Why I Oughta...

Back in April, I posted some photos of a handful of trees that appeared - at the time - to be late in terms of coming out of dormancy for the year .  They were a Chanticleer Pear tree that was planted on Earth Day 2018.  A small Red Valley Sun Maple planted the same day.  And a Crimson King Maple that I planted in 2017.  Something weird is happening with two of them.  And it is now happening with another tree. First, the bad news.  The Crimson King Maple appears to be lost.  I'll post about it separately.  But, let's look at the other three.  Here, below, is the Red Valley Sun Maple.  The top of the tree never broke bud.  And the limbs became dry and brittle.  But, this Summer, this growth shot out from the base of the trunk.    If the tree was healthy, I'd call these things "suckers". They sure look like "suckers", don't they? From this post,  suckers are normally a sign of stress : Suckers are a tree’s attempt to grow more bra

We have three young trees that were all bought as nursery stock that haven't broken dormancy in our yard.  On a walk around the yard yesterday, I was surprised by the small Chanticleer Pear tree that had not joined the other ones in flowering out.  Below, you can see that tree for garden diary reference.   Here's one of the buds on the tips of the tree.  I've scraped away some of the bark and I see plenty of green underneath it, so maybe this one is just late in waking up? On the other hand, why isn't it showing even ONE flower?  The tree across the yard is in full bloom.  That has me concerned. The Crimson King Maple tree is also showing no signs of life.  If I look around at other Maples, I see some buds bursting open on *some* of the tips, but a further look around the neighborhood and I see plenty of trees that haven't broken dormancy yet.  A scrape on this one shows a little bit of green, but the tree itself feels a little 'hollow'.    This

Maybe it is this whole social distancing exercise and the idea of being cooped up for who knows how long.  Or maybe it is just the weather turning a little bit nice that has me thinking more and more about getting our yard in shape.  Either way, it has me turning my thoughts to mulch.  In the past, we've had our mulch delivered and spread by pros, but we haven't done the full yard.  I mean...we have a BIG yard to mulch and we've really only done the little bit in the front plus a little bit around the house/beds that were already created and planted.  That left the back 2/3rds of the yard with what I'd loosely call 'beds' around the perimeter of the back of the yard.  They haven't been tended to at ALL in terms of grooming and mulching with hardwood mulch (or fines).  I have, however, been taking my lawnmower and mulching up the Fall leaves and piling them up in the beds around the back as a Knowing that we might be hanging around the house A LOT more h

Last year in July, I planted a Crimson King Maple Tree in the back part of our yard.  I chronicled the planting here .  And then gave a late Fall check-in post here before it dropped its leaves for the year.   One of the things that I was struck by was the lack of seeds in the tree last year.  The good news is that right now, the tree is loaded with them!  Here's one of them, all green and ready to burst.  Helicopters as we say, right?  I'm thinking that the tree was prioritizing putting down roots last year and didn't have the energy to spare to produce seeds.  Isn't nature amazing?  This season, I didn't pay much attention to the tree and I think that's just fine.  I mean...most people pay NO attention whatsoever to all of their trees, so these trees figure out how to survive on their own.  Just by the eye test, I don't think this tree has grown much in terms of height, but it seems like it has gotten thicker and more full and definitely wider. 

The middle of last Summer, we added a Crimson King Red Maple tree to the far flung reach of our backyard.  I actually placed it in a spot around the perimeter that was behind the trampoline.  It isn't too far from this area that I outlined in our landscape plan.   I revisited the tree in late October to document how it was heading into the Winter cold season and all Spring, I've been peeping at it trying to understand how it was doing.  There were buds that were set last fall and for the past month, they started to grow and expand.  And then, suddenly, this happened!  The buds exploded and these crazy stringy what-appear-to-be-flower-pods emerged all over branches.  And the buds created that four-way shape in a beautiful red.  So, I'm thinking we can mark this one down as 'making it' this Winter.  My precious Dawn Redwood on the other hand?  I'm afraid to say it out loud, but it looks like it did not make it through the Winter.  I'm going to give it a

Back in July, we added a Crimson King Maple tree to one of the far back corners of our #newoldbackyard after finding it on sale at Menards.  It was the ninth tree we planted this season and the final one added to the arboretum before the summer heat hit.  I planted this one pretty late - in mid-July - and then we were hit with a pretty severe drought through most of August and September.  The Crimson King is a purple-leafed Maple tree with shallow roots that doesn't give much of a show in the fall, but in exchange, gives a nice contrasting color most of the summer.  Nat's folks have a big one up on Twin Lakes that I've admired and that's part of the reason why we planted this one back here. I'm posting this photo so I can revisit this tree in the Spring when it *hopefully* comes back to life with some new leaf buds.  This is now located kind of behind the big trampoline that Nat bought for the kids, so it has been somewhat out of sight, out of mind.  But,

Another tree?  Yep.  This makes number nine.  Nine trees planted this season in the yard. There's 2 flowering pears, 1 Japanese flowering cherry , 2 Lindens , 1 Dawn Redwood , a Magnolia, a Corkscrew Willow and now this one: A Crimson King Norway Maple.  And let me get this out of the way.  Yes, I know some folks wouldn't recommend this tree.  But I've been drawn to them for a while and I wanted something that would break up the sea of greenness in the very far reaches of the rear of the new old backyard. Menards has marked their trees down to 30% to 50% off, so this one was a no-brainer for me.  I brought it home and found a spot along the fenceline all the way in the back.  We haven't quite gotten around to cleaning out most of the weeds/brush areas around the perimeter of the lot, so this is - for now - mixed in amongst some native weeds and various, unidentified brush. Now, back to the tree.  If you're looking to find out why some folks have maligned t