Why I Oughta...

Putting this in the lawn diary - I put down about 15# of The Andersons Soil Master 5-0-0 in the front yard this week.  And, I put down 3 40# bags of pelletized lawn lime in the backyard.  I bought The Anderson's Soil Mastery bag online - and it includes biochar, humic acid, iron, gypsum and sea kelp.  My plan is to spoon feed the front lawn with this - three applications...one per month - across the end or April, May, June.    Here's what it looks like in the spreader: I've applied Humic Acid in the past - early Summer 2019 - and pelletized gypsum before - but I've never applied these other things like biochar and sea kelp.  This is supposed to be an all-in-one product that I found online at Yard Mastery.  Here's their product listing : If you’ve been looking for a granular bio-stimulant for your poor soil, this is for you. It’s meant to be an add-on to your regular fertilizing regimen. It will condition your soil, add carbon and bio-stimulants, and improve the

Welp, I've made my first gardening mistake of the season.  Back in March, I talked about Nat buying these Frances Williams Hostas , I said that I wanted to plant them next to a few Guacamole Hostas that I bought last year.  But, guess what?  I forgot that plan and instead stuck them around the large Oak tree with the swing.  Womp, womp. Here's a look at the holes around this tree that I planted these bare root hostas.  I put them here because (in my head) the plan called for hostas around this tree and I remembered that I transplanted a bunch here last year.  I thought these would look good next to those white variegated ones .   Oh well.  Guess we'll just have to see what kind of germination rate I get this year and move them around next year.  Also, 

Yesterday, I shared the planting of eight bareroot Bressingham Blue Hostas in a new bed in the backyard.  I had previously planted two others by the screened porch .  That's 10 of 18.  Going down my list, the next spot for the balance of these looks like back by the Yew Hedge.  From my planning post: 1.  Priority Area #2 for 2021 .  Calls for 8.  Done.  Posted yesterday . 2.  Hicks Yew Hedge corner.  Calls for 6. 3.   Screened porch corner.  Calls for 2.    This one is done already . That area calls for six Hadspens, too.  Here is showing these six (in blue) in relation to the previous eight (in green) per the plan: And, here's where they're going in - spreading to the north of the northern-most Hicks Yew. These are deep shade but likely have the BEST soil on the property.  I used wood chips last season to mulch in the yews and create the fire pit area, but this year they'll get a proper hardwood fine mulching.  Same thing, though:  Think I can beat 50% success rate on

Six weeks ago, Nat came home from Costco with some bareroot plants including 18 Bressingham Blue Hostas that I intended to put into the yard as soon as I could this Spring.  Bareroot season comes at you fast and I wanted to get them in right away.  But, the order of operations got in the way.  And, I had to wait to plant these until after the final edges of the beds were set.   I've planted these very same Bressingham Blue Hostas in 2018 .  I actually don't know where those ten went nor how many of them have made it.  I'm assuming that some of them are along the north side of the house, but I'll take a closer look this Summer when they all come up. As for these 18, I planted two of them already outside the screened porch .  Leaving 16.  In the post where I talked about buying these, I mentioned a bunch of spots where these COULD go.  I ended up convincing myself that the three places to start with these were: 1.  Priority Area #2 for 2021.  Calls for 8. 2.  Hicks Yew

Over the years, I've posted about various places that I've found gardening inspiration around the world.  There's the big one - Luxembourg Gardens in Paris - that maybe had the BIGGEST impact on me.  But there's also all of the things I've taken in around Japan including the pretty great Gotenyama Garden and all of their street trees . And, the boxwood hedges outside of the FedEx HQ that have an almost cloud-like form . And the Jacques Wirtz hedges that I've never seen in real life, but love online .  The fountain/pond at the cut flower garden inside the Morton Arboretum .   And, of course, there's Disney Parks. I've posted about their roses, trees and plants many times .  And I've added Disneyland Roses and a Belgian Fence espalier based on what I picked up there.   One of the things that I recently noticed was the color combinations in some of their annual beds.  Let's start with this bed showing off a really great Pooh Bear topiary (he's

Yesterday, I got started planting.  With the big Elephant Ears bulbs that I tucked into some containers and a trial in a bed.   Today, I'm posting about how I made my first move with the bare root perennials from Costco - planting some of the Bresshingham Blue hostas .   In that post from March, I wondered where to put all of the hostas. Here (below) are a few of the places that I mentioned back in March of places I could tuck them in.  And...called out with the red arrow - where I started my planting this year:  on the corner of the screened porch:  Our plan calls for Blue Hostas (Hadspens) paired here on the corner of the house: Here (in the photo below) are the tips of the two bareroot hostas that I tucked in around the drain pipe below.  I'll keep an eye on these to see if they mature enough this year to put on a show:

I've adopted the approach to limit feeding my lawn until May.  Why?  Because I want to avoid having to cut the lawn more than I need to in Spring.  That means that all during March and April, when the big box stores are pushing their various Step 1 programs and I see all the fertilizer on pallets, I don't apply it to my lawn.   I feed late in the season (Thanksgiving time) and know that my lawn greens up on it's own in April.  And, like I said....I don't want to have to start cutting it just yet.   Last year I published my lawn care schedule .  In that post, I include a few April items that aren't feeding the lawn like Humic Acid and Lime (soil conditioners) as well as using Ironite in the front to get that dark green look (without ALL THE GROWTH).   I'm posting this on April 24, but that bag of Ironite you see in this post went down on April 18th.  I put it on the full front yard - main yard, parkway and 'in between two driveways'.  5K square feet. Note

One of the trends that I'm really enjoying in Disney Parks is the additional of some restaurant-specific Disney Parks ephemera in the shape of custom coasters.  I've documented a few of these over the years here on the blog as part of the Coaster Collection .   The last Disney one that I posted was back in 2019 when I shared one from Aulani .   This post is about some coasters from Oga's Cantina in the Black Spire Outpost on the Out Rim planet of Batuu.  Or, you could say it is located in the Star Wars Land inside of Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida.  Either way, you'd be right.  And, if you're interested, check out the full story on the place here on the Wookiepedia .   As for the rest of the Disney-related coasters in the collection, here's the rundown of the (now) 13 kinds 1 . The full Disney list includes: 1. The standard one you see in your rooms @ Walt Disney World resort hotels . 2. This black and white one from the original Disneyland Resort Ho

Here I was...thinking I'm writing a post that is going to knock a HUGE item off my 2021 to-do list in the yard.  But, when I went to go look up what number "cutting new, larger curvilinear beds" was on the list...imagine my disappointment that it isn't one of the 25 things.  Womp, womp.   But, it is still a big deal for me and a big milestone for the yard.   First, a review of a few things:  Starting with curvilinear bed design .  I covered where I wanted to go with our bed layout and how we had a bunch of "little" curves/bumps in our current beds - while the ideal state is very few, larger, swooping edges.  As Sue from Not Another Gardening Blog pointed out, these big, swooping curves are hard to pull off . I went through three colors of spray paint trying to get the curves right.  And, I think I got them like 90% there - with just a little bit of cleanup having to come in the next few seasons.   Second:  a note about the "order of operations" I

I've planted Elephant Ear bulbs in some of our patio containers over the years including in 2018 and 2019 with middling success.  I've been drawn to them for their large leaves and tropical feel - as well as their seemingly limited maintenance needs.  A little water and they figure it out on their own. So, when Nat brought home some hostas and purple astilbes from Costco in March, she also grabbed this bag of nine Esculenta Elephant Ear bulbs.   As I've found in the past, not all of the bulbs in the bag are viable.  I always find a few that have rotted out.  This year was not different.  But, I still ended up having more Elephant Ear bulbs that I really needed.   I started by planting one in the wooden patio planter box.  Here it is in the corner: And, I have a couple of wine barrel planters that are scattered in the landscape that I stuck a viable bulb and some of the rotten ones in.  Who knows, right?  Maybe they'll make it?  Here's one of them in the wine bar

Back in early March, I transplanted our original Disneyland Rose from our backyard to our sideyard where it joined the pair of other Disneyland Roses which are thriving in a sunny spot along the house.  I had never moved a rose before, so I read up on when/how to make the move and tried to follow the best practices:  pre-dug the destination hole, timed it before the bush came out of dormancy and waited to prune it back until a few weeks AFTER the transplant.   This week, I went over to check on all of the Disneyland Roses (and to confirm the potential location for a pair of espalier'd trees along the house there ) and wanted to see the difference between the three floribunda roses.   The pair of Disneyland Roses that were there pre-transplant were put in the ground in Fall 2018 .  And, I mostly neglected them.  Despite the lack of attention, they thrived and flowered.  And this past Winter, I tried to protect and overwinter them with a ring of leaf mulch .  Seemed to work.  The th

Last Summer, we bought and planted a dozen Fanal Astilbe #1 containers in the south bed of our backyard .  They immediately struggled as we went up to Wisconsin and they dried out.   When we got back, I baby'd them with a brand new soaker hose and hoped for the best that they'd all come back.  Well, this Spring, I'm seeing some good news:  All twelve are back.  Some are more vigorous than others.  But, they're all showing some purple/maroon little growth coming from the mulch. I've mentioned this before, but one of the projects that I have slated for this Spring is to set the final edges of our backyard beds in a curvilinear layout .  A month or so ago, I laid out what I called the "Order of Operations" with the backyard that details the steps that I intend to take: remove the wire (done), extend beds, transplant, clean up, plant new stuff, mulch, and lay down the wire again. As part of the 'extend the beds' project, I wanted to be sure that the c

Last Summer, I built a few firewood racks in our yard based on scrap wood that I scavenged from our neighbor's dumpster.  I put two of them next to the house and loaded them with bought firewood .  And, I built an additional one back by where our fire pit is located and loaded it with scavenged Ash firewood .  Last Fall, I also acquired even more firewood from a neighbor and ended up stacking that on a couple of two-by-fours with the hope of being able to process it this Spring.   With my brand new battery-powered chainsaw ( gloves here) , I began to cut down SOME of the larger pieces to get em into a spot where I can process the rounds.  That started, but I didn't get it all done.   As part of my Spring-time " order of operations " list, we're going to be expanding our beds.  In order to do that properly, I needed to move that existing pile of Ash rounds to a new spot.  Hence, the creation of a new firewood rack.  I built this one out of leftover lumber that I

I've been worrying about our Dawn Redwood tree for the past four weeks.  I use the traditional fingernail scrape method on tree bark to see if trees are healthy and showing green right under the bark.  Our Dawn Redwood tree seemed to be very slow to start this Spring.  I was seeing other trees have buds set and begin to leaf out in some ways while this tree was seemingly stuck in neutral.  Making matters worse, my fingernail test wasn't showing any green on the trunk.  It wasn't brown.  And the limbs weren't cracking.  But, I wasn't seeing green like I was on our other young trees.   But, I don't have a Spring 2020 post in the garden diary here to show WHEN this tree needle'd out, so that gave me concern.  What was making me relax (a bit) was this post from 2019 when I show it being 'needle'd out' in early June of 2019 .  So, imagine my delight (and, frankly RELIEF!) when I walked out in the backyard and noticed the buds swelling and showing off

The tulip bulbs that I planted last Fall in the front yard ( I planted 57 of them last Fall ) have really come up this Spring.  I'll take a proper photo of all of them - from the front - when they are all flowering.  But, for now, I wanted to document the location of the bulbs and where I can add even more this Fall.  From the front porch, this is the view of the stand of tulips around the Norway Maple tree: I wanted to post this on the blog in the Garden Diary so I remember WHERE to plant this Fall's bulbs to really fill in this area with tulips - so I circled these areas in the photo below.  I can see surrounding this tree with even more bulbs. I've posted about these tulips this Spring - first when they came up .  And then again, when they were covered in snow .  

This post is another in the series of documenting the Spring re-emergence of the various plants that I bought at last Fall's Morton Arboretum Plant Sale.  I first shared photos of the trio of Twinkle Toes Lungwort that emerged first in mid-March.  Yesterday, I posted some photos of the Chocoholic Black Snakeroot that has some lovely lacy leaves that are standing on top of purple stems in this first Spring.   Today, I'm posting a photo (below) about the All Gold Japanese Forest Grasses that I planted in the backyard around the Tree Swing Oak tree.  Formally named Hakonechloa macra "All Gold", there are six of these planted (mostly) in a drift between the tree and the fenceline interplanted with some hostas. Here's one of them peeking thru the mulch (and the wood chips that I added in late Fall): In the photo below, you can see where these six are planted - currently mixed in with some of the tulip bulbs that I planted last Fall. It is hard to tell (exactly) wher

One of the many plants that I bought at last Fall's plant sale at the Morton Arboretum was one (yes...I know.... it was a mistake to buy just one ) of these Chocoholic Black Snakeroot plants .  It is a shade plant and gets between four and five feet tall and 2.5' to 3' wide.  So, I planted it in a spot near the fence, thinking it could be one of the 'back' pieces of a layer puzzle where our plan calls for some shade-oriented hydrangeas.  Last fall, it has these beautiful white flowers on some long stalks, so I was hopeful when I bought it that it would add some new drama to this side of the yard.   Well, this Spring brings good news that this plant has come back for the first full season.  That makes the Morton Arboretum Plant Sale plants 2-for-2.  The Twinkle Toes Lungwort popped up a couple weeks ago and today, it is even flowering.  Note to self:  I should take some current photos.   Here's what the Chocoholic Black Snakeroot looks like today below.  Some pu

Back in 2017, we had a large (3" plus caliper) Chanticleer Pear tree planted in our front yard - adjacent to our garage and driveway.  That tree died in year one and was replaced.  The replacement tree suffered the same way, but it took me close to a year to figure out that the problem was water - but not drought.  It was OVERwatering and the tree was drowning.   I worked the hole and tried to break through the clay bowl, but the tree has never been right. In 2018, it flowered in November .  Weird, right?    I last covered this tree in April of last year when it was showing just a couple of flower buds .  It leaf'd out just a little bit last year and I assumed that it was a goner this Spring. So much so, that I planted another , second tree in the shadow of this one with the thinking that I'd get a half-year head start with the new tree when the time came to chop down this pear.  That tree was this very thin Red Fox Katsura tree that I planted "between two driveways&

Our front yard, multi-stem Saucer Magnolia tree is in full bloom this week and it is putting on quite a show.  We had this tree planted in Summer of 2017 and have seen it bloom in 2018 , 2020 and now (for the 3rd time) 2021.  Despite the hard, cold Winter and the late frost(s) this Spring, the flower buds persisted and began to unfurl during the first week of April.  Below, you can see one of the flower buds as it began to open up: This flowering tree (this year) is timed with our 1.5 Flowering Pear trees and the emergence of our tulip bulbs.  It is (this year), not flowering at the same time as our Cherry Blossom tree in the backyard - which is really behind this Magnolia.

Everyone has a landscape enemy.  For some, it is Creeping Charlie or Clover.  For others, it is Garlic Mustard Weed.  For others, it is Wild Violets or Plantain Weeds.   Or Nutsedge.  Or Purslane.  I have ALL OF THOSE.  But, they're not my enemy.   I have one weed that bothers me more than any other.  Because it is both everywhere and nowhere.  And I have so much trouble removing.   It is the Wild Onion .   And I've been on a multi-year crusade to eradicate it from my yard.  Yet, I can't tell if I'm winning the battle.  Here - below - is the very latest of the scourge that I yanked out of the backyard. I have - so far - filled up a five gallon bucket of these Wild Onion bulbs and A LOT of soil that came out when I yank'ed them out.   I've been at this for (now) three seasons.  Started in 2019 when I started to pull them out .  Then, I went at it again last year with remova l. I've also tried to chemically alter the soil by applying Pelletized Lime over the

I was in the Menards garden center recently and came across this rack that had four mailbox posts laying on it that had my gears turning a little bit.  Turning about what?  Well, that would be #11 on my 2021 to-do list for the season :   "Figure out SMALL tool storage - like pruners, saws, gloves, hand shovels, hose washers, other smalls." Could a mailbox post and a large, metal mailbox be the solve? I've danced around various tool storage ideas and have not settled on something that I'm in love with in terms of location, size, type, utility for gardening tool storage.  But, a mailbox solves A LOT of what I'm facing:  it is weatherproof, it closes and some of the larger ones can hold a lot of things like saws, shovels, gloves, even wire and automower supplies.  I currently keep everything in the garage, but that means that when I need them, I have to out front, grab them, then come back and do the work.   This would put my most-essential tools right on hand IN the

I've written about a patch of volunteer (I should have called them "inherited") Daffodils that live under the Northern Red Oak tree back in 2018 when I speculated that they were (indeed) daffodils .  But, that they never actually flowered for me since we lived here.  This patch of green shoots comes up every Spring.  There are like 16 distinct patches that sit in between the fence and the large Northern Red Oak tree that have put green shoots up that have an onion-like look and smell.   I've wondered WHY they haven't bloomed - could it be that they are too old? Or not enough light?  I haven't removed the foliage of these in previous Spring seasons in the hope that they'll collect enough energy to put off blooms the following year.   But this year?  We have *some* flowers.  Have a look at the photo below showing off some yellow flowers.  Pretty great!  Not all of them are even showing buds, but we'll get a few more this season, I think: This spot is a