Why I Oughta...

Last Fall, I decided to dig-up, divide and transplant four Fanal Astilbes that had been in our garden since 2020 .  They had four growing seasons under their belt and based on what I was reading, as like most other perennials, Astilbes can be divided every three-or-so-years.  But, I also know that they're finicky.  Some gardeners talk about how they can't get them to grow.  I've had (*knock wood*) pretty good luck (so far).  And, it seems that luck has extended to (at least) this Spring.   Of the four that I divided and transplanted last Fall, all four parent plants (left on the southside) and the four new divisions (planted on the north side as part of the " Hosta Replacement Project ") are back this Spring.  How lovely.   Below is a photo showing the four planted in the understory bed - on the northside.  Their first Spring where they are showing off their young, purple foliage.    I'll plan on watering these in plenty this Summer as I know they're a lit

In our old house in Elmhurst, our neighbor to the South had a massive hedge of mature Lilac shrubs.  They provided plenty of screening, but they also threw off a profusion of blooms each Spring.  When we moved, having Lilacs were on Nat's wish list.  Over the years, I've ended up planting four (two 'common' and two 'Nocture' ) and transplanting them, too.   The Common ones went in the ground in 2018 .  The Nocturne variety went in the ground in Summer of 2019 - a year later .    They never bloomed.  Too much shade, I suspected.  In the Spring of 2022, I opted to replace them with something that can tolerate the shade a bit more - and is evergreen .   That meant that I dug-up and moved all four Lilac across the yard to an area that gets more sun.   Their first year (in their new location), the Common Lilacs threw off blooms .  Surprisingly.  That was 2022.  Last year, I don't seem to have posted about them.   But this Spring?  We have blooms.  More than in 20

Yesterday, I posted some photos showing how I used the "Lasagna Method" to smother some grass with cardboard and top-it with mulch to improve a foundation-adjacent garden bed on the side of our house.  The goal was to raise up the soil level, smother out grass and improve the area looks-wise.   But, that wasn't the only recent improvement that I completed over on that side of the house.  While I was using gravel and river rock to level-out the pizza oven site, I decided to take a couple of bags of the River Rock to put to work by the downspout surface drain outlet.   I've been wrasslin' with surface water on this side of my house for years - here's a post from 2020 where I talk about 'floating mulch' due to the downspout release .  Over the years, I've seen the area erode and this Spring, I've attempted to address it in a few ways.  First, by hauling over some of the excavated material from the pizza oven project to 'fill in' some low

Last Fall, when I was digging up/out the (extended) IB2DWs bed for the small conifer garden along the property line, I turned to a mix of grass-removal techniques.  The whole area was turf, so I did three things:  Dug it out, smothered it/covered it up and flipped it over (and smothered it).   For the material that I excavated, I brought most of it over to the southside of the house and used it to fill in the little gully/swale on the side of the house.  And, I tucked in a bunch of it (flipped over) along the side of the porch where I'd seen some erosion over the years.  On this side of the house, we have just ONE downspout that handles a big portion of the roof and when it gets clogged up, that gutter 'tops'.  That's one source of the erosion.  The other is the downspout outlet.  Whatever *does* get down the downspout, comes out one of those surface drains.    That 'flipped' turf was a way to raise the ground-level here.  And, like a bunch of the areas that I w

Last Fall, I extended (what I call) the IB2DWs (In Between Two Driveways) bed to reach down along the property line, all the way to connect to the small sidewalk-adjacent bed.  In it, I planted a number of conifers ( Conifers Should Come First) , transplanted a few divisions (Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass and Serendipity Allium ) and tucked in a few other things.  When I made that bed, I was converting it from turf and that meant that I used a combination of techniques:  removing the turf, smothering the turf with cardboard and just leaving some of it in place.  I planted everything in biosolids and then topped the bed with even more biosolids.   But...I mostly focused on the planting.  And left the bed in a not-so-finished state.  That meant that grass was poking through in spots, the edges weren't clean and I applied arborist wood chips.  The chips were intended as an initial attempt to both retain moisture and (hopefully) improve the soil.  This area is hard-to-grow and liv

Last Spring, my neighbor to the south shared a couple of native Spring Ephemerals that live in her garden - Virginia Bluebells and Bloodroot - or Sanguinaria canadensis .  They grow in a woodland part of her backyard garden and arrive in early Spring and depart before everything else comes alive.  She gave me a clump of each and I dug them into the bed that is right across the fence from where they came from - my thought was if they were happy on one side of the fence, they'll be happy on the other.  The conditions are virtually identical. The Virginia Bluebells came back earlier this month.  That's nice to see.  But, the Bloodroot just arrived.  See below for a look at the current state of this native Spring ephemeral: Nice to see this one come back for another year - as the transplanting process last year was stressful. These naturalize and spread out to create a little colony or drift (if conditions are right).  The idea of " Spring ephemerals " is something that