When is the best time to plant a tree????

If you are looking for cross stitch content it is waaaaaay at the bottom.... but first I want to share my house and garden pictures...and oh... for some reason I am quite chatty today... go get yourself a nice cup of tea or a cold drink... just saying....

Question: When is the best time to plant a tree? The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago... and if that doesn't work tomorrow is good... or perhaps last Tuesday.   Well, I've been on a tear this summer having trees added to my yard.  I've had 5 trees planted (2 Sweet Gum Wildfire, 1 Nine Bark Treeform, 1 White Sassafras, and 1 Crimson Sunset Maple)  and one tree moved... I know who moves a tree that has been in the yard for 3 years and is maturing nicely??? I do... I'll explain in a minute, but first I want to share my yard in its Fall finery.

You can click on the pictures and make them bigger and see what's left of my perennials...some asters and some gaura and this and that...

My window boxes are full of mums and pumpkins and sweet potato vine left over from  summer.

And my Halloweiner dog is on display too!

And here is one of the trees I had planted last week... this is a Crimson Sunset Maple ...the leaves are a deep purple that softens to a maroon in the Fall. It should get to be 35 to 40 ft when it is mature and provide some shade to the front of the house.  But wasn't there a tree already in that spot you ask? Yes, yes there was.... and now it is planted over here....

See it there on the left side of the yard?  The reason I had it moved was the spot where the maple is planted has no overhead wires in that location. All the electric in this neighborhood is 1950's overhead style and when you have a tree that grows into the wires the power company (Duke Energy in this case) come and prune them for you... they call it pruning but it is more like butchering. I don't want them touching my trees, so I'm trying to have them planted where this won't be a problem in the future.

Now that flowering plum tree that was moved has been in the yard for 3 years, and the entire time it has been there I've been unhappy with it. The nursery who put it in, planted it crooked. It has always leaned and I've tried to get it straight with no luck. Also one side of it is flat. I swear this is not the tree that I picked out but it is the one they came and planted and until now I didn't think you should or could move it. Turns out you can move it and it should be okay. It was dug up carefully and the root ball came out pretty much intact.  And when it was replanted it was planted straight and the flat side it against the house and waaaay less noticeable. This tree has never looked so good!!!

Also my windows are sporting new shutters!   I love those little raised panels...they mimic the ones on my garage door and I think they add a bit of personality to my house. Previously I've had plain brown louvered shutters and when I replaced them with these I've had several neighbors compliment then and said "oh shutters are a nice addition"... when I tell them there were shutters there before they've all said they never really noticed them... invisible brown boring shutters... so I think these are an improvement.

And here are some of my marigolds... they got enormous... and I love them!  They are planted on both sides of this rose bed. I mixed lots of different varieties so if something didn't do well ( but they all did) I could have filled in a blank space with another variety and it wouldn't have stood out. I will definitely be doing marigolds again next year. I may even plant them on the front side of the house too. The roses are kinda spent. I had a horrible problem with black spot which I've just gotten a little ahead of and the deer are on a feeding frenzy right now and are pruning them every chance they g

Next year I'll treat for black spot before I see it and I'll spray more to keep away the deer. I'm surprised I still have so much blooming in mid - October and I have to say I'm getting a little tired and I'm slacking off of  my gardening tasks.

And now for the cross stitch portion of this post... and what do we have but a tree piece by Blackbird Designs... see I have a theme today!

This is Apple Tree , the Number 2 part of the  Blackbird Design Garden Series... one down....eleven to go!!  Now I ended up changing quite a bit on this one. My fabric is  32 ct but I don't know the manufacturer... it is called French Lace and it is a bit on the light side, but I'm planning on using it for another square or two so it should be okay when I patchwork these together. I changed the greens because my skeins of GA  Endive and  GA Piney Woods did not play well with each other.  My Piney Woods is really more brown than green ... oh the joys of hand dyed floss... drives me nuts!!!! I used GA Forest Glade for the Piney Woods and  GA Shutter Green for the Endive...until I ran out of Shutter Green and then I substituted Crescent Colors Eve's Leaves.   As for the apples I did use the Weathered Barn for the darker shade but the lighter one is GA Hollyberry versus the called for GA Old Red Paint because my skein of Old Red Paint provided little contrast to the Weathered Barn... sheesh... I have a LOVE/HATE relationship with hand dyed floss. It looks so pretty when you get those variations of tones and colors but anymore the skeins I get are only minimally similar to the ones used in the published piece. I need to stitch  a piece using DMC every once in a while to cleanse my palette and make me calmer about floss... just saying.

This piece was a unbelievably quick stitch... one week... and I didn't work on it every day. I have a feeling most of the others won't be so quick. This one seems a bit spare in comparison but I do like it and I don't remember the last time I finished something so quickly.  Not sure which one I'll stitch next. I do have some of the called for linens arriving this week...but I should change over and start my Christmas gift stitching first... duty calls... I'm just not listening well.

Today I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts, and on Monday I'll link up with Super Mom - No Cape. Next week doesn't look as booked up as last week...yeah... AC guy is coming tomorrow to replace the coil...perfect timing as I haven't needed the AC in a week and the forecast doesn't look like I'll need it any time soon. Oh well, it will be ready for next year and I'm enjoying having the windows open... and not paying Duke Energy any more than I have to!!

happy stitching-
carol fun