Why I Oughta...

On Christmas Day, we visited Nat's folks house out in Naperville as we do every year.  And, as I do every year, I ended up taking a little walk to get out of the house.  The weather was quite nice, so I wandered around and took in the neighborhood.  I went out one way and then doubled back to end up in the front yard of the house.  (If you know the house and the orientation, this would all make sense.  Those of you who don't, just trust me that it makes sense.) And out front I noticed that they have a medium-sized Bald Cypress planted near the sideyard that was striking in it's winter beauty.  You can see it above.  Plenty of the needles have dropped.  And all of them have gone orange.  But, plenty of them remain on the limbs.  The reason for posting it here is because our little Bald Cypress - that we planted near our driveway late this Summer - looks similar.  I was concerned that the clinging of the needles to the tree was a bad sign, but based on this species ab

In June of this Summer, I posted a series of photos that attempted to document the full tree height in our inventory on Hornbeam Hill .  I didn't get every tree, but I was able to put a height (approximate) on most of the new trees and that post was meant to serve as a reference post for documenting some of the trees as they grow.  But, there are at least two trees that went in *after* that post was shared that I wanted to document.  First up is the replacement Dawn Redwood .  That's the photo on top.  You can see the height of the tree (currently) is just shy of 63" tall. Below is the newly planted Bald Cypress in the front yard by the driveway.  That one is currently 51" tall.  I'll be going back to these trees (if they make it over the Winter) next year and hope to see some 'creep' going on as they shoot upwards. 

I mentioned in a post that I picked up a late-season Bald Cypress tiny tree at Home Depot recently, but didn't want to mark it down (officially.  Or as official as a blog post here counts as...) as the 26th tree that we've planted since we moved in.  But, now, you can see in the photo above that it is, indeed in the ground.  So we're now at 26 trees.  Full list is at the bottom of this post.   As I mentioned in the post when I showed off the newly purchased Bald Cypress, this is a tree that we've been stalking for some time.  I *almost* pulled the trigger on a large one at the Growing Place that had a columnar habit, but passed on it at the last minute.  I have a feeling I'll be back next year to buy *that* tree.  But for now, we'll have to try this little guy. The reason for the little one is both because it was cheap (sure!), but also because of where I planted this thing.  I wanted it to go in the front yard, between our driveway and the neighbo

Recently, we made a stop at the Home Depot to pick up some painting supplies for a project and I, as I usually do, wandered out to the garden center.  There....I was confronted with a bunch of small fall-planting-ready trees.  Most of them were fruit trees, but mixed in on the pallets were a few shade trees.  But there was one small tree that caught my eye:  a small (less than 1" caliper) Bald Cypress. Priced at $19, I had a hard time passing it up.  That's it in the photo above and you can see that it is small and...dare I say....scrawny.    But at $19, it isn't all that much different than the Dawn Redwood that I planted as a replacement earlier this Summer . Nat's folks have a couple of Bald Cypresses and there are a few down at Barth Pond (that we use to mark the water level of the pond!) and at Whittier School in our neighborhood.  Each time we walk by them or see them, I remark that I'd like to have one of those trees on Hornbeam Hill. Now?  We have