Digging » Tools

April 2, 2010

Cattle panel plant support for Senorita Rosalita cleome

Filed under: 2nd garden--2010, How I did it, Plant trial, Tools, Xeric plants — Pam/Digging @ 6:19 am

If recent tweets among Austin garden bloggers are any indication, we’ve snapped up pot after pot of ‘Senorita Rosalita’ cleome at the Natural Gardener and at Home Depots all over town this spring, and I made sure to grab two for myself in the buying frenzy. Last year I trialed this Proven Winners annual (perennial in zones 8-10, but it didn’t survive our hard freezes), and it performed spectacularly through record heat and drought, growing big and bushy in part sun and flowering spring through fall. You couldn’t find ‘Senorita Rosalita’ cleome in area nurseries or garden centers last season, but this year, to my delight, it’s available. It’s also offered online at White Flower Farm.

It’s a great plant. The only problem I’ve documented with it is splitting after a heavy rain. One of last year’s cleomes split right in half, leaving a gaping hole in the mass of foliage. So this time I’m giving the Senoritas some support.

I saw this idea at the Wildflower Center last winter (above) and decided to try it at home. I cut a long section of cattle-panel wire to a width of 3 squares, and on each end I snipped the cross pieces off to a length of 2 squares, creating staking legs. Holding the wire upright and then bowing it away from me, I stood on one end of it and bent the wire into a U-shape. Centering it over the cleome, I pushed the staking legs into the ground.

I considered painting the wire a fun color, as Lindy McGinnis did with cattle-panel trellises I saw in her garden on tour. But since I have a galvanized-silver thing going with all my stock tanks, I opted to leave the wire as-is and let it blend into the background.

I made another support for my ‘Ava’ agastache, which is also prone to splitting, according to High Country Gardens owner David Salman (see his comment on my agastache post, linked above). Cattle panel is a sturdy wire, and as the cleomes and agastache grow up through the holes, their top-heavy stems will be supported.

Cattle panel is a fantastic material for gardening projects like trellises, screens, and fencing. It comes in 10-ft. lengths and can be purchased at Callahan’s General Store in Austin, which is also where I buy my stock tanks. You need to use bolt cutters and arm muscle to snip it, and it’s a good idea to wear gloves when handling it, as the cut edges are sharp.

In my former garden I used a full piece of cattle panel to construct a trellis screen to divide my garden. Click for my how-to. When I moved, I disassembled that screen and brought the wire panel with me, which I used to make my plant supports. That’s the other great thing about cattle panel: it’s easily repurposed for the next project.

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June 16, 2009

Review: Troy-Bilt TB57 string trimmer

Filed under: 2nd garden--2009, Tools — Pam/Digging @ 2:43 pm

Troy-Bilt sent me a lithium ion battery-powered string trimmer to review a few months ago. My husband is the lawn-care guy at our house, so I handed it over to him and asked if he’d write the review. Here is his assessment.

The Troy-Bilt TB57 12″ string trimmer is powered by a removable, rechargeable lithium ion battery. The only trimmer I have used before was a corded, electric trimmer, so I can’t really compare how this trimmer functions compared to a gas-powered trimmer.

The trimmer requires some assembly, which was pretty straightforward. I put it together in about 30 minutes. The only snag I hit was in attaching the hand grip to the shaft of the trimmer. You have to screw together a couple of plastic pieces that clamp tightly to the shaft of the trimmer and hold the hand grip in place. However, the groove on the screws where a flat-head screwdriver should fit isn’t cut all the way across the head of the screw, and none of my screwdrivers was the right size to fit into the groove. I ended up using one that fit well enough, but it was still tough to tighten the screws without damaging them.

The trimmer comes with a removable, rechargeable lithium ion battery, which is a little smaller than a brick but weighs about the same. It has convenient indicator lights that show how much charge is left. I’ve charged the battery a couple of times, but I haven’t paid much attention to how long it takes to charge. I do know that I charge it for less than 24 hours. After the battery is charged, I unplug it since the instructions recommend that you not leave the battery charging continuously. It remains charged for a long time. I usually trim every other week, so I have been able to charge the battery, use it two weeks later, and then use it again in another two weeks. I can trim the yard two times on a single charge.

Even with the battery’s weight, I have found the trimmer to be fairly lightweight and easy to operate. It does have a safety feature that I found a little annoying initially. In order to pull the trigger to start the trimmer, you have to push a button. When you release the trigger, the button pops out, and you have to push it again to start the trimmer. However, after using the trimmer a few times, I have gotten used to doing it, so it’s no big deal. I also have learned to keep the trigger engaged slightly when I know I will be trimming again in a few seconds. Keeping the trigger engaged is tiring, and I usually have to switch hands when one hand gets tired of holding down the trigger. I switch hands several times when trimming the entire yard.

The trimmer has plenty of power and is perfectly adequate for the trimming that I do. Mainly I edge the lawn next to the street, driveway, and flower beds. I also use it to trim live-oak root sprouts. These sprouts are pretty tough, but the trimmer doesn’t have a problem with them.

The trimmer also has a feature that automatically feeds out more line when needed. When it’s working, it works well. However, as I use up the line on the pre-wound spool that came with the trimmer, the line tends to get stuck and won’t automatically feed. I have to manually “unstick” the line on the spool. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to get to the spool compared to my old, corded trimmer, so it doesn’t take very long to fix the problem. The spool has a small diameter, and I wonder if that may be causing the line to get stuck more often than it should. However, the advantages of the trimmer being cordless outweigh the issues I have encountered with the automatic line feed.

On the whole, I am pleased with the trimmer, and it is definitely an improvement over my corded, electric trimmer. —D. Penick

Disclosure: Troy-Bilt contacted me to ask if I’d review this product on my blog, and I accepted. The trimmer was mine to keep, regardless of the content of the review, and there was no other compensation for this post. My reviews of products are always my own, honest opinion. The same goes for my husband, who wrote this review. —Pam

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