Why I Oughta...

In 2024, I planted six Sun King Japanese Aralias as part of a 'garden edit' in what I call the 'nook' garden behind the Weeping Nootka Cypress tree.  I was concerned that they didn't survive their first year, because they went dormant early.  But, they came back last Spring - for their first Spring .  Because of that, I bought three more at the Morton Arboretum Arbor Day Plant Sale last Spring and planted them on the opposite side of the garden .   And they did well in their first year.  Here's mid-Summer look of that B-R-I-G-H-T foliage contrasting in the shade garden .   This Spring, I'm seeing some good news:  these are coming back (as expected) for their first Spring.  See below for a photo showing the trio of crowns emerging from the mulch on the southside bed: The Morton annual plant sale is coming up in the next few days and I'm thinking that even more of these should be near the top of my shopping list.  

There I was, wandering the parking log aisles of the big box store seasonal nursery where I see the usual suspects:  lots of arborvitae.  Green Giant Thujas.  Some pine trees.  The normal stuff they have every year.   But, if you look hard-enough, you can also find some interesting, far-less-common things that arrive at the beginning of the season.   One of the 'I haven't seen that before' things was on a pallet in the evergreen section.  See it below: What is this thing?  It is a lollipop.  Or...'on standard'.  Something grafted on a trunk.  And, it looks like a mop-head of evergreen needles.  I grabbed the tag and it is labeled as "Thuja Arb Whipcord STD 7 gallon".   A search for [Whipcord Arborvitae] turns up a bunch of listings  Iseli Nursery has this listing page up for the Whipcord Western Red Cedar (on Standard) along with their POS sign.  If they're selling it, that tells me something....

Last month, I shared that I made my first (ever) order from Farmer Bailey (Garden Club Plants) for a few sets of plant plugs .   I ordered six sets of eight (8) plugs each - 48 total.  One set of six (6) of each of: Lisianthus Celeb 2 Metallic Blue , Phlox Cherry Caramel , Plectranthus Silver Shield , Gomphrena Audray White , Eucalyptus Silver Dollar and Didiscus Lacy Blue . When you order from Garden Club, you get to select your delivery date.  With this being my first time doing this, I likely made a mistake:  I ordered for delivery too soon. I don't recall (now) if some of the later (late April, early May) dates were already sold out or if I just selected mid-April because I thought that was appropriate, but either way...my plugs arrived in mid-April.  They came in these cute little green plastic 'greenhouses': All 48 plugs look good and had leaf'd out.  The only one of the set that I had grown before was eucalyptus, so I knew what *that* foli...

Just a few days, I posted a ' musings' post on starting my dahlia tubers and talked about the  when/how/what/where of starting the flower farming season here in the garden.  Last year, I potted up the stored tubers right at the beginning of May and this year, I talked about trying to get it done a little bit earlier.  Today marks a few days shy of two weeks earlier.  That's pretty good, right?   The 10-day forecast shows ZERO days below freezing, but I'm not holding out hope that the last freezing temperature is behind us.  The State Climatologist Office for Illinois has a last/first frost table up on their site that I tend to use more than the Old Farmer's Almanac version.   On the Illinois version, they have a map up showing the "earliest" last Frost date (for us, it was April 9th ).  And the latest (May 28th).  The map showing the median lists April 28th for DuPage County .  And, that's just ten days away.   So,...

The groundcover that caused me to 'fall' for groundcover was Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip'.  Over the years, I've planted small plugs in various spots all around our garden.  But, the very first place I planted it is the island bed that lies between our driveway and our front stoop.  I've added additional plugs in that bed in subsequent years including last year when I split a six-pack between this bed and the front (sidewalk) island bed.  Some Winters are tougher than others on this groundcover, but it seems that this year we have some good news:  I'm seeing new, curly growth on the Ajuga in the driveway island bed.  below are a couple of photos showing the current state of this bed: And, the other three (of the six-pack I mentioned above) are planted down along the sidewalk in *that* island bed.  These went in the ground in mid-August and that appears to have done the trick in terms of giving them enough time to establish themselves before dormancy. ...

I went and picked up more dahlia tubers.  These would be (I think) 25 + 7 + 2 = 33rd and 34th new tuber for the season .    Here is my initial order from Bonny Blooms .  Then, a few more from Longfield Gardens .    Then, I bought some more from Longfield from Costco .  And, most recently these seven from Menards .   I also wrote this post showing some of the other tubers Menards carries and mentioned a few that jumped out to me.  The first one in that post is named Blue Wish.  And... I said : "This is one that I will buy if I go back." Bad news for dahlia haters.  I went back. And bought a package of two Blue Wish Tubers. They are waterlily dahlias.  That stay under 36" tall.   I'll find a home for them, I'm sure.   Here's what Breck's says about it : An elegant, colour-changing, water lily-type dahlia. A true spectacle in the garden, this dahlia's 4½" blooms transform from delicate white petals ...