Why I Oughta...

I have an idea for a garden-related project that has been knocking around my head for a number of years.  Well...there are tons of those kind of projects, frankly.  But, for this post, I'm talking about one of them specifically.  This one...involves trees.  And...I haven't moved on it - for a variety of reasons including shifting priorities, lack of need, the right nursery stock and the opportunity.   It starts with this post about Hollywood Junipers in 2018 where I posted a photo of a tree in a wooden box for a container .  And, was likely rekindled during one of my trips to Tokyo where I saw all sorts of container'd conifers.  Like this one from House of Bonsai below: Via House of Bonsai . This is not my photo. And, even more recently, I came across a couple of striking conifer trees by the bus stops down at Disney Springs.  They were relatively new (newly planted) and still had their tags on them. Here's a shot of them below: And, below, is a look at the tag reveali

Since our first (and only) visit to Luxembourg Gardens in Paris a few Summers back, I've planted this large(r) corner container with the same color combination that we first saw there and have used (mostly) the same trio of plants:  Red Petunias.  Yellow Marigolds.  Purple Salvia.   Last year, I used the same red petunias.  But, used yellow Zinnias and a perennial, more woody Salvia.  Here's a look at a different container that I planted with the remnants of the wooden corner box.   This year, I used this dark purple Vista Salvia and a yellow Marigold and even tucked in an Elephant Ear bulb into the corner.  Thus far, the elephant ear hasn't put up any growth but, it might lend a nice tropical vibe to the corner of this container box.   You will also note that in the photo above, the container is still naked lumber - and hasn't been stained just yet.  That's #4 on my 2021 to-do list that hasn't been done just yet. 

Back at the end of April, I went on an early morning socially-distant Home Depot run and bought a tree with some birthday money that reminded me of Paris .  Yeah..Paris.  Despite it being named the London Plane Tree.  It was a tall tree on a 50% off deal that I jumped at.   This post shows the label for the tree that includes the name Platanus x acerfifolia .  I stared at this tree for a week as it sat on our patio before we finally planted it around mid-May.  It went in the ground a day or two BEFORE the super-late HARD frost that arrived and shocked everything ( including our ferns ).   This London Plane tree had some tender leaves that were emerging from the buds on the tree when that frost arrived.  And...I think it got hit.  Or...some combination of the hard frost AND the transplant shock hit the tree hard.  All of the little leaves went brown and turned pretty limp.  They didn't dry out and were still pliable, but something was certainly wrong.  Here's what thos

When I see a good deal on trees, I suppose I just figure our yard can handle a few more.  And that's how we ended up with a new tree in our garage that I'll plant in the next week or so.  It is a London Plane Tree 'Bloodgood'.  Tag below.  Why'd I buy it?  It is a good-sized tree at a good price and it reminds me of Paris.  Paris?!  Yeah...Paris.  Not London.  Where they're from, of course. Why Paris?  They remind me of our time in Paris because of the stand of them in a section of Luxembourg Gardens that had vines tied between them.    Here's my post about them .   I've posted a lot about Luxembourg Gardens since our visit as the experience has stuck with me - from the chairs to the boxes to the trees to the edging to the mulch .  This post is going into that tag .   Due to social distancing, we didn't see any family for my birthday this year and a result of that was that Nat's Grampy who lives in Oak Lawn sent me a birthday card with

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

What's that you say?  Want another post about Luxembourg Gardens in Paris?  Well, good news for you:  here's a post about espalier'd trees.  Yes...one of my favorite topics. I've posted quite a bit about this place on the blog: The Chestnut trees that line the various paths . The metal edging on the paths . The chairs .   These amazing vines/ivy that have been trained between posts and trees .   These orangerie tree boxes .  The fact that they use cocoa bean shell mulch in their beds .   And  how I copied the color pallete of one of their beds in our raised planter box . In one corner of Luxembourg Gardens there is a section dedicated to the art of espalier.  They appear to be mostly fruit trees and this NYT story from 1971 calls them "century‐old pear trees". That's amazing, isn't it? These trees were more than 100 years old in 1971, so that means that *some* of them are 150 years old today? If you've been following along at ho

By now, I think I've been pretty clear that this place - Luxembourg Gardens in Paris - has left a pretty significant impression on me garden-wise.  Just yesterday, I posted about the metal walking path edging and before that, the many love letters to this Garden/park include: The chairs .   These amazing vines/ivy that have been trained between posts and trees .   These orangerie tree boxes .  The fact that they use cocoa bean shell mulch in their beds .   And how I copied the color pallete of one of their beds in our raised planter box . Today, I'm sharing this photo above that shows off the 'bottom' of the pleached row of Horse Chestnut trees.  Pleaching is training/pruning trees that is kind of a close Cousin to espalier.  More here . For a wider-view perspective on these Horse Chestnut Trees in Luxembourg Gardens, do a Google Image Search for [ Horse Chestnut Trees Luxembourg Gardens ].  Go there now and poke around.  Or just look at this image here .

Just a couple of days ago, I posted the latest in my love letters to Luxembourg Gardens with my post about the chairs they have there .  Prior to that post, I shared a series of things that I have been drawn to about the garden including posts  about the vines growing between trees by the Medici Fountain , the tree boxes,   the cocoa bean shell mulch  and  the colors of the flower beds that inspired our own raised planter mix .  Today comes these little metal edges.  They're half circles or little hoops and they kind of overlap each other to form an edge to the walking paths.  What's that you say?  Jake...you've been talking about a walking path in your own backyard for a while now.  That's right !  I'd been thinking about using something a little bit more formal with uniform metal edging to keep the crushed granite in place, but this little bit of whimsy via Luxembourg Gardens has me wondering if I can think about using different types of edging?  I mean, this

Luxembourg Gardens Chair from Perigold Have I fawned over our visits to Luxembourg Gardens enough here on the blog?  In the past few weeks, I've posted about how the flowers in our patio planter were inspired there , how I tried cocoa bean shell mulch because that's what they use there, how I want to build a green tree box from there, and how I really fell in love with these vines in between trees from the garden . But there's a few more things about the garden that are worth sharing. If you go back to the post about the cocoa bean shell/hull mulch , you'll notice that there's a couple of metal chairs in the photo. Those chairs. You can see one above from Perigold .  That's their photo. I think that our experience in the park/garden was driven - in large part - by these chairs.  They're everywhere.  People sitting on them.  Sleeping on them.  Eating lunch and talking on them.  In groups.  Alone.  Sometimes two at a time.  Sometimes two chairs

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

Yesterday, I posted about how after seeing the French gardeners use cocoa bean shell hull mulch in the gardens and beds in Luxembourg Gardens, I decided to try the stuff myself.  But, it wasn't just the mulch that made an impression on me during our visit.  So, too, did these large green tree containers.  They are all over Luxembourg Gardens and other parks/gardens.  They're really quite striking. A little digging on the Web and I discover that they're actually called Château de Versailles tree-boxes.  There are a couple of sources that offer them.  But...brace yourself, they're not cheap. What looked initially to me like wooden boxes turn out to be cast iron frames with wooden slats that make up the sides.  The corners and braces are all cast iron.  See here below: Photo via Jardin du Roi Soleil - this is their photo and product .   If you've been following along on the blog, you might have seen the little planter box that I made for Natalie for our p

On one of our visits to Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, we came across a crew installing some flower beds in the main area that is just north of the little circular pond where kids launch those sail boats.  You can see that they're using this white fabric template to put down flowers in a pattern, but you can also see that on the right of this photo, they use the template to just make outlines.  After that, they fill them in with (usually) one color.  As this was happening, we stopped to take it and looked around at some of their stuff.  One thing that I saw that grabbed my attention was their use of cocoa bean hulls as mulch.  They had bags of the stuff lined up ready to be installed after the flowers go in.  I had come across Cocoa Bean Hull Mulch in bags at Menards, but didn't give it much thought.  Until now.  After we came home, I went off to Menards and picked up a bag of the stuff to see what it was all about.  Of note, Cocoa Bean Shell Mulch is toxic to dogs .  Just l