Why I Oughta...

Like they do at the Hollywood Awards shows, I should (if I had more time) make a montage video marking the "In Memoriam" of everything that we've planted and died.  I suppose this post - showing four trees that didn't make it through Winter this year - will have to do (for now). First tree lost:  our first Japanese Maple: Tamukeyama .  Too bad.  I'll try to replace this with another Japanese Maple.  The next two trees (if we're calling them that...) are a two of the three Green Giant Thujas planted back by the Lilacs.  One of them remains, but two of them went orange. I yanked one of them out and put it back by the compost pile.  I'll do the same with the others this weekend when I find the time. The last one, that I don't have a photo of (because...I'm pretty sure the dang rabbits gnaw'd it all the way down to the ground) is the Shagbark Hickory.   It, too, is struck out below.  With this update, I am changing some of the stats.  2023 m...

Back in 2020, I published a long post talking about how I wanted to add a (at least one) Japanese Maple to the backyard .  I ran through a series of varieties to try to narrow down what I wanted and ended up planting an Emperor 1 Japanese Maple (from the Morton Arboretum Sale) back by the firepit.  That tree has now gone through two seasons and seems to be settling into the spot.  The dark maroon leaves of the Emperor 1 Japanese Maple tree are in the photo above.   I also planted a Tamukeyama dwarf Japanese Maple up a little closer and was happy with that one, too.  Until this year, when that tree seemed to die.  Could it be the Walnut trees?  Maybe.  I've left it in the ground to see if it will come back this Spring.  If it doesn't, I'm thinking that I should replace it with ANOTHER Emperor 1 or other Japanese Maple from the Morton Arboretum this Spring.   Maybe on the north side, too? Underneath the Cataplas? In front of th...

I recently planted our first Japanese Maple Tree (Tamukeyama) and a trio of Autumn Brillance Ferns in the newly expanded south bed.  The plan in this area called for Ostrich Ferns, so I was able to scavenge five of them from the north bed - around the Dawn Redwood - and transplanted them in a little drift or colony to the east of the Maple.   You can see this little fern section come to life below.  Autumn ferns in the middle.  Ostrich Ferns on the left.  These are survivor ferns as I've not bought Ostrich Ferns in Downers Grove.  These came with the lot and even after being cut back and buried under sod, they...ummm...survived.   They spread out, so I'm hoping that these five make it through this growing season and (if they do), that means we'll have more than five here next year.  

I've posted quite a bit about Japanese gardening and Japanese-inspired gardening over the years on the blog and dedicated a whole post last year to talking about Japanese Maple trees .  Well, the impulse to buy one got the best of me and I came home with a new tree for the yard.  This is the second tree planted this year - the first was the bareroot Shagbark Hickory .  This post is about the second:  a Tamukeyama Japanese Maple tree that I bought at Home Depot.  Here's the tag from this tree: And here's the tree as it stood pre-planting: Here it is in context pre-planting: And, the price:  $69.98 with a Menards-matching 11% rebate bringing the total for this tree down to $62.28.   This tree is a dwarf tree - and stays small.  I was drawn to it being 'medium-sized' in nature and thought it could play a nice role in the layering by being in the 'in between' area behind the border plants and in front of the larger shrubs in the back.  It ...