Posts

100 Years of Coca-Cola In France - In Bottles, Cans and Cups

Posted by on
Image
I drank a few of these 100 Ans de Coca-Cola en France bottles and cans during my trip to Paris for the Air Show.  Turns out, this is the first corporate campaign the company has run in-country.  Here's my view of the bottles and cans that I ran into.  And one cup...doesn't have the 100 years thing on it, but, its from Disneyland Paris.   Kinda interesting they didn't embrace the whole #ShareaCoke thing.




Here's the little film they put together to mark 100 years together.




Post a Comment
Read more

Giant Thumb in La Defense

Posted by on
Image
Oh, you know.  Just a giant thumb sticking out like a...well...sore thumb.  In La Defense.  Details here.  "Le Pouce" was the first piece out outdoor art that struck me in Paris on a recent trip there. Certainly not the last. But the first.
Post a Comment
Location: La Défense, France
Read more

Done: Gold Cone Junipers Wired Up

Posted by on
Image
One of the items on my 2019 gardening to-do list (addendum) was to make sure I got around to wiring up the new Gold Cone Junipers that I planted this Spring.   When I picked them up, I was drawn to the promise of their bright needles and how they filled a big part of my desire to add conifers to our landscape.  In that original post, I referenced how a pro-gardener recommended that these particular junipers get wired up to avoid any sort of Winter/snow damage. 

That's what this post is for:  documenting that I actually wired them.  The top photo shows one of the Gold Cone Junipers all wired up with a green coated metal garden wire.  Compare that photo above with the photo of the same shrub in this photo.  I tucked in all the leggy new growth and bound it to the core of the plant. 

Here's a closer look at the wire: 


The shrub in the foreground is wired up.  The one in the background is not (yet!).


There were seven items on my 'to-do list addendum' for this year.    I&#…
Post a Comment
Read more

Lost: Weeping Cherry Tree - June 2019

Posted by on
Image
I'm calling this one:  our Snow Fountains Weeping Cherry tree is dead.  Didn't make it to year two.  I planted this tree on Earth Day 2018, so it is just outside of the one-year warranty window.    And the tree was looking good in April as it had set buds last Fall.    I wasn't ever really satisfied with the location, so having it die isn't the end of the world.

Using the list from my most recent Weeping White Spruce post, this is the sixth tree that I've lost since we started planting and the first one lost this season.

Other "Lost" trees include:  a Chanticleer Pear, a Dawn Redwood, a Corkscrew Willow, a Fraser Fir, a Canadian Hemlock and now this Weeping Flowering Cherry.

Here's the full list of trees that we've put into the yard since we bought the property in 2016 and moved in during the Summer of 2017. 35 trees planted. 29 trees currently alive and adding to our landscape.

2017 (9 planted. 3 Died. 6 of the original annual total alive now…
Post a Comment
Location: Downers Grove, IL, USA
Read more

Milorganite Hoarding - Summer 2019

Posted by on
Image
There I was...walking through the garden center of our local Home Depot and what do I see?  A half of a pallet of bags of Milorganite.  Shortage?  What shortage?!?  I mentioned the potential Milorganite shortage in my initial post about starting to use the stuff.

There were about 30 bags of the fertilizer on the pallet.  Did I take all of them?  Nope.  But, I did take 12 bags.  That's two applications for this season.  If I go back and see more, I'll buy 12 more to hoard for a late Fall and next May application.  I also used the Menards site to see if they had inventory and to my surprise, every Wisconsin location is loaded!  Thinking I'll likely take a drive to Kenosha on a weekend we're up at the lake.

At the top of the post is a photo of six of the bags.  Below are the other six.   (oh...and a bag of Ironite!)

I've thrown down one application of Milorganite this year and after I get the results back from my SoilSavvy test, I'll know how to proceed with the …
Post a Comment
Read more

Soil Savvy Soil Test Kits - Two Tests

Posted by on
Image
Last week in the post about how I had bought my first run of Humic Acid (granular), I mentioned that I was going to test my soil before applying.  Welp, today is that day.  I bought two Soil Savvy Soil Test Kits after watching Ryan Knorr on YouTube talk about how to collect a sample.   There are a variety of ways you can test your soil including a few that you can buy at Menards and mix up on the spot, but this test is priced a bit higher, requires you to send away a sample and the posts some online results for you. 

So, why two?  You can probably imagine that I'd want to get a test from my front yard and my back.  But, you'd be wrong.  When we built our house, the entire front yard was a massive mud pit.  And so was the back.  For about the first 100 feet.  And that's where we laid sod.  Based on the soil type in our landscape beds, I'm pretty sure that everywhere there is sod, there's a lot of terrible clay soil.  The front and the back (first 100 feet) were grad…
Post a Comment
Read more

Cast Iron Urn Planter Front Yard - 2019 Edition

Posted by on
Image
Early last Spring, I found a large cast iron urn planter on Craigslist in LaGrange and added it to our front yard landscape.  It is BIG and HEAVY and it hasn't moved since we filled it last year.   Nat has expressed that she doesn't love it in this location, but I haven't moved it yet.  And, the bad news is that I filled it this season already.  This post is to document what this thing looks like in June of 2019.

You can see that I've gone ahead and applied the whole thrill/fill/spill thing.  As we get later into the heat of the Summer and Fall, I'll swap these out for something else. 

Post a Comment
Read more