The Brockville Bear Hug

There's this bear in Brockville. He's sitting outside the Thousand Islands Information building on Block House Island. Go there and you can get a bear hug.

Another Update on the Evergreen Trees

This may turn out as an ongoing thing here. We'll see. I have been watching the three evergreen trees. They are all showing some new growth, though the smallest one seems slowest in coming ahead. If they keep up like this I could do some pruning that is more radical.

The smallest one is coming along but slowly.

This tree seems to be putting most of its energy into seed
cones. Despite that there is some new growth happening.

You can see some new growth here. I'm hoping the red needles will either fall off
and be replaced or green up. This did happen with one of the other trees.

You can see some new growth happening here. I think
bringing this tree around is going to take a while.

This tree wasn't doing very well but now it seems to be revived and on its way.

There is a lot of new growth in the upper branches. The
tree may gain six to twelve centimeters this year.

The bright green on the tips is new growth.

I'm hoping the red needles come around. If they don't
I will prune that branch just beyond the new growth.

Overall this one looks to be thriving. It's the tallest of the three and has the
larges trunk. The forty-five centimeters at the top is new growth since I
started tending to them. It is now adding new growth there.

There's a lot of new growth here. There i also dead stuff in there but it's
harder to see. I hope this one does well enough that next year I can start
pruning for shape so it can take better advantage of the sun light.

More on the Evergreen Trees

When I moved here three or four years ago, I thought the evergreen trees out back were saplings. Talking about them with my landlord and the other people living here I found out those trees were planted about ten to twelve years ago. On close inspection I found they were in really bad shape.

I did some research and identified them as black spruce trees, though I would consult a real expert before saying that with any certainty. Instructions on the internet said to prune the trees any time of year to remove anything that's dead, fertilize the trees and provide them with water during extended periods without rain.

I started in with pruning. I removed everything with a dry fungal growth on it, and all the branches and twigs that had no needles. I continue doing that. I have to be on the cautious side because I could easily prune so much that the trees would no longer be there. That's not my goal here. Then I fed them with the fertilizer that I had, which was Miracle Grow. It's not the best for this but when that's all I have it's better than nothing.

With more internet searches and visits to Canadian Tire I found a granular fertilizer for evergreen trees and woody shrubs.

I think I have enough of this stuff to feed the trees through next spring. I first got the stuff in the fall three years ago and fed them in October. They should be fed in early spring - March or April and again in mid to late July. They have been fed three times since then. Last year I started feeding this fertilizer to the crab apple tree out front. Although the fertilizer is probably not the ideal thing for the tree it appears to be doing very well. Check out how it flowered at its peak.

The bees had a field day. I counted seven different kinds. With the flowers all fertilized the tree has since dropped all its petals. Nevertheless it looks very healthy.

Since I started working on the evergreen trees they have each grown about a foot or so taller. It's hard to tell for sure but it looks like their trunks are slightly bigger. Almost all the fungal growth is gone now.

We haven't had any rain for about ten or twelve days. Today I checked on the evergreen trees. I watered them around their bases with the hose for about five minutes each and then photographed them. They have put out some pine cones and are showing signs of getting ready to extend their branches.

In the following pictures each tree starts with a full shot of the tree and ends with a photograph of its top.

Of the three trees this was definitely in the worst shape.

Fire Station 71 in Navan

You will find Fire Station 71 on the north side of Colonial Road between Trim Road and Henn Drive in Navan.

Navan Clydesdale

Navan has a memorial to its 50 horse hitch. Further to the west of that pair of Clydesdale horses there is the one pictured here. Navan is clearly Clydesdale country.

Fuzzy Trees

We have reached about the halfway mark for spring. The local trees have started to open their leaves. This makes them look fuzzy. As it won't last I went out and took some photographs of trees in this fuzzy state around where I live.