Derek Thille

Roxanne Sterling-Astor wrote:YMBAP if... you see a willow tree you immediately think of making rooting hormones

Or you see it's a different colour than what you have so you want to take cuttings to plant...or grow a living structure.

Walking the dog, you pruning of boulevard trees under a power line and you spot a branch that looks to be a good size for getting a badge bit in carving a spoon, so you go home and get your pruning saw to glean the branch.

The branch just to the left of the saw is a bit over 2" in diameter and I cut a piece a bit over 4' long, so I should be able to get a number of blanks to work with.

Thanks Christopher - counties closest to us (call it 60 miles) are in the less than or equal to 40 range, but as you move west of the Red River valley it gets to the 20 species range, which our acreage is probably closer to.

Jay - we found a lonely one up in the Caldera...I forget what Paul had said about them, other than I believe he thought there weren't any or they were all gone.  Since Paul isn't very opinionated it is easy enough to lose parts of conversations.  Western larch is one of the species and I mistakenly set him off by asking if that was tamarack.  He was happy that I got his amelanchier reference though (saskatoon / june / service / shad).

I'm with Mike...the scale and colour differentiation makes it a challenge at best.  I'd also need a reference of the species counted...there are some that could create arguments over whether they are small trees or large shrubs as an example.  If I recall, we came across 4 species of evergreens at Wheaton Labs (Paul wasn't that excited we'd seen a juniper).

Catie George wrote:My dad is still in zone 3, but Ontario - he hasnt had any success at all with the modern U Sask sweet sour cherry bushes or, sadly, saskatoons, which i planted 2-3 times before giving up.  He has managed to grow grapes - i think i planted Valiant, and he gets an occasional large bumper harvest from them. I suspect if he pruned them, more would ripen! Balsor's hardy blackberry died (possibly due to where he planted it!). Haskaps have grown well for me in Zone 4 Ontario, and i suspect would also do well in Zone 3. Things tend to die as much from baking in drought and shallow soil over bedrock, as winter kill, though.

I think living in Zone 3 really teaches you to treasure fruit, even tart fruit. I still enjoy chewing raw rhubarb, currants straight from the bush, and prefer sour cherries to sweet cherries.

Still, i am enjoying my move to zone 6!

Edit : oh! And i really enjoyed our wild Canada plum on good years. Some years the fruit was really tart and dry, but on good years, it was fantastic and a punch of flavour.

If the U of S Romance series cherries haven't grown well, I don't think it can be a zone / temperature issue.  I'd wonder if it was perhaps the nature of the soil or something similar.  They are pretty tough.  

It may vary by variety, but haskaps are hardy to zone 2 generally.  They should do well for him, assuming all other conditions are suitable.

This year we got some local plums that I think are the Canada wild plums - seeds were planted in the fall...we'll see what comes of it.

Welcome Brett!  I'm based in Winnipeg and we are developing an acreage SW of the city.  I haven't been up your way in a while...I had a brother at Roblin for a while.

We do have a Trader mulberry surviving at the acreage.  We got it from T&T (in 2023 I think).  It's surviving, but not thriving - it certainly hasn't been babied.  I'm also leery of T&T after I learned they don't grow their stock, but bring it in...it's supposed to be hardy, but may not be as regionally adapted.  We've moved more to Morden Nurseries.  I want to start using Oak Summit Nursery out of Brandon as well.  I've also gotten some seeds from the Maritimes...the name escapes me at the moment.

Good to hear about Arctic Kiwi working for you - we had some that we brought with us from Saskatoon and transplanted in Winnipeg - there was lots of vegetative matter, but they never produced fruit...then we moved them to the acreage where they met their demise.  I understand they don't like wind, so I think we need to grow more windbreak before trying them again.  I've also been tempted by Somerset grape so I appreciate your description...I'll have to add them at some point.

I'll have to look at Lapins Sweet cherry as well.  We are close to the zone 3/4 border at the acreage, so it may be fine for us.  When the rabbits have left them alone, the Carmine Jewel and Crimson Passion cherries have done well for us.

Good luck!

sylvia schu wrote:I thought they were "yup-yups" lol. They were my favorite characters on the show, honestly. Adorable.

Yup yup yup yup yup yup!

My father (1928-2002) farmed in central Saskatchewan - I recall him saying that August was the only month he hadn't seen snow (although it could have been July).

Late last week we had yellow warning for cold (Environment Canada has changed to a colour coding system), yesterday was a different yellow warning as it got up to 5.8 C at the airport at 10:00 a.m. - rain was predicted but I didn't see any.  Today we have an orange warning for blizzard conditions starting late afternoon through tomorrow morning.  By the end of the week we may have a cold warning again.

The temperature / wind chill warnings they issue make me think we'll never be without warnings in January...which implies the warnings will be ignored therefore absolutely useless.  You'd think they didn't realize we know we live in "Winterpeg".

Christopher Weeks wrote:I learned sconnie from a friend who lives in Milwaukee. I never hear it over here, so I was assuming it was really a Chicago-Milwaukee thing, but I like finding occasions to whip it out.

Your uncle probably needed to fight off the local hodag with a security kangaroo.

I know a couple from Rhinelander, so I've actually heard of hoedag before.  Perhaps that should have shown up on the most dangerous animal map....  I don't know about the present status, but he has been a state legislator, so a few of us refer to him as "the guv'nor".  They run a supper club, which was also a new thing for me.

I didn't realize the slump had been that recent when we were there.  I have a vague recollection of throwing down seeds in there...vague memory includes dandelion.