Why I Oughta...

In the Spring of 2023, I ripped out a pair of Rhododendron from either side of our back stoop and replaced them with a pair of Spring Grove (dwarf) Ginkgo trees .  They were in larger nursery containers at the time I bought them, but they were small.  Short.  Well...dwarf.  Which usually means they're very slow-growing.  I wrote this 'getting to know' post about Spring Grove Ginkgo and talked about how they were discovered as a Witch's Broom in Ohio.   That first Summer, they were stressed.  This is a sunny location and the hot afternoon sun beat them up.  So, I put up some shade cloth to try to get them through August.  That worked and by September, they were leafy and (mostly) green .  Ever since, they haven't looked back.  And are growing faster than I thought they would.   Here they are in October 2024 .   Over the years, I've posted Wintertime photos showing their 'frames'.   Today, despi...

I have a mixed record with house plants.  I am (usually) pretty good with what I'll call 'project house plants'.  Those are things like Amaryllis that I can grow from a bulb for Christmas that have a defined season and duration.  I've tried other houseplants and I usually get bored of them.  Nat, on the other hand, maintains a number of her own houseplants and she's been a good steward of the ones she's grown.  That includes some good runs with Orchids that she's nurtured into re-blooming.  But, I *do* have one houseplant that I've kept alive for a while.  In fact, I call this the eighth year of growing it:  my firesticks cactus.  Planted in a small orange pot back in the Spring of 2018.  It was small, green and maybe five inches tall .   Today, it is taller.  Fuller.  And more well-branched.    Below is a photo showing the current state of my Firesticks cactus as it lives out on our back stoop during the S...

Over the past few growing seasons, I've become a coleus-as-bedding-plant believer.  I 'praised' it in Fall of 2024 .  And, called growing three Inferno Coleus at the corner of our patio a ' garden win ' at the end of the growing season (October) last year.  This year, I didn't plant any Inferno Coleus, which...in retrospect was a mistake.  I've been unhappy with the coleus up front, but I can't say the same about the coleus I planted in our backyard - in the same spot as Inferno last year.  This year, I planted three Talevera Moondust Coleus in that spot.  I found them at Wannemaker's and they jumped off the nursery table with their speckles of paint on the foliage.   If you go back to the planting post , you'll see that they're described this way by the grower: Sun-tolerant varieties maintain color and foliage patterns in both sun and shade conditions. These late-flowering selections are tidy, non-bolting plants in the garden. The plant tag...

Back around the border of the fire pit is a Redbud Tree.  I originally planted a weeping Lavender Twist Redbud tree in 2020, but it came cracked-in-half .  It came back alive, but I'm not sure if the tree was grafted or not, which means that the trunk was some other kind of tree.  I also sort-of lost track of where this tree was planted, because back in 2020, I planted it along the fence .    But...today....as I mentioned in the first sentence, we have a Redbud tree around the firepit.   I also have a memory of this tree getting stomped by some tree guys. However, it has persisted.  And, grown.   And, it *is* weeping.   But, now it is a multi-trunk tree. However, it is arching up and out (over the lawn and the firepit) and has taken on a nice shape.   I haven't documented this tree in the [tree diary], so I thought it was about time.    

We had a pretty big rain storm a week or so ago that brought with it some welcomed precipitation.  It also battered some of my plants and trees.  Downed branches and (in a couple of cases) bent-over dahlias and other plants.  I scurried around and straightened everything out and found the dahlias that weren't staked (enough) and tried to provide some support.   I also cut a bunch of things and brought them in for an arrangement for one of Nat's friends.  The Saint Martin dahlias are on very long, thin stems while the Melina Fleur dahlias (decorative) are (for now) on short, stubby ones.  And, the Plectranthus Silver Shield is plentiful.  But, I still don't quite know the best way to use it in an arrangement.  The underside of the foliage is (to me) the star, but when I tuck some of it in the vase, the underside sort-of disappears.  There's also a spring of Silver Dollar Eucalyptus in here that I'm still learning about how best to cut to...

My first (ever) Ikebana arrangement was just two sprays of Disneyland (Floribunda) roses stuck into my flower frog.  That was back in June .  It wasn't, well....great.   But, as they say...the only way you get better at something is by doing it again.  And again. So, I'm doing just that:  making my second Ikebana arrangement with a Lisianthus, a leaf(let) from a Dark Side of the Moon Astilbe and a spray of Sun King Aralia.  In a vintage McCoy cereal bowl.  Below is a shot of it: In this case, I have a subject, object and secondary stuck in the kenzan (flower frog). The subject is supposed to be the tallest stem - so I'm calling the chartreuse Sun King leaf the subject. The object is "the queen".  That you place in the front/center.  That's the Celeb 2 Metallic Blue Lisianthus. And, the Dark Side of the Moon Astilbe leaf(let) is the secondary.