Why I Oughta...

Back in May, I posted the details of a new (to me) Korean Maple tree that I planted in our backyard:  Alpenglow Korean Maple from Iseli Nursery and their Jack Frost Collection .   Previously, I have planted a pair of Korean Maples in the garden:  A Northern Glow Korean Maple in the Island Bed up front .  And an Arctic Jade Korean Maple in the backyard along the southside border . Despite having a great first season ( and fall show ), that tree suffered something and didn't come back this year .  Good to their Warranty, the fine folks at The Growing Place in Naperville honored their one-year guarantee and let me bring back the Arctic Jade carcass.  More on that tree in a future post. They didn't have any Arctic Jade trees in their inventory, so I decided to try something else as a replacement:  North Wind Korean Maple. That name sounds familiar, right?  (at least it did to me.) And that's because last November, I wrote a "Getting to Know" post...

I posted two different sets of photos and details of the dahlia tubers that I've stuck in the garden in various spots.  First was 17 tubers.  Then, a post showing 15 additional ones .  That made my total:  32 dahlias in the ground.  25 new (to me) or trialing with 7 legacy dahlias (Melina Fluer x 3, Ivanetti x 2, Sweet Nathalie and Wizard of Oz). This post is going up in mid-June, but back in late May, I added six more dahlias to three spots in the garden. These six, plus the previous 32 = 38 dahlias in the ground.  So far.  Here's an annotated plot of the locations with the latest ones in green:   South Sun Wall 33. Pooh This is a spot that I've grown Melina Fleur each of the past two seasons.  Last year, these Pooh dahlias got pretty tall, so being close to the fence might give me more support options. Under The Elm 34. Blue Wish This was the largest of the dahlia plants left in my home nursery (my patio), so in it went.  Without rabbi...

I planted two large, mass plantings of Titan Halo Annual Vinca in our front porch bed and down in the the front of the Island bed in our front yard.  76 + 36.  That left eight remaining plugs that I decided to plant at the front of the IB2DWs bed along the driveway.  You can see the eight small flowering annuals taking their spot in the mulch bed below: Repetition, right?  This year, I went with two large mass plantings.  Maybe next year, I'll add a third and really plant up the IB2DWs bed with the same annuals in the other two. Like everything else I've posted recently, this photo is a month old.  

I planted a four-pack of Nicotiana (Saratoga Mix) annuals over on the southside of the house in the cut flower garden bed.  Actually... these are in the 'newly expanded' bed that I completed earlier this Spring (March) with my typical 'lazy method' of smothering the turf and amending the top with a mix of Composted Manure and Municipal Biosolids.  I've grown Nicotiana over the years - including the Jasmine variety - in this same sideyard bed .  In 2024, I direct sow'd them.  In 2019, Nat's Mom gave us a couple of plants .   This year, I bought a small four-pack of Saratoga Mix - which appears to be a combination of flower colors: I picked a front-of-the-border spot and staggered the four small plants about a foot-apart.   They're now mixed in amongst the Disneyland Roses and all of the various dahlias that I planted over there.  These are filling in a spot close to the front of the border: This post is going up in mid-June, but these were pl...

Just like the other plugs from Garden Club, I finally got around to planting out the Silver Dollar Eucalyptus plugs back in mid-May.  This post is going up a month later, but these have been planted since mid-May.  These arrived in early April and I up-potted them to slightly larger pots and nursed them along first indoors then moving them outdoors. Seven of the eight original ones made it to planting day.  I put six in one Greenstalk planter and the remaining one in another. Below are a few photos showing that planting process: I recently bought a few more eucalyptus plants from a small nursery along the Illinois/Wisconsin border and I'll post about those in the coming days.   Last year, I grew one of these in a patio container and it performed *fine* - I was able to get some clippings for arrangements.   I included in my 2026 to-do list the idea of using the Greenstalk for accent plants (exactly like this): 9. Accents, too.   Speaking of ...

I planted three All Gold Hakonehloa Macra Grasses from the Morton Arboretum Plant Sale last month where I filled in a couple of spots in the long border of existing All Gold grasses in the backyard .  I was at Home Depot and saw on their racks something familiar recently:  they were selling All Gold Japanese Forest Grasses.  $13 for a one-gallon container.  That's $7 cheaper per plant than at the Morton Sale .  But...see below.  It is about half-way filled with grass.  (It appears that these were divided this year/late last year) and didn't fill-out the container just yet.  And, they couldn't even be bothered to fill out the rest of the nursery pot with potting mix.   Never-the-less...I bought one.  Just one.  (I know....I broke one of my own rules .) I decided to plant it at the closest edge of the row (closest to our house) and planted it far enough away from the edge to allow for some groundcover to sneak in there, too....