Why I Oughta...

It is (barely) Mid-March and I'm ALREADY seeing our Saucer Magnolia tree (multi-trunk) in our front yard dotted with signs of pink petals that have begun to emerge from their wooly shells after a long Winter's nap.   What is MOST striking about this is the timing:  a full month ahead of 2023.  Here's a post from April 12, 2023 that shows the pink flowers at the same state they're currently in - photos below. 2023's bloom-time of mid-April was (mostly) in-line with historicals.  2022 saw the tree in peak-bloom in late April .   2024 - (so far) flowers emerged in mid-March 2023 - Mid-April peak-Magnolia bloom 2022 - Late-April 2022:  Peak-Magnolia at end of month 2021 - Mid-April 2021 : In bloom by mid-month (April). 2020 - Early April 2020 : Blooms began the first week of April. 2019 - The tree did NOT bloom at all. 2018 - Early May 2018 : Didn't bloom until early/mid May 2018. This tree was planted in 2017 , so this make it the eighth growing season (seven ful

The multi-trunk Saucer Magnolia Tree that we have planted in our Northern Illinois, Zone 5B suburban front yard put on a spectacular pink show this Spring with the most productive flower bloom we've had since the tree went in back in Summer of 2017.  As I've done in previous years, I've treated this with a systemic insecticide to help protect it against scale that seems to creep in/on in most growing seasons.   The tree has a nice dark color to the foliage and seems to have handled the early Summer drought just fine in our area.   See below for a current view of the tree and the full, dark foliage in mid-Summer 2023: On a recent morning when I was setting up the sprinkler to handle the lawn in front, I noticed some spots of pink high up in the canopy of the Magnolia tree.  See below for a look at those pink tufts near the tips of the tallest limbs:  A closer look (below) shows one of the blooms: What do we have going on here?  Seems like a small, second bloom.   This has

The best 'show' yet has taken place this past weekend on our Saucer Magnolia tree with pink and white blooms all over the tree that was planted in 2017.  It was REALLY SHOWY this year and it doesn't appear that we lost hardly any flower buds at all this Winter - which....was super mild cold-wise.   The tree - in the photo below - really put on some mass the past few growing seasons and now stands out in the front yard and even obscures some of the house from the sidewalk as you walk by in Spring.  This will leaf-out soon, but for a few days (from April 13 --> April 17), this thing was P E A K.  Also...that dark green lawn looks pretty great this time of year, too.  

Pink flowers are on their way via our front yard Saucer Magnolia tree (multi-trunk) and it appears that 2023 will be another year of pink blooms this Spring.  Many of the buds have broken and are showing curl'd-up pink flowers on their tips.  A couple of photos below show the current state of this tree in mid-April 2023 in Zone 5b - Northern Illinois.  This tree was planted in 2017 , so this make it the seventh growing season (six full, one partial) and it was planted as a six-or-so-foot tree in Summer 2017.  Here are the buds that have opened: I'm reading these blooms as an affect of what I'll call a 'normal winter'.  Either it didn't get TOO cold, or it didn't get TOO COLD, TOO LATE - to kill the flower buds. This appears to be on a similar schedule to last year - when it was in 'full bloom' in/around April 22nd .   The history of this Saucer Magnolia includes one year of no blooms - 2019.  Summer 2017 : Planted as a small, multi-trunk tree. Early

Tree buds are some of the stars of our Winter garden here in Northern Illinois - Zone 5B.  As I've continued to grow as a gardener and observed the natural rhythm of our garden, I've come to really appreciate buds.    I used to think about the garden season cycle as something that starts with Spring and ends with Winter, but as I've watched our garden more, I've now come to the realization the garden growing season actually starts - for many things - in the fall.  That's when trees set their buds before they head into dormancy.   Tree buds are all unique and tell a story.  One of the sets of buds that I've been following for a number of years is the Saucer Magnolia tree that we planted in our front yard in 2017.  I posted some photos of the Saucer Magnolia buds last year - in February .    Here's how it looks right now - in early January. This tree continues to grow up and out.  And, it appears that the aphid and/or scale problem that has been going on the p

The multi-trunk Saucer Magnolia tree that we planted in our front yard in 2017 is RIGHT NOW in full bloom showing pink and white flowers all over the tips of the tree.  The last time that I checked in on this tree was in mid-February of this year when I looked at the fuzzy cluster of buds on the tips of the limbs that were getting ready to put on the show.   The history of the Saucer Magnolia in Northern Illinois - Zone 5b: Summer 2017 : Planted as a small, multi-trunk tree. Early May 2018 :  Didn't bloom until early/mid May 2018.   2019:  The tree did NOT bloom at all. Early April 2020 : Blooms began the first week of April. Mid-April 2021 : In bloom by mid-month (April). This year - April 2022 - the tree is in full bloom the last week of April:  From April 23rd thru (at least) April 27th.   See below for this VERY pretty tree: The tree continues to have a good upright shape.  Once the blooms fade this Spring, I'll look to try to prune a few of the lower limbs to continue

Late February and Early March is usually the time when I start to get a little garden-stir-crazy and begin to get back out to examine the winter damage and build up my hopes for the coming growing season.  It is when the tree and shrub buds begin to swell and we can start to see what is going to pop.  It is also a sloppy, wet and muddy time of year.  Or, a frozen-solid, snow-covered time of year.  This past week, it was a mix of both.  We had some warming temperatures with snow melting and some rains which made the ground soggy and saturated.  They say you're supposed to stay out of your garden beds during the wet season of Spring to keep the ground from compacting too much, so I've mostly tooled around the lawn this week.   It is a good time to document in the [tree diary] and [garden diary] the state of some of the buds that are beef'ing up and getting ready to put on a show.  I'll start where I have typically started before:  with our Saucer Magnolia.  Below, you can

Our front yard, multi-stem Saucer Magnolia tree is in full bloom this week and it is putting on quite a show.  We had this tree planted in Summer of 2017 and have seen it bloom in 2018 , 2020 and now (for the 3rd time) 2021.  Despite the hard, cold Winter and the late frost(s) this Spring, the flower buds persisted and began to unfurl during the first week of April.  Below, you can see one of the flower buds as it began to open up: This flowering tree (this year) is timed with our 1.5 Flowering Pear trees and the emergence of our tulip bulbs.  It is (this year), not flowering at the same time as our Cherry Blossom tree in the backyard - which is really behind this Magnolia.

I was out cutting the grass out front this past week and noticed something colorful up in the Saucer Magnolia tree in our front yard.  I wasn't sure what it was, so I started to poke around and try to figure out what was going on.  The tree has grown quite a bit in height the past few seasons, so I can't get up to eye-level, but by pulling some of the branches out of the way, I saw what you see above:  A pink flower in the tree.  Then I looked closer, and I saw another one:  two pink flowers that are present on this tree in the middle of Summer. The last time that we checked in this tree was in early May when I applied a ring of Cocoa Bean mulch around the base after the flowers had bloomed this Spring.  This tree flowered this Spring after missing last year's set of blooms.  What is this Summer bloom on our Saucer Magnolia?  I'm not sure as it has never happened before, but this forum post talks about how Saucers sometimes get a second, summertime bloom .

The last time we saw blooms on our front yard Saucer Magnolia tree was back in Spring of 2018 .  Last year, we saw no flowers at all on our Saucer Magnolia.  In fact, we didn't get any flowers on any of our delicate flowering trees like the Japanese Flowering Cherry, either.  But, right now we're seeing some pink flowers begin to emerge from the fuzzy pods on the tips of the limbs. We had a particularly difficult winter in 2018/2019 that I'm pretty sure killed all the buds.  This Winter we had an easy Winter and (thankfully) that means we're getting Spring flowers. I last visited this tree when I wired up one of the errand limbs earlier this year . Last September, I documented the buds that were being set that have paid off this Spring. The other thing that I did yesterday was to try to edge the bed that this tree sits.  I used a flat shovel and went around the ring and removed some of the sod that had begun to inch up to the trunk(s).  You can see some of t

Just like the pair of rhododendrons on either side of our back stoop , our small (but growing!) Saucer Magnolia multi-step tree in our front yard is preparing itself for hibernation by setting buds this early Fall.  This Saucer Magnolia tree didn't flower this Spring - which was a disappointment - but grew (according to my tree height inventory) by almost two feet in height .   I documented the first year of flowers - in Spring of 2018 - here .   This year, the tree leaves stayed green and didn't get any Sooty Mold like it has had in previous years .   I'll try to document the buds after all of the leaves fall off this Fall/Winter to provide a comparison against what the naked tree looked like in February of 2018 here .

With the weather (suddenly) turning quite warm last week, our Saucer Magnolia in the front yard decided to say hello.  One morning, the flowers just started to shoot up and open.  This tree went in by the landscaper who installed the rest of our landscaping before we moved in and is set in a small, circular bed in between our front porch and the sidewalk.  It gets a ton of sun and as it matures is set to be a focal point.  Back in August, I posted a photo of how I 'limbed up' the tree in an attempt to get it to grow more tree-like and less shrub and I'm happy to say that I didn't kill the thing.  Even more, it appears that the clearing of some of the sucker and low limbs have helped allow the tree to provide energy to it's tips.  Just look at this beauty: I call this "Nat's tree" because it was the one thing that she specifically spec'd with the landscaper.  And when we were planting it, I didn't tell her that it was coming and int

Last we checked in on our Saucer Magnolia in our front yard was back in September before it shed its leaves and went to bed for the winter.  I also talked about it potentially having sooty mold a few days later.    The first time I posted a photo of this particular tree was in August - about 45 days after we moved in - when it was growing and happy after being watered all summer.  I had decided to do some early in the growing cycle, preventive pruning to 'limb up' the tree and remove some suckers in order to allow the tree to put all of its energy into the main trunks.  With some decent weather recently, I went out and looked at a few of our trees.  I'll post some other photos of the other trees in the coming days, but today, let's look at the Saucer Magnolia.  Officially, it was the 9th tree added to our 'arboretum' , but it was actually in before some of the others.  I just didn't get around to posting about it because it is in the front yard.  It

A few days ago, I posted an updated photo of our Saucer Magnolia tree in the front yard and mentioned this blight/mold/black stuff that is on quite a bit of the leaves.  You can see it in the photo above.  After digging around on the Web, I think that it might - or might not be Sooty Mold.  The University of Minnesota Agricultural Extension has a post up that is titled:   Non harmful tree conditions that catch your eye but require no management .  In the section on Sooty Mold, they provide the description and a photo that looks an awful lot like the one above.   Here's a screenshot: But if you look elsewhere on the topic of Sooty Mold, the photos look totally different .  Most of the articles reference insects and/or aphids, which our Magnolia doesn't appear to have inhabiting it right now.  I also found this photo of something called Fungal Leaf Spot in the Science Photo Library , which isn't exactly what I am seeing on our leaves.   I'll keep poking around an

Just over a five weeks ago, I posted the first photo of our new/young Saucer Magnolia tree in the front yard of our #NewOldFarmhouse after I had 'limbed it up' for the first time .  It had grown a bit since being installed in June and the pruning I gave it will hopefully fuel its upward trajectory. Above you'll see a photo I took this past week after I gave it another minor pruning where I continued to 'limb up' the main leaders.  I took off a few suckers and removed leaves and shoots that were coming off low on the main branches.   Flipping back and forth between the early August post and this photo tells me the late summer growth is hard to detect in terms of size, but is noticeable in the buds being created.  The leaves - in some places - have become discolored - which has me worried, but I'll post a closeup of it on the blog and show off the newly emerging buds, too. I have big hopes that this tree will grow up - with our family - and be a meaningful

I mentioned in the post about our King Crimson Maple tree last month that we had planted nine trees including a Magnolia tree that we put in our front yard.  That's it above.  After I 'limbed it up' a bit by taking the leaves/shoots/small branches off the bottom few feet of the main trunks of this Saucer Magnolia.  We've never had a Magnolia of our own, but Equation Boy/Man and Vic had one at their house and Greg, our former neighbor had one.  Nat has long fancied them, so in working with Chris Paul at Green Grass Landscaping , we decided to put in a Saucer Magnolia in the front yard. In looking through the care and pruning advice in this piece , I decided to work on the tree to put more of the energy into the top range of the young tree to try to grow it up a bit.  Ours had leaves all the way to the ground, but if you look at photos of intermediate growth Saucers or larger, mature Saucer Magnolias , the successful ones have been 'limbed up' to get the f