adn.com | Talk Dirt To Me : Mother Nature Has the Last Word

Talk Dirt To Me

Do you love to make mud pies, grow a houseplant, eat veggies, or stop to smell the bouquet on your co-workers desk? Everyone enjoys a bit of green growing around him or her and then there are those that are passionate and needy when it comes to dabbling in the dirt. With this blog, we'll try to satisfy those needs and tell you about what's going on with the Anchorage gardening scene. You know, as I finally learned, it's all about the dirt.

Photographer and gardener Fran Durner (fdurner@adn.com) writes the blog.

Interactive Map

2008 Anchorage garden tour

Take an interactive tour of the gardens showing in Anchorage's garden tour, with photos and audio commentary from each gardener.

Mother Nature Has the Last Word

Posted by talkdirt

Posted: April 27, 2008 - 3:30 pm

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A dusting of snow on Friday at Fritz Creek Gardens in Homer. Photo by Fran Durner.When I left on Thursday morning for the drive to Homer, the sky was a deep blue and the snow-covered mountain tops along Turnagain Arm were sparkling in the sun. Nothing could have been lovelier. The drive along the Arm is arguably one of the world's prettiest. It felt great to get out of town.

Waking up to a snowstorm the next two mornings was something else. On Friday, the snow was over by noon and the sun was out again and melted everything pretty quickly. Bishop's Beach was dry by the time I went for my traditional garden rock expedition. I felt a sense of calm. Silly me.

The news of the storm in Anchorage seemed surreal. Saturday morning, snowing again, it was three inches deep and still coming down when I left Homer for the drive back to Anchorage. I didn't know if it was the right decision since I don't have studded tires but it didn't look like the snow was sticking on the roads in town.

Just north of Ninilchik I spyed a flock of Sandhill cranes in the air. Fishermen are already walking the highway with gear in hand near the Russian River. Harbingers of spring for sure.

As it was, the further north, the better it was: the roads were dry above Sterling and it was only raining in Turnagain Pass. That was a relief.

Can this tree be saved? Photo by Fran DurnerSo the big letdown was arriving home to find out that the weight of the wet snow had brought down the large old arborvitae in front of the house. Just keeled it over. Looked like a drunk tree.

Arborist Mark Gordon of Tree Huggers paid a call this morning. He thinks it can be saved if we can find a bunch of big guys to push it back up and wrangle some support for it.

Don't want to lose that tree so it's worth a try.

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1 April 28, 2008 - 8:37am | tagalak

WOW

Sorry about your tree...... hopefully it will be able to be saved.... keep the blog up to date on the beauty.

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