Why I Oughta...

2024 is shaping up to the year of garden edits.  A lot less additions in our backyard garden, but some edits to shift towards things meet some criteria:   1.  Work in our yard. 2.  Are appealing (to me). 3.  Have some four-season appeal. That means that changing out things that don't meet those critieria (hostas) and replace them with things that do - both plants that I have on-hand and ones that I need to bring home. My time in this garden is too short to spend time or effort on plants that I don't love.  The edits that I'm thinking about right now focus on mass plantings and repetition.   There's a garden in our neighborhood that I walk past and admire often.  It has a large property with simple, repetitive-planted beds that have hostas, groundcover and a couple of other perennials.  There's A LOT of beds, but they MOSTLY ALL planted in the same pattern - groundcover in front, hostas behind and a third perennial in the rear.  It is simple.  And repetitive.  And lo

A few days ago, I posted photos of the latest trees that I planted via acorns (and Chestnuts) in my annual backyard tree nursery project to grow trees from seeds.  I've been at this a few years now and started with Kentucky Coffee Tree seeds in 2021 .  In 2022, I cultivated some Catalpa trees from seed .  And tried to root some Hydrangea cuttings .  By 2023, I had a number of small seedlings of different varieties that all needed to be potted-up .  And, most-recently, last Fall, I opted to go for just ONE species: Regal Prince Oak trees.  And, a couple of Chinese Chestnuts .  With those potted up (at least some of them), I thought it was time to dig-up the inventory and see how things are going with the existing seedlings. As I've done the past few years, I buried the nursery pots in the ground in hopes that they'd handle the cold Zone 6a/5b winter a little better in the ground.   Here's how things are looking now - but most haven't leaf'd out yet, so I'm n

A mature gardener can edit their garden.  I'm not there yet, but learning everyday.  And, I've made an edit to the garden that put me out of my comfort zone a little bit:  removing a tree.  The tree in question was one that I didn't plant - it was a volunteer.  A Silver Maple.  I figured out what it was last Fall and posted about Silver Maples - and the paradox of Silver Maples .   I let this grow as a volunteer and then last year it LEPT up.  Big time growth.  That put my antenna up a little bit. Things are NOT supposed to grow that fast.  Then, this past week, I noticed this foliage: Lovely, right?  Lace-like.  Purples and greens.  Almost Japanese-maple-ish.   So, I went online (again) and thought about the Silver Maple.  That foliage was striking.  But, I needed to re-think things.   A quick look around the Web and you'll discover that not only are Silver Maples fast-growing, they also have three primary issues:  weak limbs (come down in a storm), litter (helicopters

Last Fall, I collected a few dozen acorns off off a small stand of upright, columnar Oak trees that are planted in a parkway near our downtown.  On many of my early morning walks, I'd stop by, see if the acorns were 'loose' and then grab a few before they fell to the ground.  Our Oaks in our yard last year threw off A HUGE amount of acorns - a mast year.  These columnar oaks were simliar. I identified these as Regal Prince Oak trees and here's a look at some of the acorns as I collected them in September 2023 .   In November, I water-tested them (if they floated, I tossed them), then buried them in wet sand for a long Winter's nap via cold stratification .  I also grabbed three large Chinese Chestnuts and did the same - tested, then tucked-in the fridge for four+ months.   In 2022, I collected a wide variety of acorns, but didn't label them.  This year, I went with JUST ONE species - the Regal Prince Oak. Earlier this month, I took the container out of the fridg

The scourge of our neighborhood is in peak form right now.  Wild onions - with their waxy, thin green foliage can be spotted in lawns and beds all over our neighborhood.  And they seem to be getting WORSE.  Starting back in 2019, I've conducted an annual removal process of these things.  Some years - much more than others .  But, I've dug up and tossed Wild Onion bulbs every April. I was out cleaning up some of the edges this week and decided to dig some of the bulbs out.  I hate them. Turns out, wild onions are biannuals - they come back every two years .  That means that you REALLY have to be diligent for two consecutive seasons if you want to control them.  As for the lawn vs the beds - I'm coming around on the lawn, but think I'd like to attack them in the beds (especially around the tree swing tree).  

Yesterday, I posted a photo showing the four divided Fanal Astilbes that had managed to come out of dormancy for their first Spring and talked about how that emboldened me to divide even more this Fall.  The same can't be said for some of the Twinkletoes Lungwort that I also divided (at the same time) last Fall .    I put two on the boardwalk by the screened porch.  And the other two alongside those above-mentioned Astilbes.   The two by the porch?  No sign of them.  But, the other two?  They're...back.  Well...one of them is back.  The other is emerging and I'm hopeful it will put on some size.   That's a 50% success rate on these Lungwort.  And 6 out of 8 (75%) success rate on the Astilbes + Pulmonarias.  Not bad. Below is a photo of the two surviving transplants:  I have a few more plants that I divided last Fall to round-up here - ferns, grasses, alliums.  I'll go out and see what the overall survival rate is/was and use it to benchmark how aggressive I should

Last Fall, I decided to dig-up, divide and transplant four Fanal Astilbes that had been in our garden since 2020 .  They had four growing seasons under their belt and based on what I was reading, as like most other perennials, Astilbes can be divided every three-or-so-years.  But, I also know that they're finicky.  Some gardeners talk about how they can't get them to grow.  I've had (*knock wood*) pretty good luck (so far).  And, it seems that luck has extended to (at least) this Spring.   Of the four that I divided and transplanted last Fall, all four parent plants (left on the southside) and the four new divisions (planted on the north side as part of the " Hosta Replacement Project ") are back this Spring.  How lovely.   Below is a photo showing the four planted in the understory bed - on the northside.  Their first Spring where they are showing off their young, purple foliage.    I'll plan on watering these in plenty this Summer as I know they're a lit

In our old house in Elmhurst, our neighbor to the South had a massive hedge of mature Lilac shrubs.  They provided plenty of screening, but they also threw off a profusion of blooms each Spring.  When we moved, having Lilacs were on Nat's wish list.  Over the years, I've ended up planting four (two 'common' and two 'Nocture' ) and transplanting them, too.   The Common ones went in the ground in 2018 .  The Nocturne variety went in the ground in Summer of 2019 - a year later .    They never bloomed.  Too much shade, I suspected.  In the Spring of 2022, I opted to replace them with something that can tolerate the shade a bit more - and is evergreen .   That meant that I dug-up and moved all four Lilac across the yard to an area that gets more sun.   Their first year (in their new location), the Common Lilacs threw off blooms .  Surprisingly.  That was 2022.  Last year, I don't seem to have posted about them.   But this Spring?  We have blooms.  More than in 20

Yesterday, I posted some photos showing how I used the "Lasagna Method" to smother some grass with cardboard and top-it with mulch to improve a foundation-adjacent garden bed on the side of our house.  The goal was to raise up the soil level, smother out grass and improve the area looks-wise.   But, that wasn't the only recent improvement that I completed over on that side of the house.  While I was using gravel and river rock to level-out the pizza oven site, I decided to take a couple of bags of the River Rock to put to work by the downspout surface drain outlet.   I've been wrasslin' with surface water on this side of my house for years - here's a post from 2020 where I talk about 'floating mulch' due to the downspout release .  Over the years, I've seen the area erode and this Spring, I've attempted to address it in a few ways.  First, by hauling over some of the excavated material from the pizza oven project to 'fill in' some low

Last Fall, when I was digging up/out the (extended) IB2DWs bed for the small conifer garden along the property line, I turned to a mix of grass-removal techniques.  The whole area was turf, so I did three things:  Dug it out, smothered it/covered it up and flipped it over (and smothered it).   For the material that I excavated, I brought most of it over to the southside of the house and used it to fill in the little gully/swale on the side of the house.  And, I tucked in a bunch of it (flipped over) along the side of the porch where I'd seen some erosion over the years.  On this side of the house, we have just ONE downspout that handles a big portion of the roof and when it gets clogged up, that gutter 'tops'.  That's one source of the erosion.  The other is the downspout outlet.  Whatever *does* get down the downspout, comes out one of those surface drains.    That 'flipped' turf was a way to raise the ground-level here.  And, like a bunch of the areas that I w

Last Fall, I extended (what I call) the IB2DWs (In Between Two Driveways) bed to reach down along the property line, all the way to connect to the small sidewalk-adjacent bed.  In it, I planted a number of conifers ( Conifers Should Come First) , transplanted a few divisions (Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass and Serendipity Allium ) and tucked in a few other things.  When I made that bed, I was converting it from turf and that meant that I used a combination of techniques:  removing the turf, smothering the turf with cardboard and just leaving some of it in place.  I planted everything in biosolids and then topped the bed with even more biosolids.   But...I mostly focused on the planting.  And left the bed in a not-so-finished state.  That meant that grass was poking through in spots, the edges weren't clean and I applied arborist wood chips.  The chips were intended as an initial attempt to both retain moisture and (hopefully) improve the soil.  This area is hard-to-grow and liv

Last Spring, my neighbor to the south shared a couple of native Spring Ephemerals that live in her garden - Virginia Bluebells and Bloodroot - or Sanguinaria canadensis .  They grow in a woodland part of her backyard garden and arrive in early Spring and depart before everything else comes alive.  She gave me a clump of each and I dug them into the bed that is right across the fence from where they came from - my thought was if they were happy on one side of the fence, they'll be happy on the other.  The conditions are virtually identical. The Virginia Bluebells came back earlier this month.  That's nice to see.  But, the Bloodroot just arrived.  See below for a look at the current state of this native Spring ephemeral: Nice to see this one come back for another year - as the transplanting process last year was stressful. These naturalize and spread out to create a little colony or drift (if conditions are right).  The idea of " Spring ephemerals " is something that

This Spring is full of new garden experiences for me.  That's all thanks to the big "Fall Planting" sprint that I ran through in October of 2023, when I tucked in dozens of new things including the creation of the small, linear dwarf conifer garden IB2DWs.  I found a pair of Weeping Norway Spruces that were labeled 'pendula'.   I put one up closer to the garage and the other one further down closer to the sidewalk .  I staked them both up and hoped for the best.   They both handled the winter just fine (as expected) and are starting to put on a little spring flush of needle growth.  But, one of them is also showing some cones.  That's nice.  But, even nicer?  They're red raspberry-colored cones.  Small ones, but certainly raspberry-colored cones.  See below for a couple of photos. What is interesting (to me, at least) is that there's not any mention online of these Weeping Norway Spruces producing red cones.  Other spruces - like Picea abies 'Acro

  The season is here. The Yard and Garden Season, that is. Each Spring arrives and I’m OVERWHELMED by what I need to do, should do, have to do, might do in and around our garden. The arrival of trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals at the big box stores and nurseries just add to the strong urge to GET GOING out there. But, over the years, I’ve learned that I need to prioritize. And plan. And give myself something to measure-up against, so I know that I’ve accomplished what I thought I needed to focus on each season. The first year I did one was 2019 and I've done one every year. Here is 2020 .  2021 .  2022 .  And last year - 2023 .  Each year, I score myself against the 25 items that I picked out.  Last year, in addition to scoring (22 out of 25 marked 'complete' ), I also wrote up a list of 10 takeaways/lessons learned that have become important in thinking about my path forward.  In that list of 10 takeaways, I included things like:  no more shade trees (for now)