Why I Oughta...

Back in April, I posted a 'to-do' reminder to remove the small Bird's Nest Spruce evergreen shrub from inside the nursery container (that was, in-turn, planted directly in the ground) to planting the conifer OUT of the nursery container and into the ground.  Why?  Because, I originally bought it with an eye towards using it as pre-bonsai material, I've now changed my mind and wanted to get it started in a more permanent spot.  I did this same thing with another pre-bonsai shrub - a Juniper Pfitzeriana Aurea - in a different spot a couple weeks ago .   Here, below, is the Bird's Nest Spruce after being planted and having suffered some rabbit damage this Winter: And, here, below is the container it was in with the label.   I'm hoping now that this has roots down in the native soil, we'll see it establish itself a little bit this season and will put on some new growth.  I'll be sure to protect it from the rabbits next Winter so it won't get saw'd

My journey with Staghorn Ferns starts where a bunch of my gardening, craft and DIY interests came from:  Martha Stewart.  Back in the aughts, we used to get Martha Stewart Living magazine delivered in print.  In one of those editions, she covered Staghorn Ferns.  That was my first exposure.  I found this old, 2008 Martha Blog post about her Staghorn Fern that might have been *around* the time of the print piece.  Since then, they've been on my radar.  She posted again in 2018 when she talked about mounting a few new Staghorn Ferns and how she puts them on her front porch.   In March of 2021, I bought my first Staghorn Fern - a six-inch container from Home Depot for $10.  In that post, I talked (again) about Martha .  I kept this one in the container and moved it outside during the Summer where it spent a few months on our front porch - just like Martha.  Because I left it in the container, I decided to drill a bunch of holes in the plastic nursery pot to make it more basket-lik

During the past week or so, I've been poking around doing research into evergreens for this year and think about shrubs and trees that might work in certain spots of our garden.  While I was doing that, I thought that I should do some level of an informal audit on what is in place.  Of course, there are the Hicks yews (in multiple places), but also a couple of Junipers and just last year, I added a Bird's Nest Spruce that I left in the nursery container .   But, when I went out in the yard to have a look at what else there was, I realized that I planted another conifer that I failed to document in the [ garden diary ] this past fall:  a Mugo Pine.  When I was planting some of those tiny Boxwoods , I also dug in a very small Mugo Pine.  While I failed to post about the small Pine going in, I *did* mention it during my 2021 scorecard post .  While that's just fine, I do think this small conifer shrub deserves a post of its own.   What is a Mugo Pine?  From Monrovia : A popula

Mid-July is when the big box stores start to put some of their perennials on 50% off sales.  They have their trees and shrubs that have been picked over out on pallets with big 50% off signs, but they also begin to put some of the perennials inside the garden center, including shade plants on discounts, too.  On one of my trips to one of the Home Depots near us, I found some of these Jack of Diamonds' Brunnera in 1# nursery pots from Proven Winners that were marked down 66% - making them three for the price of one.   These are the second set of Brunnera that we now have in the yard with the first ones (a trio of three) were these Queen of Hearts ones that I planted in June of this year in the shade of our backyard .  These are new to me this year, but were on the list that Laura from Garden Answer published of her favorite shade perennials.   The Queen of Hearts Brunnera are planted in a border mixed with some hostas and they've done well this first year.  The leaves are getti

I had four bonsai-related items on my 2021 to-do list for the yard and garden .  One of them - Number 10 -  was to buy some pre-bonsai materials that I can purchase as smaller stock (and thus, lower prices) to use in later seasons.  Number 10 on the list reads: That idea of buying some pre-bonsai is something that I've done before by buying nursery stock and sticking it directly in the ground.  The guys at Bonsai Empire have a page up about pre-bonsai where they give you some tips on how to do it; including what to kind of look for when buying nursery stock.  I currently have three pre-bonsai junipers that I've picked up over the years - two in the ground and one in a larger container .  My plan for this year - #8 on the list - is to 'work' those three this season.  That means digging them up, pruning them a bit and likely sticking them back in the ground to overwinter in their pots at the end of the season.   But, this post isn't about those old pre-bonsai tre

It might be time to add coverage of my 'collecting mantra' to include plants and hostas.  You know the line that I tell myself at garage sales and estate sales .  Thanks to COVID-19, my days at garage sales and estate sales are limited.  So, too, are my trips to the Hardware Store.  But, on one of them, I did wander into the outdoor section of the garden center and saw a relatively inexpensive hosta that caught my eye.  You can see it above - and it looks totally ordinary, right?  It was just $4.99, but that's not the (only) reason I bought it.  The price was/is attractive, but the variety was the real draw here.  It is labeled as an Empress Wu Hosta.  See the tag below:   A quick trip around the Google Machine and I find something that shares the name Empress Wu, but in every instance, it is prefaced with the name Shadowland.  I went to the source - Proven Winners - because that's where the tag is from and they, too, label it Shadowland Empress Wu Hosta.  The

We planted our first Oak tree in our yard this month.  You can see it above - it is a Northern Red Oak tree and it is REALLY small.  I'll get the caliper dimension later this Summer, but I think this might be the thinnest tree that we've planted. Why an Oak tree?  Because of this Washington Irving post from last year . I know we won't be living in our home by the time that this tree - if we nurture it - grows up to be significant.  In ten years, it will be a small tree.  In 20 years, it might be an eight inch or 10 inch caliper tree.  We'll be gone from here. But, we have two huge Oak trees on our lot - that planted a long time ago.  And we are the ones - the future ages - that are enjoying the trees. We plant this small tree without the expectation that we'll enjoy the shade that it will create.  But, this little tree will 'benefit mankind long after we shall have ceased to tread our yard'. We planted it on the south side of our lot, behind

Yesterday, I posted a photo of the Youngstown Juniper that I bought at Home Depot to work into a bonsai tree and mentioned that I also picked up another tree.  Here's that tree:  A Chinese Juniper 'Pfitzeriana Aurea'.  Same deal:  from Home Depot in Darien in a #1 pot that cost less than $10.  Above you can see the tree that includes some gold-ish needles in the new growth.  Below, you can see a close-up of the tag. This will be a tree that I'll work on in a similar fashion to the Youngstown Juniper.  I'm aware that since these things are so small that the trunks are very thin - and it is going to take a LONG time to work this into anything substantial.  But...it is a cheap way for me to work on some pruning techniques, right? This will make three nursery stock trees that I've started.  I also have identified a tree on our property - it is a cut-down of one of the American Elms that the U of I Master Gardener identified - that I am going to try to ha

Back on May 7th of this year, I shared a couple of photos and talked about my initial excitement of giving the art of bonsai a shot with a piece of nursery stock that I picked up at Home Depot for $10 .  It is a Cypress Hinoki and had one large(ish) trunk that seemed to have decent trunk taper, very little reverse taper and priced so cheaply that if I killed the poor thing, I wouldn't be that upset. In that initial post, I talked about how I was following some of the Mirai Bonsai Basics video directions and started with the roots and trunk.  More recently, I moved on to the next few steps and began to try to prune the Cypress into a bonsai of sorts. I know that every article you read talks about how you aren't supposed to prune more than 30% of the tree at any one time and that pruning an evergreen like this Cypress is best done in the late fall when it the tree is heading to dormancy.  But, I couldn't, umm, help myself.  I dove right in. I began by pruning off

With my past few trips to Japan for work, I've increasingly become interested in Japanese-style gardening and the art of bonsai.  I've been thinking about the large-scale conifers that I saw across Tokyo like this one and these pines in the outer gardens of the Imperial Palace  and thinking about how I can bring something like *that* to our yard as we grow our conifer collection. At the same time, my visit to the Morimae Bonsai Shop in Ginza along with subscribing to a few bonsai YouTube channels like Heron's Bonsai out of London  and Mirai Bonsai's Beginner Series has sparked my interest in the art of bonsai. This video that talks about nursery stock material selection from Mirai Bonsai pushed me to head to Home Depot to see if I could find something I could buy that was inexpensive to try my hand at shaping a small tree. My bonsai journey starts with this Cypress Hinoki that you see in the photo above.  Bought at Home Depot for $9.98, this Cypress is going