Why I Oughta...

There are a lot of things that I really like in our garden that make an impact.  There are also other things that I've planted and occasionally forget about, but when I *do* spot them, I realize how much I love them and how great they (silently) perform their job. One of those silent success stories are the Doublefile Viburnum - treeform shrubs - that are planted along the Northern Property line.  There are three in total.  I found them in 2022 and planted four.  Three of which are still around.  Two along the northern fenceline, one in the back.   These shrubs show off in Spring with a big, beautiful set of white blooms.  Here are some photos from this year's Spring flower show .   Right now, the shrub is turning purple.  And, it looks really great.  Here, below, is a look at the foliage turning color, but hanging on to the branches (so far): I looked to buy more of these this Spring, but didn't find them at the nursery. ...

There's a time in the early morning when the sun is just coming up and begins to peek over our house and starts hitting the top of the trees in our backyard.  Right now, it makes the yard almost look electric.  The Northern Red Oak tree (tree swing tree) looks like it is lighting up everything else.  And, it is red.  RED.  Orange and red.  Normally, I'd say this tree doesn't do *that much* of a "Fall Show".  Hews closer to browns and a little orange than reds.  But this year?  It looks like it is on fire.  Pretty great to see: Last year, I p osted a photo of the backyard tree canopy about two weeks later.   In early/mid November.  And this same tree swing tree is orange.  And, in that post, I made the same comment :  this tree normally doesn't do much in the Fall but turn brown and cling tightly to it's crispy leaves.   Perhaps, I need to change my view on the matter.  Two years in a row is a pattern....

We have a small caliper, immature (and short-in-height) Blackgum tree that I planted in our front yard parkway in April of 2025 .  A few weeks earlier (as I was shopping for this very tree), I wrote a "getting to know" post about the Blackgum (or Black Tupelo) tree that is native to Northern Illinois.  In that post , I included this (partial) description: "One of the most spectacular and reliable fall coloring trees, turning brilliant shades of red and orange..." Last year, the tree did, indeed, turn a lovely color for fall.  Red.  Here it was in mid-November when the leaves were still on the tree and the tree was crimson-colored .   This year, that same color has returned.  About 2 weeks earlier.   Here is the tree as it stands right now - at the end of October - below: This tree has really been VERY SLOW TO GROW.  As in...has barely put on any growth in two growing seasons.   I asked Google's Gemini why that might be?...

We've had a weird Fall.  A few days ago, I posted the 10-day forecast that showed no frost arriving in our Zone 6a/5b Growing Zone well beyond the first few days of November .  I talked about how (according to the Illinois State Climatologist), the latest first frost in Northern Illinois (on record) was November 11th .  That means that everything is still....well...hanging on in the garden.   I just looked at the weather app and I can see all the way out to November 11th - the 'record' for last first frost.  And, right now....it is showing one day between now and then with lows in the upper 30s.  And, November 11th is showing a low of 47 degrees.  eeek.   That means that things aren't going to go dormant due to the cold.  Does that mean that I have to keep watering things?  Probably. But, it also means that some of the things in the garden.  Like with our Korean and Japanese Maples.   They have, historically, bee...

This Summer, I planted a small, 7-gallon upright Orange Dream Japanese Maple in the backyard .  About half-way back from the front border, along the southside of the yard.  Just past the Oakleaf Hydrangeas.  Or, at least that's what I *think* this tree is in terms of variety.  I've learned over the years that if you are buying Japanese Maples at the orange Big Box parking lot nursery, you have to take their labels with a healthy skepticism.   They label things that are clearly laceleaf as Bloodgoods.  And, they label fan-leaf as Red Dragons.   This one has red stems and fern-shaped fan leaves.  So, it (initally) checks out as Orange Dream.  I didn't see the Spring leaf-out, but we're about to enter the "Fall Show" season.   What does the tree look like right now?  Upright, full and green.   Here, below, is a photo showing the Japanese Maple as it stands in late October after the first few months in the groun...

We have a single, lone white Begonia that is in an outdoor container on our front porch.  I'm actually not sure where it came from, but we've had it for a couple of years.  Yes, years.  This one has been overwintered indoors in our dining room and cared-for by Natalie along with her other house plants.   I usually take photos of plants that I buy (along with the container and/or plant label), but a quick search through Google Photos for [white begonia] turns up nothing.  So, I have no intel on what this might be. But, that doesn't mean it isn't a lovely flower.  Especially right now.  In late October.  It is full of delicate, white ruffled blooms with yellow centers.  Here, below, are a couple of photos.  First one shows the full plant.  Second one is a close-up of the bloom: I'll bring this inside this week and begin to transition it towards living indoors.  First, with a stop in the screened porch, then into the dining r...

A few years back, after researching Japanese Maples , I ended up buying my first Emperor 1 Japanese Maple.  Emperor 1 is similar to Bloodgood Japanese Maple in looks (dark leaf), but it seems it might be a bit more cold tolerant, so it works well in our Zone 6a/5b border garden. I bought the Emperor 1 and planted it back by the firepit .  That was 2021.  2024 was one of those 17-year cicada years here in the suburbs of Chicago.  That means that we were SWARMED by them.  I did the best I could to try to protect some things with tulle, but they're aggressive and ended up killing off that Emperor 1 .  It was pretty good sized at the time.  Before it was lost, I came across a second one.  Smaller.  From a Big Box nursery.  In May of 2023, I planted it in the front edge of the [kitchen curved] bed in our backyard .  It was a bit taller than knee-high, but not quite up to my waist. By August that first year (August 2023), the tree had put...

A couple of days ago, I posted some photos of the first few Sweet Nathalie dahlia blooms that have (finally) opened up on my lone (single) Sweet Nathalie decorative dahlia plant.  I talked about how it was *very* late arriving, but I wasn't quite sure why it was so far behind.  Not enough light?  Perhaps.  It is tucked in amongst some grasses and hydrangeas and didn't get the best access to the full, open sky. But, I also have another late-arriving dahlia.  And, this one is even FURTHER behind Sweet Nathalie.  And, it doesn't suffer from the same light conditions.  Rather, this one is situated in a good spot.  Just a few feet from other, well-grown dahlias (aside from the spider mite damage...).  But, it has a different issue:  a late start.   That dahlia is the one that started the whole dahlia craze (at least, I think it did?):  Cafe au Lait.   I wrote a post in late May about how a couple of my tubers weren't...

Frost is how the gardening season ends.  It brings with it death.  And dormancy.  Another season in the books.  In some ways, it also brings relief.  Things slow down.  Stop growing.  And, I can shift into a 'closing up' mindset.   But, I can't do that until we get a frost.  The furthest that the forecast looks out on Weather dot com is between now and Thursday, November 5th. That's two weeks out.  And, here, below is what it looks like: What is notable?   The lows.   Look at them.  The lowest LOW listed between now and November 5th is 43 degrees.  That's 11 degrees ABOVE freezing.   Now, I recognize that weather forecasts aren't set in stone, but let's (for now) operate under the assumption that this is close to accurate.  We won't see a frost for at least two weeks. Note:  Parts of Northern Illinois had some frost earlier in October.  Here's a Tweet from the National Weather S...

When you walk into the Home Depot and are hit in the face by the strong smell of cinnamon-scented pinecones, you know it is Amaryllis bulb season.  Home Depot usually carries a few kinds of Christmas flowers (Amaryllis) and bulbs:  Waxed bulbs (That grow on their own), kits (a bulb and a little pot and some planting medium) and individual bulbs.  I've shied away from the kits (due to performance over the years) and have mostly bought all of our Amaryllis bulbs from Wannemakers.  But, the bulbs this year at Home Depot were worth a look. I've posted about the Amaryllis bulbs at Home Depot before.  Here is the post from 2025 when they carried nine (9) types of Amaryllis bulbs and some Paperwhites.  Notably...the Amaryllis bulbs in 2025 were $9.98 each.  I bought three Blossom Peacock bulbs and put them together in a cache pot .   This year?  The one Home Depot we went to recently is carrying just five (5) types of Amaryllis.  And, the...

Five years ago this month, I planted a very small caliper (with a trunk 'injury') Ginkgo tree in our backyard along the southside about half-way back.  The tree went in the ground in October 2021 .  The trunk was basically cracked wide-open ( look at the photos in this post ), but I wrapped it up, supported it with a bamboo pole and hoped for the best.   In the five years since (growing seasons: 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and now 2026), the tree has survived.  And, put on some growth.  When it went in the ground, it was about waist-high.  Here, below, is what it looks like in the garden today: That's a little hard to read in terms of where the tree starts/stops.  So, here, below, is an annotated version showing the tip of the tree: I took out the tape measure and the apical meristem (leader) now reaches 96".  So, this is an eight-foot-tall Ginkgo tree.  And, the trunk has thickened-up and is no longer pencil-thin.  I've NOT pruned this ...

In what is probably the final week of my dahlia blooms, I have one plant that is (finally) producing its initial blooms:  Sweet Nathalie.   Last year, I saw my first Sweet Nathalie bloom in early September and talked about how it is a 'slow to bloom' .  This year, the blooms came in mid-October.  Five or six weeks later than 2025.   But, what do they look like?  They're pretty great: Sweet Nathalie Decorative Dahlia Bloom - Blush Pink Sweet Nathalie is billed as a dahlia that compares with one of the dahlias that everyone loves:  Cafe au Lait.  Here's what Longfield says about Sweet Nathalie : If you love the colors of Cafe au Lait, this dahlia is a must-have. Sweet Nathalie walks a similar line between buff and blush pink, but its flowers are about half the size of Cafe au Lait and the shape and color are more consistent. What's interesting about that (for me) is that Sweet Nathalie is my second slowest-to-bloom dahlia.  The one th...

I was recently up in Racine Wisconsin where I spent some time at a (pretty nice) youth sports field complex.  They have a beer garden - which feels *very Wisconsin*.  And, the fields were nice.  Grass was cut short and nicely groomed.  But, over by the bathrooms was a collection of conifers that were worth documenting.  Someone planted a number of things in a little cluster and over the years they've matured into a really nice-looking conifer collection.   One of the standouts is this large, columnar Weeping White Spruce.  It is an almost-perfect specimen.  Shooting straight up in the air.  Narrow.  And really quite nice: Planted in the beds around the Weeping White Spruce, they had two pairs of other weeping confirs.  Two of them are (I'm pretty sure) Weeping Norway Spruces that they haven't really trained upwards.  The reach about five or six feet tall, then begin to cascade down and all around.  Interesting to see ...

Tired of those Mums that you bought for your front porch keep splaying wide open and flopping over, revealing an empty crown?  That's what happens when the tips of the flower stems get weighted down with the blooms, as they open up and grow.  That is...if you keep them alive until then.  Mums are hard to make work, but when they do, they're beautiful.   So, you likely know all the tips by now:  soak the root ball in water.  Water from the bottom-up.  Don't buy them too early in the season. Here's the best tip I can give you in terms of something you can do to keep them looking good: Wire them up.   Wrap a wire or string around the stems to corral them together.  And, keep the crown of the mums together and the stems upright. Here, below are a couple of photos of the Mums we brought home for our front porch this weekend.  I used padded garden wire around the stems: I also placed the nursery pot into a garden trug that is full of...

I've grown Dinnerplate dahlias on purpose .  And, this season I grew Dinnerplate Dahlias NOT on purpose.  The one in question is Mero Star.  NOT, Metro Star.  I have two of them in the front yard - one in the Island Bed and one under the Triumph Elm tree by our front porch. I posted the first photo of one of these blooms at the end of July when they were just starting .  And, the petals were dark red, almost purple.  As the season has gone on, the white tips/outline have emerged.  These are really lovely when they are on the plant: Mero Star Dahlia in Bloom They, however, have very short stems.  Both of the plants are healthy and didn't really have any problems.  No virus.  No pests (no Spider Mites!!!).  I'm planning on digging up and saving these tubers, but I'm not sure that I'll grow them again.  Or, if I do, I won't be growing them for cut flowers.  That means they will need to be in spot where the blooms can show-off...

In previous growing seasons, some of the Japanese Aralia Sun Kings have flowered.   They send up a shoot of a tight cluster of yellow-ish tight flowers on single stalks.  Here is a post from early September of 2025 when I caught what I thought were (just) flowers that emerged (for me) for the first time .   In that post , I included this description: Sun King’ is a golden-leaved cultivar that features a large rounded clump of golden yellow compound leaves which is topped in summer by 2’ tall spikes of tiny white flowers. Deep reddish-purple to purplish-black inedible berries ripen in fall . Birds love the berries. (emphasis, mine) Well...guess what?  For the first time, these purplish-black berries arrived.  Pretty neat.  Here's a look at one of the most-mature Sun Kings that had its flowers turn into berries.  A lot like what happens with Viburnum: Nice little mid-October highlight in an otherwise "beginning to go to sleep" garden that is ti...

If you follow any part of the pizza making (both home-baking and professional) internet on YouTube or TikTok or Instagram or even PizzaMaking Forums, you can't go far without people talking about a few cheeses that people are passionate about:  Grande mozzarella.  And Locatelli Romano.   So, when I saw some Locatelli nestled-in the cooler next to some more familiar brands, I grabbed it.  I've bought a lot of Pecorino Romano over the years.  From Angelo Caputos.  From Jewel.  From Pete's.  From various Italian markets.  But, none of them (until now) have been Locatelli brand. For any other pizza makers in the Chicago suburbs:  Is this new to our market?  I think it is?  I certainly haven't seen it at grocery stores until the past month.   For now...Let's call it new (to me):  Locatelli Pecorino Romano Cheese .  I have found this stuff in two places (so far):  Jewel and Standard Market.   J...

There's a ball dahlia that is growing in the front yard Island Bed that is a variety that I didn't plant.  At least...I didn't THINK that I planted it.  Of the 42 dahlia tubers that I stuck in the garden (all over the front and back yards), I didn't plant any orange ones.  But, I'm growing something that is certainly orange.  And yellow.  According to the dahlia-planting map, I stuck a Burlesca dahlia tuber into the front yard island bed.  And, this, below, is what is blooming off that tuber: That's NOT Burlesca .  My Burlesca dahlias are pink .  Not orange.   I'm pretty sure it is Mirella - a ball dahlia variety.  Here's what Longfield Gardens  shows as Mirella.  They don't describe it, but the photos seem to line up.   I bought the Burlesca tubers from Longfield.  Looking through the rest of their 'orange' varieties, the Mirella is the only one that looks *close* to what I'm growing .  Thus....Dahlia ...

Just about every morning...if I wanted to...I could go out and cut an armful of dahlia blooms and bring them into put in a jar on the counter.  Here, below, is a look at what I sniped off the dahlia plants around the garden on a recent morning.  Includes (of course) Saint Martin waterlily dahlias, a Tsuki Yori No Shisha (Semi-Cactus) Dahlia white blooms (which...I'll have you know are "fimbriated" dahlias ), Ivanetti balls, Milena Fleur (formal) decorative, a few (what I think are) Mirella ball dahlias , Blue Wish dahlias, Great Silence (decorative) and the standout:  a single Peaches-n-cream dahlia bloom.  Here are a few photos of the flowers as cut off the stems: And, here, below, are those same flowers tucked into a recycled pickle jar on the counter.    I'm now close to 25 arrangements that I posted about this growing season .   Dahlia arrangement with Peaches-n-cream, Ivanetti, Saint Martin, Blue Wish, Milena Fleur, Mirella and more.... While...

The wood-burning fireplace season is rapidly approaching.  Don't tell the dahlias that, but it is a reality that I'm actively preparing for around here.  And, that starts and ends with our annual firewood delivery.  This year, we once again had three face cords of kiln-dried firewood delivered:  One each of Birch, Cherry and Oak hardwoods. Since 2021 , I've been buying our firewood from The Grove in Sugar Grove.  Their prices are fair and their wood has been clean, dry and nicely split.   They dumped the load on our driveway and we got busy moving it back to the racks.  Filling the racks on the screened porch (one of each wood), the sideyard racks and the little side stoop that is under cover on the side of our house.   Here are a few photos of the delivery and the full racks (for consumption check-in purposes, of course).  The racks on the side of the house are full.  Left is Oak.  Right is Cherry.  I need to get the...