places had them in stock watering tanks.  The tanks at one store had 8" of water in the tanks due to our rainy spring.  The other place had two or three inches of water.

Save yourself some grief.  The roots of those trees are probably dead and well on their way to being slimy.  Don't buy them.

I am sure the "outside guys" thought they were clever.  Rather than water each containerized tree every day they could set them in the stock tanks and run a few inches of water into them every other day.  Speedy-quick and easy.  They did not count on a rainy March and April.