You know what they say about great minds!

I've just been reading about the hired help in your gardens, and I'm wondering if they ever cleaned their tools between pruning or shearing off (I think was a term used)? I'd be nervous about them transferring disease from one area to another.

My two granddaughters have agreed to help me with spring clean up this year. Since they don't know the difference between a dandelion and an emerging hosta, I'm sure I'll have to keep a very close eye on them!

I've never seen any worker cleaning any tool/tools at any time, ever.

Hurray for the granddaughters! Bagging twigs and raking are two ways they can help.

Neal - here are the stumps:

Neal and Arlene, good ideas you have for incorporating those stumps in your gardens.

I have stumps through out the woods but they are already out of the ground on trees that have fallen over as part of the normal life cycle of a deciduous forest. One of the ideas that I have been thinking about since last year is creating a stumpery down in the boggy area across from my turtle garden. I first heard of them while reading @Lysmachiamoon's blog posts about her stumpery project. I was intrigued and started doing some googling. Then I heard more about them last week when I was at a gardening presentation about Victorian and Arts and Crafts English gardens. Stumperies were very popular during the height of those design periods. I was with David @greenthumb99 and Pat @ecnalg and we got pretty enthused about starting one in our gardens this year. They live in wooded conditions like I do so we have most of the needed material readily at hand. I've been spotting out likely stump candidates from the edges of the woods to relocate, and I think the boggy conditions will be great for the ferns and other plants that I want to incorporate. Could be a fun project.

Not that my project could look like this any time soon, but here are some idea photos from Pinterest of what stumperies look like:

Terri,
These are beautiful settings. Wish I had nice aged stumps.They look like the natural process and so logical.
I had my stumps cut level with the ground so I could use them for pot bases.

I left some cut level with the ground for that purpose too, and one I just used as a place to step into the garden. Last summer I was standing on one and it started sinking under my feet- good to see it has decomposed nicely!

Love the stumpery idea!

So interesting! We don't have any expanse of woodland here and the only thing I've done with a stump was to use it for clematises to climb. The stump finally rotted down, after 24 years, and I eliminated the remants in December.
It was cut down in either '91 or '92 because it was too close to the house: photo from 2007
2007 - sides of the stump decaying:
2012 - the rotting progresses:
2015 - the ending on 12/15:

I relocated this unique piece of wrought iron a friend gave me (from curbside trash) in the 80's:
Now I'm anxious to see how well the clematises grow on it this year.

Amazing changes with the removal of those forsythia, Jo Ann. One neighbor has a thicket of them that's really amazing in bloom and does give them some privacy.

Neil - I left the two big ones but had others cut almost flush with the earth. One in the front was cut down to sitting height but the nice guy with the chain saw somehow misinterpeted the "bench" I wanted made so now it's only fit for very tall basketball players!




I'll get the guys to come back and move the slab to another garden atop cement blocks so it will be a bench.

Rose1656 said:I've just been reading about the hired help in your gardens, and I'm wondering if they ever cleaned their tools between pruning or shearing off (I think was a term used)? I'd be nervous about them transferring disease from one area to another.

That's a good point @Rose1656. I had a rose bush that had rose rosette disease, and it had to come out. I had never heard of this before and had no idea it was infected. I am now afraid that I may have infected my other roses.

I love all the stump removal pictures and the use of the large stumps. Very cool!

We cut three trees last January. Two stumps were cut level




There was a tree opposite that was used for a birdhouse. I didnt have the heart to cut u level so I left the limb where the birdhouse hangs.left side of image

@pirl - that is a beautiful clematis in the stump photo, do you remember which one it is? I'd like to add that one to my "to get" list.

Vickie, be watchful of your other roses, RRV is transferred by mites that are carried in the wind as well as contaminated cutting tools. It ran through my garden a few years ago, over half my roses got it before I realized what was happening (there were infected multifloras growing in the farm fence row). Nowadays I take a cup of bleach solution with me when I'm pruning and sanitize before moving to the next plant.

Two are clematis Omoshiro (the one in the photo above) and here:


The other is Nelly Moser that can take "some" shade:

I planted Omoshiro last year and has one beautiful bloom! Went out the next day and that beautiful bloom was shredded by Japanese beetles! It is a really nice clematis.

Sometimes the JB's attack my Henryi but they don't bother the other 99.

You have 100 clematis? That must be beautiful! I love them but they don't thrive for me. I'll have to pay closer attention to your pictures this year!

I do. It's a lot of work for cutting them back but I tend to do them one garden at a time. Many never have made it to the lush, gorgeous look, we see in ads but they're still nice to decorate walls, trees, trellises. My strongest growers are the Jackmanii and the best of them is planted at the side of the compost pile. That has to tell everyone that they love compost!

Neal,
There is so much more to do with tall stumps! A birdbath came to mind but a planter would look great!

Pirl,
What are the hand rails used for?

Terri,
I learned a new word, lol! I love the areas they created.

Pirl,
What a beautiful stump! I always stop and look at stumps and what is left from a tree falling over. It fascinates me.
Wow, love the wrought iron!
That's quite a thick slab of wood. I can see why it's NOT a bench.
Gorgeous Jackmanii!

Jo Ann,
THERE'S the bear!! I love the tall stump!!

My DH walked down the RR tracks/ nature trail to find the perfect limb for the birdhouse. He had to screw on the part the house sat on. It rotted and the house now hangs in the apple tree.

Arlene, I really like what you have done with your garden after the trees were taken out. I also like the tall stump you left because of the birdhouse. Very cool!