Surprise! Nat Turns 30 (A Little Early)

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Columnar Tree Dreaming - Dakota Pinnacle Birch and Swedish Aspen - Winter 2020

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Since the new year, I've posted about a couple of spots that I'm thinking about for trees in 2020.  That started with the five trees that I want to plant in the front yard ( including five new trees ) and a small section between the espalier Linden trees and a Cleveland Pear along the southern fence line.  In both of those pieces, I talked quite a bit about columnar trees.  At this point, you're probably like:  we get it, Jake.  You like columnar form. Yes indeed.  But, because this is *my* blog, you're going to have to bear with me.  Over the course of the next few days and weeks, I'm going to use this space as a reference guide for some columnar trees that I've come across that are work referencing back as I add more inventory. This post is about a pair of what I'm calling 'white trees'.  Birch and Aspen. First up is this Dakota Pinnacle Birch Tree . The folks at  Fast Growing Trees are currently selling a 5-6' version for $99 righ...
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Cedar Summit Panorama Playset from Costco

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Move over vegetable garden and garage pavillion, there's potentially a new entrant into the currently crowded backyard at the Parrillo household.  Behold:  this beauty.  The Cedar Summit Panorama Playset from Costco.   Comes with 3 swings and a tube slide.  Nat spotted this behemoth at Costco and after doing a bit of comparison shopping at a place like Menards (more expensive, I think) and Wannemaker's (don't sell these type of things any more), it appears to be a fair deal. It is a kit - so I'd be putting it together myself, but I'm up for that challenge.  The real issue is getting it home.  I'm going to head back to Costco to take a look to see if it will fit in Nat's car with the back seats folded down.  If not, it seems like I'll be renting a truck from Home Depot.  Yes, the Babe is likely too small for a lot of this, but certainly NOT the swings.  We take her to the park on a regular basis and she gets a kick out of the swi...
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Walnut vs Tree of Heaven vs. Sumac Backyard Identification - June 2020

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That's a look *up* from the ground through a young, skinny tree limb as well as a larger, more mature (and confirmed) Black Walnut tree.  The leaves, from a distance look similar.  Back last year, I mentioned that I wanted to try to identify if a couple of young trees were worth keeping or if I should remove them.  And, knowing that I wanted to hold myself accountable, I included it as #15 on my to-do list for the yard this year . After poking around on the web in various places , I think I've settled on this clear cut detail that I found on r/WhatIsThisPlant on Reddit :  Walnut tree leaves have no notches.  Tree of Heaven (an invasive tree), do.  From u/blacksheep998 : Ailanthus has a small notch at the base of it's leaflets. Black walnut leaflets, while slightly toothed, lacked that distinctive nub. So, that's first thing to check:  Does the little tree leaves have those 'thumbs' or notches?   *Looks closer*... Sure, enough....
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