Why I Oughta...

One of my kids has started to fly a small, consumer-grade drone around our yard and garden.  They're just getting the hang of the thing - and starting to take a few risks by flying it higher and further away from where they're standing.  And...it has been going well.  We're getting some interesting photos of our garden and yard and even some from our our neighborhood.  They were out flying the drone recently and started to snap a few photos in our front yard.  Everything was going (and looking) good - here's some photos from the drone flight out the front of our house: And then.....this happened: That's static.  The drone got stuck in a large tree in our front yard.  About thirty feet up in the air.  Oh, no.   Once I figured out where it was located, I grabbed a few footballs to try to knock it down.  After about 25 minutes and dozens of tosses (and some stuck footballs), I was able to get the drone down.  And...all the footballs. But...we had one incident:  one of

The last time that I checked in on the pair of Sugar Tyme crabapple trees - that are planted on the southside of our house - was in mid-March when they started to leaf-out on the tips of the branches .   I planted the pair of these trees in September of 2021 , so this was the third FULL growing season. They seemed to do fine in 2022 and 2023. They bloomed each Spring and had fruit in their first Fall , too. I last pruned these in February of this year - February 2024.  When they were dormant .  At that time, the tree on the right was showing some 'upwards' growth and was a bit more 'ahead' of the tree on the left.  But, I pruned them back to be horizontal cordons - four layers with a 'flat' top layer. This growing season, the trees kept-on-going.  But, the tree on the right shot WAY ahead of the one on the left.  Have a look at the trees - as they currently look - at the end of September - in the photo below: The tree on the right has A TON of top growth.  An

Both of the small, weeping Norway Spruce trees that we planted last Fall have put on spring growth.  New, bright-green needles and weeping limbs have appeared.  That includes the leaders - especially on the tree closer to the house.  It has seen a bunch of top growth - see below.  I trained these small trees up on poles last Fall and from what I've read, you have to keep training the leader up, or else...it will become a 'spreader' vs a more upright tree.   This leader needed a taller pole, so I grabbed one and wired it up to get the leader more vertical and upright.  See below for the 'after' of this Weeping Norway Spruce: I'll watch the top of this spruce and think about pruning back some of the lateral branches to reduce competition for the top.  

Last month, I planted a small (1.5 gallon) unknown variety Japanese Maple tree from the orange big box store that I couldn't pass up .  I still don't know that variety of the tree, but that doesn't mean I can't keep trying to 'get to know' it a bit in an attempt to figure out what variety it *is* in actuality. Back in this post , I toy'd around with what it could be - ranging from English Lace to Garnet.  And that was based on the idea that it was 'upright' in habit.   But, is it upright?  I don't know.  I *do* know that the way to keep tabs on this is to document the leader and how it grows.    That requires a series of posts, but this one will serve as the kick-off.  Has this put on new growth since I planted it?  I'm not TOTALLY CERTAIN, but I'm pretty sure that this trio of stems that is lighter colored - at the very top - are all new (since being planted).  See below for the current state of the apical meristem on this red, unknown l

Last Spring, I put in a TINY Saratoga Ginkgo tree in amongst the Little Henry Sweetspire out front .  The height of the Ginkgo was *below* the height of the shrub, so I thought the tree would be allowed to sort-of grow-up in the shadow of the shrub.  The Saratoga is a unique Ginkgo that has longer leaves that most normal/traditional Ginkgo trees.  I didn't pay this tree too much attention over the last year, but it was watered with the sprinkler out front that was hitting the front porch beds, so I think it was watered enough to survive.  But, how does it look like one year later?  It has put on about six inches of new height.  See below for a photo showing the current state of the Saratoga Ginkgo tree.  It is now emerged above the full height of the Little Henry Sweetspire - by about eight-to-ten inches.    The American Conifer Society suggests that this tree will get to between 12-to-24-feet tall in ten years.  Lets suggest this is the third growing season and I bought a two-ye

Every year, we go on a little vacation to Wisconsin or somewhere else where we find ourselves away from our house for a number of weeks in a row.  Each year, I try to set up an irrigation system that provides enough water to allow for the plants, shrubs and trees - as well as the grass - to simply survive.  In most years, we usually get a LITTLE lucky and get a rain event once or twice while we're gone and most everything survives.   Last year, we went on vacation in the middle of the Summer and weren't lucky enough to have that rain event.  Couple that with a REALLY dry Spring (Drought) and my sprinkler setup not covering EVERYTHING and we have things die out.   One of the specimens who suffered last year was the Weeping White Spruce columnar tree that is planted on the southside of our beds, near the Lindens that are espalier'd.  By mid-July last year, it was showing a bunch of needle drop - when we came back from vacation .  And by September, it had gotten worse.  Dead b

Earlier this week, I showed off a couple of photos that featured the pair of Sugar Tyme Crabapple trees that were in (what I then called) a pre-espalier form .  These were planted last Fall along the southside of our house, in front of our gate.   Since they had already bloomed, I thought it was time to take out the pruners and remove all the non-necessary limbs to allow the trees to focus growth on the limbs that I cared most about.  I started with a top haircut - pruning off the apical meristem or leader on both.  That usually has a strong impact on the tree where it signals a bunch of NEW growth.  I used the siding boards to get them the same height.  From there, I went two siding boards down and removed all the little, starting limbs in between those two segments.  Then, again two boards down.  And so forth.   I still am not sure what form these will take, but - for now - I'm training them horizontally.  See below for what are (now) four-level horizontal cordon espaliered craba

Yesterday, I shared a couple of photos of the very young Japanese White Pine tree that has a ton of brown and orange needles .  The tree is either in severe decline and will be dead soon.  Or, it is going through a normal process of needle drop to get ready for some new Spring growth.  I have no idea.  I *do* know that the tree was stressed before I planted it and the cones were already present at the top - indicating that (I think) the tree was concerned for its own wellbeing, so it threw out a good crop of cones based on the size of the tree.  In that post, I mentioned that the small (and adjacent) Weeping White Spruce appears to have stabilized after suffering some heavy drought damage this Summer.  It seems like the needle loss has stopped and the remaining sections are green and well-connected.  I shared a mid-Summer update on this tree where you can see the needle loss, but when you compare the photos from September to now , it is clear that even more needles were dropped in the

Back in the end of July, I posted a couple of photos showing the flush of new, mid-Summer growth on our small Bald Cypress tree in our front yard.  Well..technically, it is IB2DW , but that's still in front.  We have a second deciduous conifer in our yard - a Dawn Redwood that is planted out back - that had the same flush of new, Summer growth on the tips that I wanted to document.   This is our second Dawn Redwood; planted in the 2018 growing season .  I had planted one originally in 2017, but between some neglect and not knowing anything (I limb'd it up), it died.   This tree was green and happy just about 12 months ago (late July 2020 when we were deep in COVID). Below you can see the new, soft growth that is on the tips of the entire tree.  The top, apical meristem has added about six inches to the top so far, too. Last year, I posted similar 'new growth' photos of this same tree in September .  I'm wondering if that means we'll see new growth for the bett

When I planted the small Weeping White Spruce in our backyard in 2019 , I noticed at the time that the tree had a sort of dual-leader-thing going on.  I think that's pretty common for young trees that are shipped to retailers:  tree nurseries are likely keeping small trees with ONE STRONG leader in the ground at their nursery because those trees have the strongest likelihood of growing big, tall and straight.  So, we see a lot of trees that have double leaders.  Despite noticing it, I didn't do anything about it.  My habits in terms of tree pruning have changed A LOT in the past four years.   How so?  Well, I was taught by my Dad to limb-up trees.  You want them to grow big and tall, so any energy that they dedicate to the bottom is wasted.  And, I did that.  Making a bunch of immature trees almost lollipop-looking.  And I lost some.    And decided to take a step back and NOT prune trees very much.  This Weeping White Spruce has been the benefactor of that new practice.   I too

Back in 2017, we had a large (3" plus caliper) Chanticleer Pear tree planted in our front yard - adjacent to our garage and driveway.  That tree died in year one and was replaced.  The replacement tree suffered the same way, but it took me close to a year to figure out that the problem was water - but not drought.  It was OVERwatering and the tree was drowning.   I worked the hole and tried to break through the clay bowl, but the tree has never been right. In 2018, it flowered in November .  Weird, right?    I last covered this tree in April of last year when it was showing just a couple of flower buds .  It leaf'd out just a little bit last year and I assumed that it was a goner this Spring. So much so, that I planted another , second tree in the shadow of this one with the thinking that I'd get a half-year head start with the new tree when the time came to chop down this pear.  That tree was this very thin Red Fox Katsura tree that I planted "between two driveways&