Why I Oughta...

I found a six-pack of Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip' plugs at Home Depot in their 50% off Fall sale and grabbed the best-looking one of the bunch.  I've had mixed results with some of these six-packs.  Most of the time, they're great and the plants get established and take-off.  Other times, I've bought some other packs that didn't work at all.   I've planted Ajuga in the Fall before and have also had mixed results.  Some of them get established enough and come back in Spring.  Others don't.  Farmer's Almanac has October 11th as our first frost , so we're just a couple weeks away.  Eeeeek.  Time to get these into the ground. Here's the pack below.  Looks healthy: Over on the side of our house, we have an erosion problem.  Between a couple of downspout pop-ups, this area sees a lot of water movement.  I've been using this cobbled-together mix of bricks, stones and other blocks to try to slow things down.  Right behind it is wh...

Yesterday, I posted photos and details of how I'm starting a bulb lawn with (just) 95 crocus corms and mentioned that I also was expanding the bulb lawn by planting some bulbs in the parkway. Like the Crocus varieties that I planted (Ruby Giant, King of the Striped and Romance), when I was looking at the Daffodils, I also wanted something a bit shorter in height.  I ended up buying (for now) just one package of 14 Tete a Tete Daffodil bulbs.  Here's how Longfield Gardens describes them : A miniature daffodil with one to three perfect little blossoms per stem. Though Tete a Tete stands just 7" tall, the bright yellow flowers can be seen from a great distance. Emphasis, mine.   Miniature and bright yellow.  Sounds great. These bulbs are a bit bigger than the Crocus bulbs: I've long thought about how to transform the parkway into something more interesting than turf grass.  I don't have built-in irrigation and the parkway is pretty far from our hose bib, so...

Back at the beginning of September, I posted some details about planting a bulb lawn and took a photo of a set of bulbs at Menards that included some short-stature (in height) crocus flowers and other Fall-planting bulbs/corms.  I'm looking for short early-bloomers and after doing a little bit of research, I found that three crocus flowers were right for me.   I ended up buying one package of Ruby Giant, King of the Striped and Romance.  Here, below, is a photo of the bags.  35 + 25 + 35 = 95 crocus corms. #13 on my 2026 to-do list was to get some bulbs in the ground : 13. Plant fall bulbs. For my first few gardening seasons, I was pretty good about planting fall bulbs. Alliums and tulips, mostly. But, I got away from it. Get back to it this Fall. And…Try a bulb lawn in front. Yes…a bulb lawn. Or, at least a patch of bulb lawn as an experiment. A bulb lawn.  Doing one would require WAY, WAY, WAY more bulbs (corms).  Less than 100 is like dipping my to...

I seem to have gotten on top of the spider mites in the sideyard.  Those plants are starting to show new, green growth (I'll post on that separately), but those plants haven't begun to re-flower.  Yet.  But, the rest of the dahlias are still popping off.  The heavy rain we had over the weekend has weighed down the plants and flower heads, so I cut a bunch off and brought them inside.  One arrangement on the left that is a little bit more compact and tight.  And, one on the right that is a bit more wild and splayed open. Milena Fleur, Rip City, Saint Martin, Brown Sugar and Crichton Honey.   #6 on my 2026 to-do list ( marked incomplete earlier this month ) was to "Go Bigger on Dahlias".  Seems that has been done.  

I've been working on a wasserspiel (water feature) that includes a DIY Alpine trough that can be part of an upgraded water feature in the backyard.  The current water feature is a half-barrel with an insert that is stuck about half-way back in the garden and it is mostly a sound-feature.   The inspiration for the new feature is in this post (via Instagram) and includes a basin dug into the ground, covered in gravel with a stone trough on top that empties into the gravel and then recirculates.   That means that I have to identify a spot that I can dig out for a basin, cover it with gravel and set the DIY Alpine trough on top.  Oh...I also have to make the LARGER trough, as my current one is simply proof-of-concept.   I've been thinking about water features around the patio for years.  This post from 2017 (almost 10 years ago, eeek) shows a waterfall/creek that I fell in love with and talked about how it could work around the steps to the pat...

Over the past week or so, I've posted the first posts in my compost bin turning process.  In part one, I emptied the tumbler, removed the (mostly) finished compost from the third (finishing) bin and filled the tumbler back up .  In part two , I upgraded the finishing bin with some additional cedar boards to hold in more of that "black gold" near the bottom.   In that part two post, I outlined what was going to happen next :  The next step (which I'll cover in Part 3) is to open up the middle (mixing) bin and the left (holding bin) and pull everything out and build a mixed pile that I can load up into the finishing bin. I'll add a couple of layers of mixed material, slide in the first level of the aeration pipes. Add more material, then add the second level of pipes. Then, pile in the rest of the material to fill the finishing bin. I typically OVERFILL the the finishing bin. Mound up the material HIGHER than the rails of the bin. When the pile decomposes, i...