Why I Oughta...

The small raised vegetable bed on our patio is home to a couple of tomato plants and some herbs every growing season.  Those plants pull the nutrients out of the soil pretty rapidly, so each Spring I need to top-off this bed with some new organic material.  Below, is a photo showing the pre-topping-off state of the raised bed showing some left-over stems and other leaf litter.   This being a vegetable bed, I'm careful with what I put in here - so this year (like last year), I opted to use a bag and a half of composted manure - brand name Moo-Nure.  I've used this in various beds in the garden to improve the soil conditions and to provide a nutrient-rich plantingbed.  See below for the Moo-Nure bag: This stuff is R I C H, so I opted to spread out the bag and just leave the bed to sort-of "mellow out".  I'll plant this up in the coming week-or-so, but will allow the composted manure to aerate-and-chill for a couple of cycles before adding the plants....

A couple weeks ago, I potted up a number of stored and newly purchased Dahlia tubers in one-gallon nursery pots .  All of the stored tubers (Melina Fleur Dahlias) from last year were stored over-winter in Saran Wrap in the garage and a few of them were already showing some growth/sprouts of new growth off the tubers.  That lead to some of them moving fast to show new foliage - above the soil - with new shoots of life.   See below for a few photos of the tubers growing new green growth.   After these put on a couple sets of leaves, I'll move them out of the basement and into the screened porch.  There, they'll get A LOT more light and a tiny bit of wind (when I open the windows) and can continue their growing process.  Once they put on another set of leaves out there, I'll begin to harden them off by putting them outside for an ever-increasing amount of time.   That means they'll be in the porch for 4-5 days, then begin to harden-off for ...

At the recent Morton Arboretum Arbor Day Plant sale, I bought a new Climbing Hydrangea for our backyard.  This one is in a one-gallon container and priced at just $28.  Here, below, is the sign from the sale that includes a couple of photos and a description showing it can reach thirty-feet tall and can tolerate part shade and/or full shade.  The scientific name is Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris.   Here is the climbing hydrangea in the nursery pot with the small wooden trellis supporting the vine.  I'd say the vine is 18" tall from the soil-level: Climbing Hydrangea Below is the plant tag from the pot that says:  "Showy white flowers in summer.  Self clinging vine." This is our second climbing hydrangea.  I put one in the backyard by the firepit in 2023 .  At first, the vine was doing well.  But, last year it suffered a setback.  Here's a post from September of 2024 when the vine had declined .  I'm not sure if it was...

In the Fall of 2023, I planted a pair of Matcha Ball Ash Leaf Spirea shrubs - one in the front yard and one in the backyard.  The one in front didn't come back this year, but the one in back leaf'd out and is now on its second full growing season and doing well.   I was drawn to these during my Japanese Maple phase and when I saw another one at the Big Box nursery recently, I decided to bring it home to add a new, different color and texture to the front yard Island bed. These are dwarf-like shrubs that has lace-leaf or fern-like foliage.  Here's what First Editions says about the Matcha Ball shrub : Forming a perfect round ball fern-like leaves cover Matcha Ball® in a fresh shade of green, much like Matcha tea. When the leaves first emerge in very early spring, the leaves and petioles have hints of red and orange-peach that ultimately mature to green in the summer and yellow in the fall. The photo at the top shows off those orange-peach color.  Here, below, is...

Last year, I planted three Inferno Coleus in the Island Bed in our front yard - the first time I've used Coleus as a bedding plant.  By the end of the season, I wrote this post praising coleus in mid-October .   I learned to like them so much that I included "use more coleus" as my #6 item on my 2025 to-do list .  My plan for the island bed was to extend the bed (done) and plant it full this year .  Part of that planting is to use a sun-tolerant coleus in front of the trees (Ginkgo and Korean Maple) and behind the (planned) perennials.   I found these striking "sun coleus" at the nursery and decided to buy two six-packs of them:   The tag says they're named Crimson Gold Versa Coleus: Here is what Ball Seed has to say about Crimson Gold Coleus : Versatile coleus variety thrives in sun and shade. Long-lasting, deep red leaves with golden-green edges pop as landscape or garden component. Well-branched, vigorous habit. With twelve (12) plugs in-h...

After finding a falling for a new (to me...at the time) fern, I planted three Crested Surf Japanese Painted ferns in the backyard in 2021 .   They had a hard-time getting established, so I wasn't sure if they were coming back those first few seasons.  Now...in their fifth season, I'm seeing them push through the thick mulch layer with fronds unfurling in early May.    See below for the three Crested Surf ferns that are planted in a triangle: Similar to other things, I'm thinking that I planted these too far apart.  These, too, should be [candidates for dividing] this Fall.  

A quiet workhorse in the shady understory part of our garden are the three Queen of Hearts Brunnera that are planted along the front border.  They went in during the Summer of 2021 and I haven't thought much about them since .   Below is a photo showing these shade-loving perennials in full bloom with their delicate blue flowers on the tips of 'sprays' above the silver-lined foliage.   Looking at this cluster (now), I think I planted these too far apart and should have pulled them closer.  Perhaps one way to rectify this gap in the middle is to think about dividing a couple of these this Fall to add one-or-two more plants.  Marking this as a [candidate for dividing] for later this Fall.  

Yesterday, I introduced the Pink Beauty Doublefile Viburnum and showed how I planted the first (of two) flowering shrubs behind the Dawn Redwood in the backyard .  Today, I'm showing the other one.  This one is planted on the southside of the backyard, near the container water feature.   In the original plan, we were looking at a few Tardiva Hydrangeas along the fenceline on the southside .  As part of the "lilac replacement project", we sort-of called an audible and went with some Green Giant Thujas with alternating flowering shrubs in-between.   Earlier this Winter, I mused about adding more Thujas along the fenceline - so I wanted to keep that option open .  So, I chose to plant this a little bit 'up' from the fence.  In what would be an 'in between' spot between those (potentially) future Thujas .   Just like the other one, I pulled back the mulch, dug a 'f ive dollar hole ' and watered it in heavily.  Below are a couple ph...

I've talked about how the (dang) rabbits have destroyed a number of our oakleaf hydrangeas in the backyard.  I *really* like Oakleaf Hydrangeas, but I've mused (post here) if I'm just fighting nature too much and should plant things that can do better.   One of the shrubs that we have growing in the yard is a number of viburnums.  They, too, are flowering shrubs.  And they, too can handle some shade.  We have two different varieties:  doublefile and Chicago Lustre Arrowwood.  They've both done well.  The doublefile are treeform - which I really like as we can plant *under* them .  The Chicago Lustre have done well - despite the rabbit pressure.   There are a couple spots in our backyard that still need screening shrubs, so I always stop by the flowering shrub section of the big box stores to see if there's anything interesting.  I found a pair of these "Pink Beauty" Doublefile Viburnum at Menards.  (The trick to s...

For the past year-or-so, I've been thinking about this inspiration photo that shows a combination of blue-green, upright conifer trees flanked by Stachys Hummelo perennials in a mass planting .   I talked about using it in the front yard, but had not come across Wichita Blue Junipers in the wild, so the idea sort-of just hung on the shelf.   That was...until I went to the big box nursery recently and saw these blue-needle upright conifers in the parking lot amongst the big masses of arborvitae.  These looked interesting.  Upon closer inspection...it turns out...these are what I've been thinking about for the past year:  Wichita Blue Juniper trees.   The Missouri Botanical Garden describes Wichita Blue Junipers thusly: ‘Wichita Blue’ is a compact, conical, male form that grows slowly (6-12” per year) to 10-15’ tall, but may eventually reach 15-30’ tall. As the cultivar name suggests, it is noted for its blue or blue-gray foliage that retains ...

#15 on my 2025 to-do list is to "lean into plants that are working" .   That largely means planting things that have been successful - either by getting established or not being destroyed by drought, rabbits, soil conditions or disease.    In 2022, I planted my first few Nepetas.  Catmint.  Roy Diblik up at Northwind Perennial Farm uses Nepeta in his matrix plantings and after researching a few varieties, I bought Cat's Pajamas and planted it IB2DWs .  Cat's Pajamas has been a good garden plant in both IB2DWs and I also have one in the cut flower garden on the side .  I haven't divided them (yet), but that's probably something I should look at for this year.   I'd put Nepeta into the category of plants that "are working".  With the new (large) pizza oven bed needing to be filled, when I came across a new (to me) variety of Nepeta, I decided to bring home three of them. This chartreuse-colored Nepeta is named "Chartreuse on the Loose...

Back three weeks ago, I posted a photo and wondered if the Sun King Aralias that I planted last year were "back" for their second growing season .  I was concerned because I didn't baby these last year - and neglected them a little bit when it came to watering/irrigation and weeding.  I was so focused on the pizza oven that I fell-down a little bit in terms of garden maintenance.   I posted six (not five like I said in April) Golden Japanese Spikenard 'Sun Kings' in the back yard as part of a [garden edit].  I was seeing *some* growth by the stalks of last year's growth in late April, but today....I'm seeing foliage across all six plants. Here, below, is a photo from this week showing the six chartreuse-colored perennials that are putting on foliage and growing in early May: My plan this year is to pay close attention to these this season - in terms of watering and weeding.  I had them mulched in (professionally), so I'm hoping that will help ease the...

Last month, I went to the annual Morton Arboretum Arbor Day Plant sale and was (surprisingly) restrained in what I brought home.  I'll get to posts about each of the perennials (and one vine) as they go in the garden, but I also wanted to share a few things that caught my eye at the sale.  As usual, there's far more at the sale than one could ever imagine planting in their garden.  Due to the conditions in our garden, I was more focused on trees/shrubs and (mostly) shade or part-shade perennials.   Here are a few things that caught my eye at this year's sale.   They had Shawnee Brave Bald Cypress trees for just $33.  This is an upright version of the Bald Cypress.  At $33, you might imagine they're pretty small.  But, a super unique tree. A tree that has been on my 'wish list' for a while noe:  Chamaecyparis Soft Serve - This is the 'Gold' cultivar - which makes it even more unique.  At $25, this is another rare evergreen tree....