Why I Oughta...

A couple of weeks ago, I posted some photos of our Ostrich Ferns that had suffered some late-season frost damage.  On a walk around our yard recently, I noticed some strange signs on our front-yard hostas.  You can see one of them above with the whitish tips on parts of this hosta that showed up after that frost event. 

The hosta above is the 'middle' one of three up there.  Below is a photo showing all three - in front of the tulips. 


This one (below) is the northern-most one on the right:


And this one (below) is the southern-most one that has the least amount of frost damage. 

This area can use a few more hostas to fill in - as I think the heavy clay soil in this bed has limited the growth/spread of anything that we've planted in here.

When we had our house built back in 2016/2017, one of the steps was the digging and installation of new sewer and water lines.  That required some serious digging from the center of the street all the way up to our house.  That digging was located fairly close to our large parkway tree - in fact it was so close that when we came to see the hole, we could see that the sewer guys had cut some of the roots.  
Ever since then, I've been holding my breath with concern that the tree had suffered some damage.  
I'm posting this in the [garden dairy] so I remember both what the canopy looks like in Spring but also what the color of the leaves look like, too.  
Here, below, is the tree.  It is orange-ish/brown-ish.  Certainly NOT green like the rest of the maple trees around our neighborhood.  

And, I'm content this year because I noticed the same thing last year.  This tree isn't suffering/stressed (at least I'm pretty sure it isn't), rather this is *just* how the tree…

A couple of weeks ago, we planted a fast-growing Lombardy Poplar tree in our far backyard and had high hopes that it would provide a little bit of screening in a quick way.  But, today I went by to inspect the tree a little and was surprised to see it was having some trouble.  Look at the photo above to see the leaves that are wilting and browning out. 

This is certainly NOT a good sign, but I'm not calling it yet with this tree and I hope it can bounce back.  I'm pretty certain that this was a recently-planted bareroot tree that came in a burlap sack.  This was the first tree that we received in one of those burlap sacks and I decided to NOT plant the sack.  I think that was a mistake. 

It *could* be frost damage like what we've seen on some of our ferns, but I'm not sure. 

On the next tree - which I'll post about soon, I trimmed the burlap sack down to be pretty small and planted the sack to try to keep the soil around the tree roots a bit more. 

I'll be watc…

We planted our first Oak tree in our yard this month.  You can see it above - it is a Northern Red Oak tree and it is REALLY small.  I'll get the caliper dimension later this Summer, but I think this might be the thinnest tree that we've planted.

Why an Oak tree?  Because of this Washington Irving post from last year.


I know we won't be living in our home by the time that this tree - if we nurture it - grows up to be significant.  In ten years, it will be a small tree.  In 20 years, it might be an eight inch or 10 inch caliper tree.  We'll be gone from here.

But, we have two huge Oak trees on our lot - that planted a long time ago.  And we are the ones - the future ages - that are enjoying the trees.

We plant this small tree without the expectation that we'll enjoy the shade that it will create.  But, this little tree will 'benefit mankind long after we shall have ceased to tread our yard'.

We planted it on the south side of our lot, behind the existing Oa…

Just a couple of days past a year ago, I posted about how I was feeding our columnar Frans Fontaine Hornbeams with Jobe's fertilizer spikes and included a photo of PART of the trees after they had been fed.  This year, I bought three boxes of the spikes for deciduous trees and one box for evergreens.

In that post, I mentioned that I put the spikes in the ground on May 1st in 2019.  And despite this post being dated May 23rd, I have just gotten around to posting this - as I put the spikes in the ground on May 12th.  12 days behind 2019.

Here's how the trees look below - from a similar view - as last year.  You can see how the gap between the trees that are right outside the screened porch is closing down below the fenceline.


The trees haven't totally filled in for the year, but they're already doing well to provide some screening as they green-up and out this Spring.

Hoping the fertilizer spikes will help keep them growing on their current trajectory.  2020 finds them …

Three weeks ago, I posted my fruit tree haul from Home Depot and talked about building my long-desired Belgian Fence espalier in our backyard.  About two weeks ago, I got around to planting the trees and....(gasp) lopping off the tops.  Here's the location that I decided to plant the Belgian Fence below.  On the right of the photo, you can see the first of the trees planted that I'm planning on leaving tall and proud.  In the foreground is the Azalea that you can see in this photo here.


Here's that same tree a little closer:



I planted the rest of the trees in a row - 16" apart.  And four inches (4") from the fence.  You can see them lined up below.  The trees from right to left are:

1. Golden Delicious
2. Honeycrisp
3. Honeycrisp
4. Honeycrisp
5. Golden Delicious
6. Honeycrisp
7. Honeycrisp
8.  Golden Delicious



Here's another few looks at the trees - in their full height below.




I planted them one afternoon and then had to sleep on things.  I didn't have t…