Why I Oughta...

This Spring is full of new garden experiences for me.  That's all thanks to the big "Fall Planting" sprint that I ran through in October of 2023, when I tucked in dozens of new things including the creation of the small, linear dwarf conifer garden IB2DWs.  I found a pair of Weeping Norway Spruces that were labeled 'pendula'.   I put one up closer to the garage and the other one further down closer to the sidewalk .  I staked them both up and hoped for the best.   They both handled the winter just fine (as expected) and are starting to put on a little spring flush of needle growth.  But, one of them is also showing some cones.  That's nice.  But, even nicer?  They're red raspberry-colored cones.  Small ones, but certainly raspberry-colored cones.  See below for a couple of photos. What is interesting (to me, at least) is that there's not any mention online of these Weeping Norway Spruces producing red cones.  Other spruces - like Picea abies 'Acro

  The season is here. The Yard and Garden Season, that is. Each Spring arrives and I’m OVERWHELMED by what I need to do, should do, have to do, might do in and around our garden. The arrival of trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals at the big box stores and nurseries just add to the strong urge to GET GOING out there. But, over the years, I’ve learned that I need to prioritize. And plan. And give myself something to measure-up against, so I know that I’ve accomplished what I thought I needed to focus on each season. The first year I did one was 2019 and I've done one every year. Here is 2020 .  2021 .  2022 .  And last year - 2023 .  Each year, I score myself against the 25 items that I picked out.  Last year, in addition to scoring (22 out of 25 marked 'complete' ), I also wrote up a list of 10 takeaways/lessons learned that have become important in thinking about my path forward.  In that list of 10 takeaways, I included things like:  no more shade trees (for now)

Last Spring, I took a shot on a couple of primroses at an early-in-the-season garden show.  I was pretty unfamiliar with them - hence this post titled: " Giving Primrose A Shot " from March 2023 where I figured I was lulled into a false belief that these early-blooming flowers would work in our Zone 5b (at that time, now Zone 6a) garden. We're suckers for blue blooms and the three Primula belarina 'Blue Champion' that I bought were pretty close to blue.  I seem to have ONLY posted about the blue ones, but if you look back at the photos in this post , you can clearly see that we brought home four Primulas that day;  three blue and one white one.   They went in and seemed to manage their first growing season without much drama.  By the very early days of 2024, I posted about seeing some of their foliage - despite the harsh Winter temps in the garden.   Today - about 90 days since then, they're in bloom.  And they're quite nice.  Below is the 'Blue Cha

Just a month ago, the Lemony Lace Elderberry Shrub in our backyard was showing-off some neat-looking purple buds that were about to burst open with a mix of foliage and berries on the stems of this shade-tolerant shrub.  Fast forward to today - 30-or-so-days-later and the foliage of light green (lemon-lime color) and light purple is showing on the shrub that is tucked in against our fence.  See below: This Japanese-Maple-look-alike is something that I've grown to really appreciate and I'm planning on tucking in some groundcover in/around the base this year.  

The small, linear bed that is up against the foundation of our garage received some attention last year with the planting of three 1# Green Velvet boxwoods  and  a pair of Kousa Dogwoods that I'm going to espalier against the house.  This bed has been home to a bunch of orphans - including some Ostrich Ferns, hostas and the various Coral Bells that I've planted in containers and transplanted into this bed at the end of the growing season.  ( Note to self:  lay off Heucheras going forward, they just don't perform that well for me .) Historically, this has been a VERY informal bed, but my goal with the boxwoods were to add a little bit of structure, winter interest and formality to the garden.  This is 'on the way' to our backyard, so is viewed by anyone who 'comes back' via the gravel pathway. In the photo below, you can see the boxwood evergreen shrub that has managed the winter just fine, but you'll also note a clump of moss that we stuck into the soil

As of last September, our little cluster of All Gold Japanese Forest Grasses in our backyard consisted of eight grasses that were planted in one of the curved beds sort-of by the tree swing tree.  Here's how they looked last year - six in front, two in the back row .  These grasses are some of the STARS of our garden, but they're slow-growing and (for me) not thrivers.  They're not in decline, but they're NOT the massive clumps that I see in other folks gardens online.  They also are, unfortunately, now located in the shadow of the soon-to-be-built pizza oven.  Two of them are tucked 'behind' the foundation that will require moving.  For now, I moved *just one* of them because it was in the direct line of construction foot-traffic.  I tucked it further back into the backyard - on the other side - near where I planted two divided ones from IB2DWs .  That cluster is now (I hope) three grasses and (I also hope) a couple of Autumn Ferns that went in last Fall.  Thos