PLANTING A "STREETSCAPE" OF OAKS

FORGET-ME-NOT

PLANTING A STREETSCAPE OF SWAMP WHITE OAKS...

... ON 8TH ST., BAYFIELD

Wednesday, 44 degrees F at the ferry dock, 38 degrees on the back porch.  Wind variable, light.  The sky is clear with some haze, and there are some wispy stratospheric clouds.  The humidity is high, at 90%, and the barometer is trending up, now at 30.07".  It got down to the low thirties last night and around midnight I got anxious and brought all the plants in off the porch and decks.  They went back out this morning, and hopefully will not have to brought in again.
   The Forget-Me-Nots are suddenly blooming in roadside ditches and other odd places around town. Myosotis scorpioides, the true, or water, Forget-Me-Not, is of European origin but is  naturalized virtually  everywhere in North America.   It is weedy in a garden but otherwise harmless and very pretty, a pleasant little flower to encounter. There are a number of other introduced species and several that are native, but I will leave them all to experts in the Borage genus.
   We planted eighteen new city trees yesterday, half in a "streetscape" of swamp white oak, Quercus bicolor, along 8th St. between Wilson Ave. and Manypenny Ave. Swamp white oaks are very adaptable and are by and large excellent street trees. We have another shipment of trees arriving today, to be planted on tomorrow.