05/20/2026
First rainbow of the year! Got some fantastic rain yesterday, a lot of lightning and thunder, but the trees are very happy.
We finished our planting season last week, the trees are 'popping bud' (this is the time of year when they do most of their growing of new branches and needles, although some species will continue with new growth all the way through August).
We've been removing baby pine cones from the taller trees, the pine cones form on a small percentage of the trees each Spring and need to be removed (each one picked off by hand!), so that the tree will expend it's energy on needle growth and overall tree health RATHER than reproduction. In case you didn't know, the primary purpose of pine cones are tree reproduction, the pine cones act as the reproductive organs of pine trees (and other conifers), they protect developing seeds from cold weather and predators, and open up only when conditions are right for the seeds to be released and grow into new trees. Pine cones on Christmas trees do not 'hold their shape' through November, but rather 'open up' and drop seeds in late summer, making trees look a bit scraggly. Hence, we pull them off!
Shearing, which is how we get the trees into the 'classic' Christmas tree shape, will start in late June and continue through late July. An 8-foot tree should have a base width of about 5 feet, give or take, but we shear each tree individually, so some will be more narrow, and some a wee bit on the wider side.
And finally, for this post, we planted about 8 species of sunflowers, from short little ones up to Mammoth ones (that, if they do well, will have flowers larger than dinner plates!). We will post pics later in the summer. The birds LOVE the THOUSANDS of sunflowers we grow every year, it's remarkable how many different types of birds will be here on the sunflowers, picking the seeds, and this lasts from August through first frost (and sometimes beyond).
Have a great Spring!
