Sunday, February 19, 2012

New collected material: Big old carpinus raft

New collected Carpinus, a big and old raft with an interesting bark and rotten parts of main trunk. Plenty of fine roots, not so easy to collect.

Yes yes, there's a hole in my pants, a big one :)


Potted and face for scale



possible back side

details of the trunk





Monday, February 13, 2012

Cold, -12C, lot of snow...beautiful winter

Evening shoveling...making paths through the garden, digging up cars in front of our house...we have to go to work in the morning...












Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Everything is ready...let's see what's coming

There are some catastrophic weather forecasts that say that we should expect polar temperatures of   -20, or even -26 for this weekend and next week...
My sensitive trees are in my closed garden teahouse. I have 4 termometers, two outside in the garden, and two in the teahouse...now winter shelter. The temperature in the tea house does not drop below -2 or -3 C. But that was up to now, when outside temperature was not below -8 or -10. If I turn the heating on, the temperature in winter shelter is between 0 and +3C. But, in more severe weather, I should probably turn the heating on more often. We will see in the next few days.


 I use simple and cheap bathroom heater, it is set on a middle temperature and middle speed of hot air..

 Some of my termometers showing -1 to -2C


I also drill and do some shaping in my winter shelter during long winter days...so it is dirty


 If you sit in a heated room close to the window that doesn't close tightly, you will feel cold wind blowing in, also the room will be hard to keep warm. This is specialy obvious when outside temperature is very low...very cold. So, try to close every hole, every gap on your winter shelter...it will be much easier to keep the temperature on a desired level and it will be less energy (electricity) needed to rise the temperature...very convenient way to quickly close gaps and holes is duct tape...easy on easy off, close tightly, goes off without any markings...just a perfect solution...I have taped and closed all joints between my tea house and winter windows...much better now.
Now, I can keep my sensitive deciduous trees away from freezing temperatures...the outside temperature cannot be so low that I couldn't be able to keep the trees safe around 0C.