Why I Oughta...

In November of 2017 - as we approached our first Winter in our new house - I posted a photo of our heated bird bath being placed in the yard near our feeders .  At that time, I kept the feeders a little bit closer to the house.  That bird bath was originally from our old house in Elmhurst and it was a 'deck-mounted' heated bird bath.  So that meant that when I used it in Downers, I had to place it on a little table.  It didn't have a pedestal.    For Christmas that year, I was gifted a Water Wiggler to keep the water moving .   The bird bath was one of the key pieces that we needed in order to meet the criteria of being a Certified Wildlife Habitat from the National Wildlife Federation (the other criteria include three kinds of food, two types of cover/shelter and places to raise young).   The first year, I didn't see much action in the bath.   But, during the Winter of 2018/2019, we placed the heated bird bath outside again, but this time it was used pret

With the calendar turning over to the new year soon, my mind has naturally drifted outdoors to our backyard to think about what kind of 'tree planning' we should be doing in Spring.  Right after Christmas, I posted my front yard tree succession planting plan .  And because we've been filling our bird feeder, my mind has been focused on the area you see in the photo above.  I've covered this section of yard before with this Fall of 2017 post showing the landscape plan here . Of note, what I'm showing here differs from what the plan includes, but that's because the plan doesn't call for many new trees, but instead uses the existing trees and augments them with shrubs. To set the context - or edges - of this image, you can see two trees that I've posted about before. First, in purple, on the left is the Weeping White Spruce Columnar tree . And, in red, on the far right is the Weeping Cedar tree that I planted and lost .  I've left the corpse

I was out puttering around the yard on a mild Winter day recently doing a little bit of bud inspection to see what trees had put off when I found this break in this Japanese Kwanzan Flowering Cherry Tree in the backyard.  I bought this tree in May of 2017 when it was a small (maybe .75" caliper) tree from Menards after I had just come back from my first trip to Tokyo where I saw *their* Cherry Blossom trees.  The tree (in the garden center at Menards) caught my eye because it was flowering these beautiful, puffy, almost-peony-like pink flowers . At the end of June/early July of 2017, right when we were moving into our house in Downers Grove, I got around to planting the tree in the yard .  About half-way back in the yard, on the southside of the property.  Not sure, exactly why it ended up there.  Just *felt* right at the time.  Looking at the tree now, I think it is in a good spot and the placement ended up being appropriate. The first season it was in the ground - Spring

Photo of a pair of Wave Hill Garden Chairs from Wave Hill's official site here .  This is not my photo above.  Back earlier this year - after a trip to Paris with Nat - I went on and on and on about our visit(s) to Luxembourg Gardens.  It was really the highlight of our trip together.  I posted about how they were (as the French do!) using cocoa bean hull mulch , their tree boxes , growing vines between mature trees , their special metal path edging , how t hey have enormous stands of Chestnut trees that they prune in a special way , and their pretty spectacular espalier garden . And...in addition to swooning over all of those items,  I posted about the chairs at the gardens .  Those chairs.  Really quite special.  There are a couple of worthwhile 'histories of the Luxembourg Garden Chairs' posts on the web, but this one from Fermob - the distributor of the chairs - is the one I'd spend my time on. It is interesting to me to think about how a garden like Luxemb

As part of my 2020 prep for the yard , my mind has started to wandering to tree planting and specifically thinking about tree planting in the front yard and parkway.   Above is a schematic that shows off some of the existing trees and my current (aspirational) thinking of what sort of moves I could make in 2020.  But, before I jump into the specifics of that drawing up above, let's look at the current situation. Let's start with our parkway tree situation.  Below is a shot from Google Streetview that shows off our one large Norway Maple parkway tree, the location of the 'old driveway' and this other tree that is just behind the sidewalk that I'm pretty sure is a Mulberry tree.  This Streetview image is a few years old and is of the house that was on site BEFORE we built, but the driveway location is pretty close to where the current driveway is located.  You can see the stretch of parkway between the driveway and the large Maple tree.  Keep that thought for a mo

Via Dummies.com - Adding a pipe to aid in air flow of a compost pile.  This is not my photo - original here .  With Winter setting in hard, my mind continues to be on the yard and garden and things that I would like to do in 2020.  In my 2019 Yard and Garden To-Do List Scorecard, I included some items in the bottom of the post that are a starting point for my 2020 list.  This post is to remind myself of another item that should be on that list:  adding a pvc pipe to aid in aeration of our compost pile.  From this Dummies.com post - comes this idea of adding a piece of PVC pipe with holes bore into it to add air flow (and even water flow to keep the pile wet) to a compost pile.  That image at the top of this post isn't my image - it is from that very Dummies.com post .   The last time I looked at my compost pile (we have a 3 bin system) was when I had thrown in about half of our Fall leaves and began to use the second bin for storage of carbon (leaves).  To speed up th

This photo is about a week old, but shows you (basically) the current state of our three-bin compost setup that I made in the easement behind our lot.  Using some fence panels and long stakes, I made three 36" by 36" square 'bins' that I've been using this Summer and now Fall. Here's the original post showing the three-bin composter being setup in May of this year . Also, one note (for the garden diary ):  I've also filled the Compost Tumbler again this fall with a combination of greens and browns. The three bins all have distinct purposes and you can see that kind of taking shape here. Bin one (on the left): making a layered batch. Nitrogen. Then Carbon. Then Nitrogen. Then Carbon. Layers. Earlier this year, I added a bunch of grass and most of our weeds to provide some nitrogen.  I just added a layer of browns to this bin to get that layering going. But, before I add more, I need to add some 'greens'. With Winter here, that me

Just a little bit over a year ago, our Dawn Redwood looked like this .  It had mostly browned-out and was ready to shed all of it's needles.  Today, you see it above - a mix of brown and green and most of the needles still hanging on.  If you look closely, you'll see that I've attached a bamboo shoot to the top 1/3rd of the tree.  I did right before Halloween when we had that heavy snowfall come down. If you look back at the 2019 tree inventory post , you'll remember that this tree grew 3 full feet this season.  And that the tip of the leader was all green.    That means that it is pretty weak and thin.  That snow fall was tipping this thing over and I was worried that it would snap off - like the Pear Tree we had in our old backyard in Elmhurst did in 2010 .  I haven't fastened it all the way to the base of the tree, but I'm thinking that's ok.  I'm trying to protect the most vulnerable part - the green growth at the very top - from Winter damage.

No...not that kind of weed tree .  I'm talking about a weed tree that has grown up and isn't really much of a desirable tree.  Or, is it a Walnut tree?  You can see the trunk being very tall and thin.  The tree is twelve or so feet tall and has a set of leaves that look just like Walnut tree leaves.  We have quite a few large Walnut trees around the yard, so it isn't beyond reason that a Walnut would have rooted and grown into a tree, I would think? The leaves of Walnut trees are "alternate compound" or "pinnate leaves" and so, too. are the leaves of this tree. I know a little bit of the Black Locust tree - which is (I think) a "weed tree".  It has similar shaped leaves, but the tips are rounded where these are pointy.  It is "not recommended" by the Morton Arboretum .   I'm pretty confident that the tree in question - in the red circle - is NOT a black locust.   But, is it a Black Walnut tree?   Here's a clo

Earlier this year, I set out a Yard & Garden To-Do List and a To-Do List Addendum that outlined 17 (10 on original list, 7 on Addendum) tasks that I wanted to tackle.  With the month of October coming to a close, I think it is worth taking a look and scoring myself. So...how did I do?  7 of the 10.  Missed on the Belgian Fence, Angel Topiary and raised beds. The original ten items on the list : 1.  Improve the soil.  Check . And Check .  And Check . 2.  Plant a Belgian Fence.  Nope. 3.  Try metal frame topiary.  Kinda.  I tried pruning small shrubs for topiary or bonsai . 4.  Do the Angel topiary.  Nope. 5.  Plant a Yew hedge.  Yes! 6.  Move Automower Boundary wires.  Yes.  No more getting caught up under the trampoline. 7.  Prune the Linden Espalier.  Yes . 8.  Add conifers.  A couple of them .  And planted six tiny Canadian Hemlocks.  Lost one so far . 9.  Build and plant a raised bed vegetable garden.  Nope. 10.  Remember the 'path'.  Yes.  Behind

I could post for 100 days straight and I don't think I would run out of things to say and share about Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.  Yesterday, I posted about the green tree boxes .  Today are a couple of photos of a fountain area that is in the northeast corner of the garden.  It is a reflecting pool with a large fountain at the far Eastern edge that is lined by (I'm pretty sure that they're) London Plane trees or perhaps just Plane Trees since they're NOT in London?!?! The trees themselves are magnificent.  There are four or five on either side of the reflecting pool that are placed in a line.  In between these trees is ivy.  You can see it in the photos at the top and bottom of this post.  The ivy is trained from the central base in between the trees - and the space in between the trees - and trained out in two angles.  Where it meets the trees, it is then trained back across in a straight line.  Look at it in the photos.  Amazing, isn't it?  The vines