9/29/11 MISCELLANY

OREGON GRAPEHOLLY

THE HERB GARDEN

NEW STEPS AND RAILING

PLANTS ARRIVING FOR 1ST ST. JOB

GREAT BLUE HERON ON SIOUX RIVER

Thursday, 8:00 AM.  57 degrees, wind NW, very strong, with gusts that must be 40 MPH or more.  The sky is mostly clear except for patches of silvery-gray clouds flying high and fast.  The barometer predicts rain.  It is no day to be on the lake, and I imagine the Apostle Islands tours will be canceled.
    I am fully involved with a landscaping job today so this will be a short, miscellaneous blog.
    The Oregon grape holly, Mahonia aquifolium, in the barberry family (Berberridaceae) growing in the herb garden is full of its grape-like but totally inedible berries. This is a great ornamental plant that I really like, and it is completely hardy here along the lake.  It is evergreen, and looks like a holly.  I saw it growing in its native habitat in the Cascade Mountains yeas ago.
    The herb garden looks nice now, much improved with the new steps and railing down to the back yard that I constructed last week.
    The plants arrived for our landscape job on First Street yesterday from Northwoods Nursery and we will finish the current portion of the project today.
    As I was returning from Ashland yesterday I saw this great blue heron out of the corner of my  eye. It was sitting on a branch maybe a hundred and fifty feet or so downriver from the Hwy. 13 bridge.