Why I Oughta...

We have twelve clumps of Summer Beauty Allium ( Allium angulosum 'Summer Beauty' ) in our backyard that were planted in 2020.  In two batches:  first a group of four , then eight more .  They're now placed in a colony of five and a colony of seven.  Odd numbers is what other gardeners always recommend. All of them have done well this year and I'm happy to see them about to burst open and put on their mid-Summer show.  They disappear over Winter, but put out this lovely dark green foliage that stays green at the tips.  Here's a look at them emerging from the mulch in late March of this year .   The drift of five is planted at the base of the Greenspire Linden horizontal cordon espalier - you can see them below.  The photo looks like there is four, but there's one behind #3 (from the left) in the back row against the fence.  Head here and scroll to the bottom of the post to see the original four plantings with one kind of 'behind' the others.  In the pho

The journey this year with our three Disneyland Roses has been all about paying just.a.little.bit of attention to them.  Or at least MORE than I have ever done in years past.  It started with mulching them in to overwinter this past Winter.  Then, I transplanted the first one from the backyard to the southside bed before it broke dormancy .  I also decided to feed these roses - for the first time.  I used a bag of Jobe's Organics Knock-out Rose granular food and started the first feeding in late April ( posted in early May ).  Then, gave them a second feeding one month later - in late May ( posted here in late June, despite the feeding being in late May ).  Today, I'm posting in early July, but sharing a photo I took of the bag of rose fertilizer that I used in late June.   This was the third and final rose feeding of the season.  Late April, Late May, Late June.    When I was out there feeding the three roses - which have bloomed and are getting reset to have a flush of flow

There are (now) four Purple Sensation Allium that pop up in our front bed between the Vanilla Strawberry Hydrangea and our boxwoods.  I say "now" because when I planted these in the Fall of 2018, there were five of them in this location .   Seeing the photo below, I'm now thinking I should buy more of these this Fall and line the whole row between the hyrangea and boxwods with a row of Allium bulbs.   They provide a nice pop of color and come alive in between when the tulips have expired and when our annuals begin to fill-in.   I could see 25 or so more planted here to fill in the area.    Note:  like other posts, this one is live in June, but this photo is from late May 2021.

 Last year, I planted (in two sets) twelve Summer Beauty Ornamental Onion (Allium) on the south side of our backyard in two different spots.  First, I put in four underneath one of the Espalier'd Lindens , then seven more further down (and one more by the Lindens) all in a cluster that will, hopefully, grow up and out into a nice drift of alliums.  This is my first Spring with them and I'm happy to see that they're showing a lot of nice, new green growth coming out of the ground and seem to be one of the first movers of the season.   My count shows that all twelve are (right now) showing signs of life, so I'm thinking they all are coming back.   I threw down some wood chips on top of these to shelter them from the cold last Fall and I'm thinking these might have helped in some way.  But, they sure take on a messy look once Spring comes, don't they?  Have a look at three of these Allium covered with Fall wood chips below.  These need a new, fresh coat of hardwoo

Looking back on my 2020 gardening season, one of the things that was a success was determining some of the 'priority areas' in the yard that I wanted to address.  Last year, I picked three areas ( Area 1 , Area 2 , Area 3 ) and that forced me to be selective in the materials we bought and what I added around the yard.   In terms of success, I feel like I moved things forward in Area 1 and Area 2 quite a bit.  Area 3, not so much .  That seems like an area to revisit, but before I do that, I'm going to lay down a little marker on a 2021 Priority Area - let's call this one 2021 Area #1:  Behind The South White Oak Tree.  (That's the big dot on the far right of the plan you see below.) The planting area that is called for in the plan is quite simple.  Just 15 total plants of two varieties: 7 Ostrich Ferns 8 Summer Beauty Ornamental Onions (Alliums) We have a series of BOTH of those plants already in our yard currently, so adding these will be a natural extension of the

Back in the end of June, I planted eight additional Summer Beauty Ornament Onion (allium) on the south side of our property in the bed that runs from east to west.  We picked them up (or...had someone picked them up) from Hinsdale Nursery and I put seven of them in a staggered planting.  When they went in, they were just green foliage, but today - if you look at the photo at the top of this post - you'll notice that they're all flowering some lovely purple sphere-shaped flowers.  Each of them have multiple flowers, but ALL of them are leaning to the East.  Looking at this photo, one thing that I'm noticing is that the mulch that I put down (delivered in mid-April this year) has already broken down quite a bit.  This area - and these Allium could use a mulch refresh.  That leads me to ask a question:  do gardeners mulch twice a year?  This post recommends both a Spring and Fall mulch ?  You should add mulch whenever layers thin out for any reason. You’ll also want

This photo above shows seven new Summer Beauty Ornamental Onions (Alliums) that I planted just to the West of the Fanal Astilbe border .  I planted eight total with one other new one joining the previous four that I planted earlier this Summer .  These eight (well...7 + 1) are part of " Priority Area #1 " that I wanted to plant this year that called for 12 total.    I planted these about mid-way back in the bed with the thought that I could - maybe next year - supplement these with a border (closer to the edge of the bed) of annuals in front of the Allium.  If you zoom in SUPER close to the photo above, you'll see that there appear to be some flower buds that have shot up in the middle of the clump.  So, I'm thinking that we'll get *some* flowers this first growing season.  Have a look at the red arrows for the 'curl'ing up' flower buds that are emerging:

Back in February, I outlined my #1 priority area for our backyard landscape to be addressed this year - the area to the south in between the espaliered Lindens and the large Oak tree.  That part of the plan called for a series of Oakleaf Hydrangeas, Fanal Astilbes, some ferns, a couple of columnar trees and a number of Summer Beauty Ornamental Alliums.  A couple of weeks ago, we went out to The Growing Place headquarters location in Aurora where they had setup a 'drive thru' situation where you could shop from your car.  This was the same trip that we bought the Harry Lauder's Walking stick contorted tree .   As we drove through the perennial section, we saw these Summer Beauty Allium.  Our plan calls for 12 of them.  But, we bought four to start.  You can see them in their nursery pots below.        Here's the tag - below - that calls out the name Allium tanguticum 'Summer Beauty'.   And here, below, is the back of the tag.  The plan

I wanted to take and share some photos in the [ garden diary ] here so I can look at the development of the shrubs and perennials in our yard.  I've already posted images of a few things including our Saucer Magnolia , Dappled Willow (treeform) , front-yard Cleveland Pear , some of our lilac buds , how we've added some wood chips to the far back and biosolids in testing and most recently, posted both hostas and peonies coming thru the mulch .  Here's a few items that I've covered over the years.  This is what they're looking like in mid-April, 2020. Starting with the northside Rhododendron.  This was put in the bed in 2018 and didn't flower last year.  Buds game looks strong this year.  This is the one plant that I applied Wilt-Pruf this Winter .  In the bed outside the screened porch, I planted a solitary Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass a couple of years back.  We should add more here, I think.  I trimmed last year's growth off in March and th

Last October, at the time I planted 50 Tulip bulbs in our front yard, I also planted five Allium bulbs in the same bed.  Here's the post showing those bulbs going in .  I planted these Purple Sensation Allium bulbs behind the boxwood hedge but in front of the hydrangeas that are right in front of our porch.  This is the second set of Allium bulbs that we've tucked into our yard with the first ones going in the Fall of 2017 in our backyard .  Those made quick work of themselves and emerged and flowered in their first season.  Just like the front yard tulips that popped up this Spring , these Allium bulbs have sprouted, too.  If you look at the photo at the top of this post, you'll see all five of them have arrived, but the first two on the left seem the strongest and the middle one is a little behind and has just emerged and is still yellow.  I've always liked Allium bulbs, but they're Nat's favorite bulb.  She seems to be drawn to them more than tulips o

About ten days ago, I shared a photo of a set of fringed tulip bulbs that I expected to get in the ground.  You can see that post here .    They're called Crystal Beauty and are a reddish-pink in color.  I ended up buying two packages of them and put them in the spot you see above.  Along with these other "double late" Orange Princess Tulip bulbs.  All-in, there are now 50 little bulbs in the ground in our front beds in between the large Maple tree and our hostas and from the sign post you see in the photo above and the edge of the bed. Here's the packaging of the Orange Princess bulbs, but note they're called "Double Late". What's that mean? From Gardenia.net : Award-winning Tulip 'Orange Princess' is a lovely peony-flowered tulip featuring light nasturtium-orange petals, flushed with reddish-purple and glazed lightly in warm pink. Its chubby bowl-shaped flowers are also tipped with green on the outer petals.  ...Because of th

Almost one year ago - in early October of 2017 - I posted some photos of the locations of the Allium Purple Sensation bulbs that I put in the ground in the backyard.  I ended up putting them around the base of a big Oak Tree about half-way back from the house .  I don't think that all five of them came up and I know that we had at least one of them get dug out and taken by a critter, so I'm thinking that we likely have three left. When I came across the fall bulb section recently, I'm naturally drawn to Alliums.  Since 2011, I've posted about the various Allium bulbs that I've planted, starting with a surprise gift to Natalie that first year .  I also covered the bulbs that went into the ground in the Fall of 2017 in a post in April of this year when they emerged .  This year, I have five bulbs to put down of the same variety as last year:  Purple Sensation. In thinking about the 'path' concept I have in my head for the backyard , I'm wonde

Last October, I picked up 10 Purple Sensation Allium bulbs and planted them around a big oak tree in our backyard.  That initial planting post is here .  Over the weekend (before the snow came in on Monday morning), I spent some time out puttering around the yard and discovered that - just like the tulip bulbs that I planted at the same time - that some of these allium have emerged.  This one in the photo above, is right at the base of that mighty oak and I'm hoping will continue to grow and give us a little 'show' with the purple orb.  Along with hostas and ferns, I have a soft spot in my gardening heart from allium.  As I wrote last fall : I first  wrote about Allium bulbs all the way back in 2011 , when the first set of shoots broke through the mulch that Spring.  I planted those in 'secret' as a little surprise for Natalie.   I then chronicled their appearance in  2012 ,  2014  and  2015 . At the beginning of April, I mentioned here on the blog that we

Last week, with the help of the KotBT, we went into the #newoldbackyard and dug up some holes to plant some fall bulbs.  Among the bulbs were tulips (which I'll post on another day) and alliums, which you can see above.  I planted 10 total Allium bulbs of the Purple Sensation variety. I first wrote about Allium bulbs all the way back in 2011 , when the first set of shoots broke through the mulch that Spring.  I planted those in 'secret' as a little surprise for Natalie. I then chronicled their appearance in 2012 , 2014  and 2015 . I put half of this year's Allium bulbs out back by the newly-planted fountain grasses and the other half around this large Oak tree that you can see below.  The red flag isn't related to the bulbs - it is put there by the landscape lighting company to show us where they were planning on putting some lights.  But, If you look closely, you can see a series of holes I dug out around the trunk of the tree where I placed the Allium bu

Nat's favorite bulb is allium.  Over the years, I've picked up little ones and big ones and planted them in different parts of the beds.  In back, we have a set of the larger ones that create a pathway to our vegetable garden.  They've just started to break through the mulch this week. Last year, I couldn't figure out what these were until they fully sprouted .  But...now that I've been through a season with them, I'm all that much wiser. We also have some smaller/more delicate allium bulbs in the front by the porch.   I took photos of those back in 2012 .  And before that in 2011 . In fact, over the years, I've populated the 'bulbs' tag on the blog with various bulb-related photos.   Check 'em out here .

It is still early March and these Allium in our front yard are way ahead of last year.  I posted a photo on March 30th of last year and they look to be just about the place in development as these.  Another sign of the mild winter/early spring, I suppose.

While I wish they were the HUGE ones , these little green shoots are our Allium bulbs that rise up in front of our porch in the front yard. Nat had been talking for a few years about how she *wanted* Alliums, so late in the fall of 2009, I secured a handful of the bulbs and planted them without telling her.  I hoped that I had done everything right - the depth, spacing, watering, etc.  I crossed my fingers.  Then, waited. Come Spring of 2010, they sprung to life and with a big smile on my face, I took Nat out to see her new Alliums.  I may not be the most romantic guy on the planet, but I have to say that my Allium adventure turned out great.