Why I Oughta...

Just when things were going swimmingly with dahlia season pop'ing off, we have a setback.  And, this one was an accident.  I planted a number of dahlias in the Pizza Oven Bed.  I called it the "Pizza Oven West Bed" because it is, well...West of the oven.  And, that makes them *close* to tree swing.  Which, up until this week hasn't been an issue.  But...kids will be kids.  And, one-way-or-the-other, someone found themselves in, amongst the dahlias.  And, unfortunately....that means that two of them had stems that were cracked off.   A Milena Fluer decorative dahlia.  And, Rip City.  Or... what I was sold as Rip City (but I'm pretty sure isn't really Rip City.) Here, below, are a couple of photos.  Milena Fleur on the left.  "Rip City" on the right.  Both were cut down by about half.     Below are a couple more photos showing the close-ups of the cracks.   And, here below, are a couple of...

In the Summer of 2020, I bought and planted a small Harry Lauder Walkingstick tree .  A contorted tree that was inspired by our visit to Disneyland Paris and their Phantom Manor ride that has an outdoor queue with contorted , weeping and other very interesting trees/horticulture.  When we bought it, it was small.    And, it has stayed *mostly* small.  Hasn't changed VERY MUCH .  But, the bed the tree is planted in certainly *has changed* very much.   This tree is planted in the back, sort-of tucked in behind some things.  This is the sixth growing season and the tree is still somewhere between waist-and-chest high.  Like every tree that I've planted since the first few seasons, I haven't touched this tree.  No pruning.  No cleaning up.  Just an annual deep-root feeding from the professionals.   Here, below, is what it looks like in mid-Summer:  It really shines during the Winter when you can see the skeleton...

We have had a wet couple of weeks here in August.  I haven't watered anything in the garden since early August.  Not even the containers.  That's because we've had deep rains that have come every few days.  That's good for most things.  It has also made it easy on me in terms of lugging around the hose.   And, before that,  according to the Illinois State Climatologist blog post, we also had a wet July .  So, add those things up and it seems that some parts of the garden are loving it right now.  And, one of those is the Stumpery.   This year, I added 15 (yes...fifteen!) Autumn Ferns to the Stumpery.  These were planted amongst some existing Autumn Ferns.  And, three Godzilla Japanese Painted Ferns that went in the garden in Summer 2025 .  I picked these up at the Morton Arboretum Plant Sale last year.  I looked for them again this year, but they didn't have any.  Based on how well they're doing, thes...

The Anemone Lucky Charm (from Northwind Perennial Farm) are just beginning to pop-off with their bloom cycle.  These are, I suppose "Late Bloomers".  This post from 2023 includes the description of this 'Lucky Charm' variety .  It also shows a similar late-August bloom time.  Here's a post from 2022 that includes the nursery sign when we bought them .  I've used these as filler/accent flowers in arrangements the past few seasons and I'll likely do the same this year.  Here, below, is the first cut of the year.  I like the closed-up buds better than I like the actual flowers in arrangements. Here below, is how they look on the plant: And, here below, is how the plants have filled-in and recovered from the planting of that Blue Spruce (on Standard).   They've filled-in the entire space and have created a living mulch of sorts with their spreading habit: I took a couple of divisions from this plant and put them near the pizza oven.  They're...

I saw this DIY fountain project featuring an Alpine trough and pondless setup on Instagram recently and it stuck with me so much that I've gone back to it a few times.  It is a small concrete (or stone or faux, I have no idea) trough, a simple copper faucet and an underground storage chamber that creates a pondless fountain situation.  Very European garden-feeling.  (To me, at least.)  Here it is embedded below:  View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sebastian Streich (@my.garden.life.and.home) It is small but pretty striking.  I've talked about upgrading our water-feature situation over the years and even included an upgrade on my 2026 to-do list (#23) .   I've read and watched a ton of stories/videos about hypertufa and have recently poked around on DIY'ing an Alpine trough.  It seems that one of the ways forward is using a foam chassis that you wrap in concrete to create a lightweight tub.  That seems......

Back a few years back, I was on a real "dark foliage" kick.  I was seeking out "dark foliage" plants like Dark Side of the Moon Astilbe.  And... I ended up planting a pair of Eiffel Tower Elderberries in the backyard, under the secondary Oak tree along the south fence line .  The plant tags showed JET BLACK foliage.  The description said that the leaves emerge green and age to a dark black.   I don't think I've gotten black foliage.  Yet.  I posted photos in October 2024 (their second growing season) and they were...well...green .   What about now?  Below is a photo showing this pair of plants.  They're supposed to be 'upright', but mine are kind of lingering.   One thing that I just revisited is this little tid-bit of maintenance.  From my original planting post : Black Tower Elderberry is excellent for the back of the border and adds some textural drama to tight spaces. Plant in full coastal sun or partial shad...

Back in the Fall of 2023, I planted three Ruby Muhly Grasses - Muhlenbergia reverchonii 'Undaunted' - at the edge of the boardwalk in our backyard .  They were a deal on the 'end of the season' sale at The Growing Place.  But, they were also a grass that I had read about/come across them and thought their 'cloud-like' seedheads are something I'd like to have in the garden.   They went in very late in the season, but came back just fine their first year.  Here they are in mid-August 2024 prior to putting on any seed-head growth .  They were snug in their bed that I have subsequently expanded a little bit (and should expand more this Fall).   By September that first year, they had some seedheads .  But...not the 'clouds' that these grasses are famous for, at least.   Fast-forward to now.  This is their third growing season and they seem to have established themselves.  I don't pay much attention to them in terms of watering/...

Seven years ago, I planted a hedge.  Or, what was (hopefully) something that was going to grow INTO a hedge.  Of Hicks (upright) Yews.  I bought 15 (fifteen) very small, one-gallon pots of the evergreen columnar shrub and planted them on about 30" centers across the back of our yard .  When I say "very small", I mean "very small".   The last time that I looked at this hedge was in January, when everything in the garden was dormant and the green needles of the Yews stood out .   Below are a few photos showing the current state of this hedge.  Is it a hedge, yet?  Well...not quite.  But, we're getting close. They're filling in the gaps (not totally) and growing up (in an uneven fashion).  The inspiration for using these (well...) yews was an undulating hedge that I found on Instagram .  I also found " Wirtz hedges " that are sort-of cloud-pruned.   So, that means that the 'uneven-ness' isn't a bug.  It is (pot...

In the Spring of 2023, I ripped out a pair of Rhododendron from either side of our back stoop and replaced them with a pair of Spring Grove (dwarf) Ginkgo trees .  They were in larger nursery containers at the time I bought them, but they were small.  Short.  Well...dwarf.  Which usually means they're very slow-growing.  I wrote this 'getting to know' post about Spring Grove Ginkgo and talked about how they were discovered as a Witch's Broom in Ohio.   That first Summer, they were stressed.  This is a sunny location and the hot afternoon sun beat them up.  So, I put up some shade cloth to try to get them through August.  That worked and by September, they were leafy and (mostly) green .  Ever since, they haven't looked back.  And are growing faster than I thought they would.   Here they are in October 2024 .   Over the years, I've posted Wintertime photos showing their 'frames'.   Today, despi...

Over the past few growing seasons, I've become a coleus-as-bedding-plant believer.  I 'praised' it in Fall of 2024 .  And, called growing three Inferno Coleus at the corner of our patio a ' garden win ' at the end of the growing season (October) last year.  This year, I didn't plant any Inferno Coleus, which...in retrospect was a mistake.  I've been unhappy with the coleus up front, but I can't say the same about the coleus I planted in our backyard - in the same spot as Inferno last year.  This year, I planted three Talevera Moondust Coleus in that spot.  I found them at Wannemaker's and they jumped off the nursery table with their speckles of paint on the foliage.   If you go back to the planting post , you'll see that they're described this way by the grower: Sun-tolerant varieties maintain color and foliage patterns in both sun and shade conditions. These late-flowering selections are tidy, non-bolting plants in the garden. The plant tag...

Back around the border of the fire pit is a Redbud Tree.  I originally planted a weeping Lavender Twist Redbud tree in 2020, but it came cracked-in-half .  It came back alive, but I'm not sure if the tree was grafted or not, which means that the trunk was some other kind of tree.  I also sort-of lost track of where this tree was planted, because back in 2020, I planted it along the fence .    But...today....as I mentioned in the first sentence, we have a Redbud tree around the firepit.   I also have a memory of this tree getting stomped by some tree guys. However, it has persisted.  And, grown.   And, it *is* weeping.   But, now it is a multi-trunk tree. However, it is arching up and out (over the lawn and the firepit) and has taken on a nice shape.   I haven't documented this tree in the [tree diary], so I thought it was about time.    

In the pizza oven bed, I have a lone, solitary Alchemilla Mollis 'Thriller' (Lady's Mantle) that I planted near the corner of the timbers of the retaining wall.  You can see it in the photos of this post about adding a new (to me) allium variety to that same bed .    I also bought a different variety (Auslese) a few years back and planted it in a spot that is buried in Ostrich Ferns.  I should go see if I can move that thing..... The reason I bring it up is that I was...well...influenced.   I saw this post from Erin the Impatient Gardener where she fawns over Alchemilla Mollis (Lady's Mantle) in her garden: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Erin Schanen 🌿 The Impatient Gardener (@impatientgardener) One of my garden rules is to never buy one of anything.  So, I needed to remedy that issue.   Also, #3 and #4 on my 2026 to-do list are these: For #3 (Finish up the edit with grasses), I have made progress....

Earlier this month, I posted the latest update on the progress of finishing our backyard wood-fired pizza oven where I showed the continued application of brick veneer to the exterior to clad the enclosure in a finished material.  At that time, I had most of the back and some parts of one side/the front complete.   Fast forward a little bit and now the brick veneer is fully-applied.  I ended up using two types of bricks (a cost-cutting choice) that I sort-of have come to regret.  But, that's only after I began to grout the bricks.  I used a more expensive brick on the front that came with L-Shaped 'corners' to help provide the illusion of full-dimensional bricks being used.  I'm glad I did that.  But, I also used a far-cheaper brick veneer product for the back and parts of the sides of the oven.   I thought that they would be hidden (in the case of the back and most of the sides), so it wouldn't matter if the 'cheaper' brick was back th...

Dahlia season started early in 2026.  With a single, pink bloom of a Wizard of Oz dahlia.  This post is going up two weeks after I snipped this bloom.  So, dahlia season started in June 2026. Last year, my earliest blooming dahlia was Wizard of Oz with a bloom exactly one-year-ago today .  It was productive all the way until (at least) mid-October.   This year, I planted two Wizard of Oz tubers.  #20 and #40 on my full list .  One of them - in the Pizza Oven West bed has bloomed .  Sort-of in the 'crotch' of some of the stems.   The blooms on Wizard of Oz Pompon dahlia are pale pink with yellow centers.  This is such a welcome site as we enter the heat of the Summer: Wizard of Oz Dahlia - pale pink bloom with yellow centers. When I say that this first bloom grew in the 'crotch' of a couple of stems, the two photos below shows what I mean.  The first photo is from a couple of days before I put it.  While the second pho...

I planted a very small, native Pagoda Dogwood tree in our backyard in the Summer of 2021.  Five years ago .  It was from a municipal native tree sale and was just a foot tall. Over the five years, it has grown up and out.  But, where it is planted is a little bit out-of-the-way.  Well...it is out-of-the-way now because the Weeping Redbud (Lavender Twist) bounced back after what I thought was it dying out.  That weeping Redbud has come back as a multi-trunk tree and has put on a bunch of size.  That means that this Pagoda Dogwood tree is now tucked in *behind* the redbud's foliage.  That doesn't diminish the Pagoda Dogwood, though.  Just makes it a little bit harder to see. I most recently covered this tree this past Winter when I posted a photo of the structure .  Each of the last three growing seasons, I've pruned this tree after it was done flowering.  2023 pruning , 2024 pruning and last year, 2025 pruning .   In each case...

The Dark Side of the Moon Astilbes that are planted in a row in the 'nook' garden behind the Weeping Nootka Cypress tree are blooming.  Well...*some* of them are blooming.  These are sort of just THERE.  Not thriving, not declining.  They're dark foliage plants, so I'm sure rooting for them.   Below is a photo showing the main group of these (there are a couple others that are split by the contorted Harry Lauder Walking Stick tree that is planted in this bed) with one tall, pink bloom and the other bloom (to the left) about to open up: This post is going up in mid-July, but this photo is from late June.  Just like last year, when I posted about these in July, but as a 'later-post' from June .   These were planted in 2023 from the Morton Arboretum annual Arbor Day Plant Sale .   This border needs some additional plant material in front of these.  There is some ajuga, but it sure seems like it could use more.  

 Last month, I posted a couple of photos of doing some of the brick veneer on the pizza oven .  #5 on my 2026 to-do list is to 'finish up the oven' - which means finishing up the...well....finishes.  The exterior.  On the enclosure, that means brick veneer.   I started the veneer late last year before the temperatures dropped .  Didn't get far.  But, due to the temperature tolerances of the veneer mortar, I had to wait out the Spring .   With this being the first-time doing this type of work, I'm learning as I go.  I started on the back of the oven and moved around to the front.  Veneer isn't cheap, but there are higher-quality bricks and lower-quality ones.  My thought is that I could use the more-expensive veneer on the sides of the oven that people will see.  And, the cheaper stuff on the back.  Against the fence.   I ordered a bunch of boxes of the 'cheaper' veneer and over the past few weeks got to...