Why I Oughta...

Back at the end of April, I posted a photo of the new Mason Bee House that my sister gave me for my birthday.  I hung it on our fence, on the north fence line down in the low spot of our yard - which due to the swails/drainage means that's the spot that has the most moisture.  Hence...access to mud.  It also gets morning and mid-day sun. Which are all the components for a good placement (access to mud, stable location and partial sun) of a Mason Bee House. And, much to my surprise, I've found that the house is being occupied!  Yeah...at least some of the chambers are filled.  Look closely at the photo above, you'll see some of the bamboo cavities are filled with mud.  That means there's larvae behind them. Here's a marked up version of the house showing the filled chambers. I count 14 little bees behind mud and based on what I read online , these things will live inside those chambers for close to a year and will emerge in the Spring of 2019.

The anticipation has been killing me.  I've been waiting for six weeks for this day:  when our Frans Fontaine Columnar Hornbeam trees arrive.  That's the pile of eight of them after they had been delivered by the landscaper and before they were hauled into position.  These are 2.5" caliper trees and they are about 12' tall and - at their widest - about 30" wide.  Up near the top, where they will be showing over the fence, they're about 10" to 12" wide currently. I posted a bit ago showing the markings on the ground where these trees are going including the spacing - which is about 6' apart .  And here's a look from the other direction (looking from front to rear yard). The trees are just starting to leaf out, but are already capable of screening somewhat.  Look at this photo below that shows how when looking 'through' them, you can see how they screen our house.  Also, you'll note that these have limbs about two-to-three f

Like most every year in the past, I received a nice set of Sunflower seeds for my birthday.  This year, I received five different varieties including:  Carmel Hybrid, Velvet Queen, Italian White, Autumn Beauty Mix and Evening Sun (below).  I put these down in a the rear, south fence line amongst some natural areas.  I've posted a few times over the years.  The first time was in 2011 when I had our initial growth  in our backyard by our playground.  By 2013, I moved the location and planted them in the front of our old fence .  And had some good growth.  In 2014, I went, again, with a wide variety .  And in 2016, I received some seeds , but since we had already moved out, I don't remember if I ever planted these at Equation Boy/Man's house in Elmhurst.  I soaked these seeds for about 4 hours before planting them, so I'm hoping that they'll germinate quickly and we'll get some decent growth, knowing they take about three months (Mid/late August) for bloo

Here is the third of three Earth Day 2018 trees, but this one, while bought on Earth Day, wasn't planted on Earth Day.  The Babe picked this one (for reasons I'll describe), but couldn't decide on the location at first.  So it sat on our patio, in the pot for a couple of weeks.  Reminder...the other two Earth Day trees from this year are a Red Maple Sun Valley tree that we planted all the way in the back and a flowering pear tree that we planted on the south fence line .  This tree is a flowering cherry, but different than our Kwanzan flowering Cherry as this one is a grafted tree that weeps.  Pretty sure that this is a tree that - if not for a nursery - wouldn't exist normally.  (Who knows...maybe no trees would??)  It is smallish and will only get between eight and twelve feet tall and about six feet of spread.  Here's the tag that shows the name Prunus x 'Snofozam' PPAF .  Also note that it says "attracts butterflies".  And that was

Back at the beginning of April, I posted a photo of the sideyard where we've been planning on putting up a privacy hedge/screen consisting of European Columnar Hornbeam trees.  At the time, I called it a 'last look' at this area, but here we 50 days later and guess what?  Still no trees.  Still no privacy in the screened porch. But that pink paint you see above?  That's a good sign!  The trees are on their way.  Working with Chris Paul of Green Grass Landscaping (did I mention that Chris was the Consul - aka President - of my Fraternity House in College!) just marked out the locations of each of the eight trees that are being installed. The photo above is the one looking east towards the front of our house.  In the top right, you can see our screened porch. The pink x's painted on the grass are where the tree trunks are planned to go:  6 feet apart and 30 inches from the fence.  That will allow them to spread a bit and - over time - become a hedge.  Take

I've documented quite a bit of the new trees that we've planted over the past year of living in Downers, but I haven't really documented in my [ garden diary ] any of the existing trees that we inherited with the property.  I'd consider the lot we're living on to be 'wooded', so it would be a mistake - in terms of garden diary-ing -  to document only the eleven little, young ones I've planted in the past twelve months .  One of the trees we inherited is this three trunk River Birch - which according to the Missouri Botanical Garden  Plant Finder  is "generally considered to be the superior growth habit for this species."  This tree is located on the north side of our lot, about ten feet from the fence, right where the six-foot-fence section transitions down to the four-foot section.  You can see the Mason Bee House that I hung on the fence in the background and like many of the other existing trees that aren't clinging to the fence lin

Spring flowers have hit our yard.  And also our flowering trees.  That includes our Kwanzan Flowering Cherry tree that is planted in our backyard.  The photo above is of some of the blooms that have emerged recently on the upper branches.  The history of this tree starts in March of 2017 when we bought it after a trip to Tokyo where I took in the Cherry Blossoms.  It lived on the driveway for a few months while we built our #newoldfarmhouse and we finally planted it at the end of June .  It survived the Winter and this Spring, buds started to open - despite the brutally long cold weather.  And now, it seems like it is on a good trajectory with new growth and seemingly happy in terms of sun/location in the yard.  Even after we added the one new bed to the south fence line, this tree is still kind of out on an island.  We laid down a ring of mulch ( but not a volcano !) around the tree and so it feels anchored, but will have to wait until next year when we add another line of beds

After a long, cold early Spring, we finally have some color popping up in the #newoldbackyard.  However....I only count 24 of them, though.  ( I planted 30 tulips last fall .)  I also posted about these very tulips emerging for the first time earlier this year.  They're located along the fenceline largely because that's where we had available space last fall because the area in front of them was lawn.  But, as you can see in the photo above, we expanded the bed (and relocated the Automower boundary wire), so this fall I'm planning on relocating these bulbs from the fence to the front of the bed. Also, interesting, is the blue-ish flower growing behind the bulbs.  Our neighbors have it running in their beds and it has crept across the fence.  I'm pretty sure it is Virginia Bluebells , and it is quite striking, so I'm not unhappy about it migrating northwards.   I'll keep an eye on them this Spring and perhaps if they continue to creep, they deserve their ow

I posted about some of the various hostas that we've added to our #newoldbackyard recently including the unknown varieties of what I'm calling 'teardown' hostas that came out of a yard down the street of a home that was getting torn down and the Bressingham Blues that we bought at Costco in a bulk bag .  Above are two more varieties that I scored at Menards recently and planted in the yard:  Fantabulous and Christmas Tree. Here's a page that describes the Christmas Tree variety .  And a page that describes the Fantabulous variety - which...have really large white margins and are a favorite of the folks over at NH Hostas .  Menards was (of course) running a deal and these were the two most interesting so I added them to our cart.  Turning to our landscape plan, there are a few spots that hostas are called for, but most of them are in 'to be dug' beds.  Check out the landscape plan section below.  There are Hadspen Hostas spec'd for below the

Eeek!  On a total whim, I bought this seemingly scrawny tree.  You can see it in the photo above and it doesn't look like much.  But, it *is* something!  And that something is: a weeping Himalayan Cedar 'Emerald Falls' tree.  And it wasn't in the price range of my normal Menards trees.  Nope.  This one cost $69.99.  And, right now, it isn't much to look at, I know. I bought it at Home Depot in Oak Brook and here's the tag that came on it: And here's a look at it in our garage before I planted it. In the photo above, you can see that the lead was starting to outgrow it's existing bamboo pole, so if you look in the very top photo, you can see that I subsidized it with a larger, 8' bamboo pole and then proceeded to tie the lead up in various places to keep it running vertical. So, why this tree on a whim?  Welp, it isn't totally a whim.  If you've been reading along at home, you might have peep'd this post from last fal

Mulch delivered, installed and spread for the year:  Done and Done.  Here's the post (with the same title) from 2011 including a video of the steaming pile being dumped on our driveway in Elmhurst.  Here's the post from 2013 showing our (then) beds being freshly mulched.  And here's the post from 2015 .  Weird that I posted them every two years, despite mulch being applied every year.   But, in that post from 2015 , you can see some of yard that I had worked at for six years to get it to a place that I was starting to be happy with in terms of plants and landscape.  We had daylilies, some HUGE stands of Ostrich Ferns, a happy bunch of variegated hostas, a really beautiful (if just for a week or so) crabapple tree, a Ginko tree, an out-of-control Pussy Willow and even a fruiting Pear tree all in that one shot .  I took the photo above in this post from our front porch and it shows three of our Strawberry Vanilla Hydrangeas and six of our Green Velvet Boxwoods.  The

Along with the various other tubers that I've planted (Dahlias, ferns, hostas) this Spring, I also put down our first set of Peonies in our #newoldbackyard out on the north side of our backyard - about halfway between the house and the back fence.  These are of the pink Sarah Bernhardt variety that you can see in the top photo.  They're of the 'double peony' type that Nat adores.  Welp...she actually loves *any* peony, but based on what she cuts and brings in, it is this delicate, double flower kind that I think she loves the most.  And, that's why I bought them:  as a landscape gift to her - the love of my life. At our old place in Elmhurst, we had a series of peonies that we were gifted, bought and took (from a tear down) that bloomed every year.  There was one plant in particular that Nat was given from her Aunt that (I think) was from her Mom's Grandmother's garden.  That's the one that we dug out and transplanted out in Naperville where Nat'

For Earth Day last year, we planted a tree:  our Dawn Redwood .  This was while our #newoldfarmhouse was being built, but we still had access to the backyard.  This year, we planted a couple of trees on Earth Day.  This post chronicles the first one:  a Chanticleer Cleveland Select Flowering Pear tree.  I took the kids to Home Depot on Earth Day and had each of them pick out a small tree.  They were running a sale on tiny trees like the one you see above for $15 each.  This is the one that the Bird picked out and that's here in the photo showing off her new tree after she helped me plant it.  We put it on the south fence line in an open spot.  This was a nice Earth Day activity for me and the kids.  The Bird was so excited to help plant the tree.  She's my gardening buddy, so she knows how to get plants (and trees) out of their pots by beating on the pots and then she also helps rough up the roots to help them get started.  She's also in charge of helping amend the s

Over the weekend, I started to plant the first few pieces of our backyard landscape plan - starting with the rear foundation plantings.  I posted the landscape plan for this area back in October of last year that shows a series of hostas, grasses and boxwoods.  The central area - right underneath our bird feeders - called for five staggered grasses.  Karl Foerster Reed Grasses to be precise.  So, when I came across them at Home Depot, I grabbed up six of them.   Six.  Yeah...because I didn't have the plan in front of me and I thought it called for six.  Turns out, the plan calls for five of them here, but five more in a different spot.   Thus, I ended up planting just one of that other set of five, but will get the other four later this Spring.  The photo you see above shows where I put them in the bed.  That green wire laying around is for our Automower.  His dock is right in front of this bed and that is the excess boundary wire and the lead wire that terminate at the doc

My love of shade gardening is well documented here on the blog.  After all, it is what I grew up with and what my Mom was doing down on Overlook Court East.  We had a wooded lot and she cultivated - as best she could - shade gardens featuring hostas mostly.  At our new spot in Downers Grove, we too, have plenty of shade.  We were blessed with a few volunteer ferns that came with our lot and I've begun to incorporate hostas into the mix that I both have bought ( this year ) and scavenged from a tear down ( last fall ). In addition to my love of hostas, I've posted quite a bit about one of my other favorites:  ferns.  We've fostered some ferns in Naperville (which I need to dig out!), planted some ferns at Equation Boy/Man's and Vic's house before we moved out , transplanted some survivor/volunteers in our #newoldbackyard , confirmed with the University of Illinois Extension Office that we do, indeed, have Ostrich ferns , and documented them coming up over the

Last week, I picked up these two different ferns from Menards because of two reasons: 1.  I love ferns. 2.  They were on sale at just $2 a piece. So, both the Japanese Painted fern and the Autumn Fern came home with us and they're going here online in my [ Garden Diary ] so I can look back over the years. I planted a Japanese Painted fern back in 2012 in our old house in Elmhurst and documented it here in 2014 when it came back.    It never got all that large, but it did re-emerge after the winter - as long as I didn't smother it with mulch - so I figured I'd give it another go. The other one - the Autumn Fern - is new to me.  I've had other ones called "Autumn Brilliance" before , but don't think this one in particular.  They totally tolerate shade and basically require it, so I was looking for a spot that would guarantee that and ended up putting them in the little bed on the north side of the screened porch.  There's about 2'

One of my Sisters gifted me this "Swiss Alps Bee House" for my birthday this year and with the weather turning, I decided to mount it outside on the edge of our 6' fence line.  This photo was taken in the morning, so you can see that it gets morning sun.  I've been seeing these bee houses the past few years at garden centers and have been intrigued by them, but always wondered what they attracted.  Turns out, it is Mason bees .  Mason bees don't sting (well, the males don't at least) and are good for the garden.  I put this on the northside of our backyard, down near where our dry well is located.  That area is the lowest point in our yard and is often wet/damp (by design), so there will be a plentiful supply of mud for the Mason bees to use to plug the holes.  Morning sun + fixed spot + mud supply = hopefully a good spot? From Gardeners Supply : Mason bees (genus Osmia) are a type of native bee that’s quite common throughout most of the U.S. They ar

I went out to the yard to check in on the allium and tulip bulbs that I planted last fall and came across this nice little surprise:  a series of rows of daffodil clumps that had popped up in the yard behind one of our big Oak trees.  You can see the doubled-up Automower wire in the ground and the plastic mesh that the landscapers put down last Summer.  That means that this area was seeded, and as you can tell, it didn't take that strongly.  They'll give us a nice pop of color soon and then recede back into the ground.  I believe that this area is called out as a landscape bed eventually, so I'm not sure that we'll re-seed it this Spring, but probably just let it go as it is.  Since the Automower is wired to run in this area, it will keep the growth short and ready to be swapped out at a later date.  That plastic mesh, though.  I'm thinking that's a project to take on this Spring.  A lot of cutting and some ripping to remove it, where it hasn't been enca

This is the fifth chapter is a series of our landscape plan posts that show off various portions of our #newoldbackyard in the planning stages.  The other four are here: 1.  Part of the southern fence line that includes some hydrangeas, hostas, ferns, allium and Canadian Hemlocks.   2.  Part of our rear foundation planting areas , right outside our breakfast nook/kitchen windows. Grasses, boxwoods and even a peek at one of the rhododendrons that *this* post is all about.  3.  The hornbeam/privacy hedge on the north fenceline near our screened porch .   4.  Far southwest corner by the trampoline that includes some Canadian Hemlocks . This fifth chapter covers just two plants that you can see in the sketch above.  They are both PJM Rhododendrons that occupy some foundation beds on either side of our rear stoop heading to our back patio.   Here's a look at those beds that I took this past weekend: You can see the two beds are good-sized and fall on th

Last October, I picked up 10 Purple Sensation Allium bulbs and planted them around a big oak tree in our backyard.  That initial planting post is here .  Over the weekend (before the snow came in on Monday morning), I spent some time out puttering around the yard and discovered that - just like the tulip bulbs that I planted at the same time - that some of these allium have emerged.  This one in the photo above, is right at the base of that mighty oak and I'm hoping will continue to grow and give us a little 'show' with the purple orb.  Along with hostas and ferns, I have a soft spot in my gardening heart from allium.  As I wrote last fall : I first  wrote about Allium bulbs all the way back in 2011 , when the first set of shoots broke through the mulch that Spring.  I planted those in 'secret' as a little surprise for Natalie.   I then chronicled their appearance in  2012 ,  2014  and  2015 . At the beginning of April, I mentioned here on the blog that we