Why I Oughta...

Yesterday, I posted about how after seeing the French gardeners use cocoa bean shell hull mulch in the gardens and beds in Luxembourg Gardens, I decided to try the stuff myself.  But, it wasn't just the mulch that made an impression on me during our visit.  So, too, did these large green tree containers.  They are all over Luxembourg Gardens and other parks/gardens.  They're really quite striking. A little digging on the Web and I discover that they're actually called Château de Versailles tree-boxes.  There are a couple of sources that offer them.  But...brace yourself, they're not cheap. What looked initially to me like wooden boxes turn out to be cast iron frames with wooden slats that make up the sides.  The corners and braces are all cast iron.  See here below: Photo via Jardin du Roi Soleil - this is their photo and product .   If you've been following along on the blog, you might have seen the little planter box that I made for Natalie for our p

Back in November, I posted about how I was dreaming about a columnar conifer like this Columnar Norway Spruce that I found online .  The Tree Center is selling 1 gallon versions of this tree for $50 , but with the pot being just one gallon, you can bet that that tree is tiny. Then, just a couple of days ago, I shared my 2019 To-Do Garden List that included as #8 on the list :  do something *more* with conifers.  I mentioned this very Columnar Norway Spruce. Funny thing that I just came across a photo on Instagram from Lurvey Landscape Supply - which happens to be in Volo, Illinois and is on the way to Twin Lakes.  I've long admired their place as we drove by, but I assumed that it was a wholesale place.  Turns out, I was wrong and they not only do retail business, they encourage visits via their social handles.  (Side note:  this is a different place than I posted about in regards to their topiaries , but is ON THE SAME ROAD - as we travel to Twin Lakes.  I've noted in

Over the past year or so, I've posted plenty of dreaming/hoping/wishing/wanting items related to our yard and garden.  With Spring right around the corner (a guy can hope, right?), I thought I would round up all of those items that I've talked about/lusted after so I can have an organized list to attack this year. Before I get to this year, I figure I should look back at some of the things that we accomplished in the Spring/Summer/Fall of 2018. Last year, I got plenty accomplished including the planting of our European Columnar Frans Fontaine Hornbeam trees that will eventually form a hedge on the northern fenceline,  added our first evergreen with a Weeping Cedar tree , planted two more Disneyland Roses , took the inaugural inventory of tree heights , added a bird nesting shelf  and a mason bee house , planted a tiny Bald Cypress and a few other trees, worked our terrible clay soil with some added pellet gypsum  and had the guys lay on a thick load of mulch , removed

Get this topiary frame from TopiaryTree.net .  This is their product photo , not my photo. On the way up to Twin Lakes Wisconsin, we used to drive by this garden center on Route 12 named Atrium Garden Center.  They had a beautiful nursery that seemed stocked with tons of trees, plants, shrubs and more.  We stopped a few times, but every time we drove by, I always admired one thing:  the topiaries that they displayed close to the road.  They had critters and shapes of all sizes.  Dolphins.  Guys with fishing poles.  Even a Mickey Mouse head.  You can see a bunch of their topiaries in some of these user-submitted photos on Google Maps .  Here are a few screenshots from people that have submitted them there.  (Note...these are not my photos and can be found in their original form here .) On one of our trips there, I looked more closely at the topiaries to try to figure out what they were made up of in terms of plantings.  They had large, square-ish wooden 'pots'.  They we

Yesterday, I posted about the idea of gabion walls in our backyard  and today I'm noodling hedges.  Yeah..hedges.   I came across this photo of Bunny Williams' garden/yard on Instagram a few months back and have it filed away as something interesting to consider for the backyard.  Take a peek: View this post on Instagram In memory of Jacques Wirtz. Eight years ago a Giulian into dear fiends took a tour to see the gardens of Mr Wirtz in Belgium we were lucky to have met him And see his garden and I came home with so many ideas especially his hedges. I was inspired to create this curved hedge which as taken almost all this time to really come into its own and every time I look at it I think of him. What a gift he gave to all who love gardens A post shared by Bunny Williams (@bunnys_eye) on Aug 4, 2018 at 12:16pm PDT Those curves are something, right?  She mentions that the inspiration for her was Jacques Wirtz.  Wh

I read this story in Country Living about some garden trends that they see emerging in 2019 and one of the items on their list caught my attention:  gabion-style walls. What the what?  I had never heard of those.  A quick search around the Web and I realized that while I had not heard the term "gabion-style walls", I've come across them.  And likely, so have you.   But just didn't know that's what they were called.  From the Country Living piece : See that metal cage holding the material in/together?  That's the defining characteristic.  More... From Gardenista : Derived from an old Italian word, gabbione, meaning “big cage,” gabions are enclosures that can be filled with any sort of inorganic material: rock, brick, or concrete debris. The cages were originally wicker, but now are usually a welded mesh made of sturdy galvanized, coated, or stainless steel wire that won’t bend when filled with rocks. In landscaping, gabion walls can support an ear

Columnar Norway Spruce photo via The Tree Center With Halloween in our rearview mirror and Christmas season in full swing, my time in the yard has mostly become leaf collection, branch pickup and walnut removal.  There's no planting going on right now, but that isn't keeping me from dreaming about next Spring and what we could add to Hornbeam Hill.  I've been painfully aware that I'm behind on planting conifers and have only planted three small ones.  The Fraser Fir was planted and lost this Summer .  Same with a small Canadian Hemlock.  Planted and lost this Summer . But I also posted in late Summer of 2017 about a 'dream' tree.  It was a Weeping Cedar .  I came across it and fell in love.  After finding a small one at Home Depot, I splurged and bought it.  Brought it home and planted it in the backyard .  This post is about another 'dream tree'.  I've dreamed/thought about a bunch of trees that I'd like to add over the previous year or

The tree that you see in the middle/right of this photo (the one with a singular trunk that splits into two about two feet from the ground) is a Buckthorn.  This particular Buckthorn is located a short distance away from the "far southwest corner" that I showed in our landscape plan earlier this year.   (You'll note that there's another Buckthorn that is shown in that post and marked for removal.) And a quick look at the listing from the Morton Arboretum tells you all you need to know about the tree: I had a few Buckthorns identified by our landscaper and landscape designer and marked for removal, but with the temps cooling off, I figured it was finally time to get back there and take a look at them and see what I could do myself.  I found a couple of small ones and then used the Google machine to quickly identify that I was, indeed, dealing with Buckthorn. A look at the leaves - not to mention the broad, yet pointy thorns on the main part of the tree - m

On a recent trip to Menards, I was in the garden center and was drawn to their fountain setup.  They have a dozen or so fountain ranging from formal tiered fountains to desktop versions.  Some of them are terribly cheesy but others seem ok to me.  But, there are two things that seem to bind them all together:  they're made of fiberglass.  And they're cheap.  Well, relatively cheap.   I've had a fiberglass fountain before at our old house in Elmhurst and I really liked it .  Some of the time.  It was a three tiered traditional fountain with a pineapple on top.  A few things I came to appreciate: 1.  The bowls weren't very deep.  So that meant that I had to constantly (like every other day) fill it with the hose.   2.  The birds loved it.  But they made it SUPER dirty. 3.  It didn't last 2 seasons because I left it out over the winter and it suffered some freezing cracks and was rendered worthless.   Thus, despite having an itchy purchase finger, I pa

I've documented quite a bit of the new trees that we've planted over the past year of living in Downers, but I haven't really documented in my [ garden diary ] any of the existing trees that we inherited with the property.  I'd consider the lot we're living on to be 'wooded', so it would be a mistake - in terms of garden diary-ing -  to document only the eleven little, young ones I've planted in the past twelve months .  One of the trees we inherited is this three trunk River Birch - which according to the Missouri Botanical Garden  Plant Finder  is "generally considered to be the superior growth habit for this species."  This tree is located on the north side of our lot, about ten feet from the fence, right where the six-foot-fence section transitions down to the four-foot section.  You can see the Mason Bee House that I hung on the fence in the background and like many of the other existing trees that aren't clinging to the fence lin

This is the fifth chapter is a series of our landscape plan posts that show off various portions of our #newoldbackyard in the planning stages.  The other four are here: 1.  Part of the southern fence line that includes some hydrangeas, hostas, ferns, allium and Canadian Hemlocks.   2.  Part of our rear foundation planting areas , right outside our breakfast nook/kitchen windows. Grasses, boxwoods and even a peek at one of the rhododendrons that *this* post is all about.  3.  The hornbeam/privacy hedge on the north fenceline near our screened porch .   4.  Far southwest corner by the trampoline that includes some Canadian Hemlocks . This fifth chapter covers just two plants that you can see in the sketch above.  They are both PJM Rhododendrons that occupy some foundation beds on either side of our rear stoop heading to our back patio.   Here's a look at those beds that I took this past weekend: You can see the two beds are good-sized and fall on th

I've posted a few times about our plan to add some European Hornbeams to the side yard alongside of our screened porch to provide some privacy from our neighbor's house.  In the photo above, you see the run of fence that will soon be lined with some 2.5" caliper trees.  You can go back to this post to see the drawing of where they are located , but they're going to cling to the fenceline and, I hope, peek over the top of the fence.  In the photo above, you can also see the grade difference with the porch on the left being a good four or five feet above where the bottom of the fence is located.  Once these trees mature a bit, they'll end up growing into a hedge of sorts ( like this ) and we'll be able to enjoy the screened porch without looking at our neighbors smoking cigarettes on their back stoop.  With April here, I'm just waiting word from the landscaper as to when these trees can be dug up and planted in our yard.  I took this photo a few week

Thinking this mighty Oak Tree is the most-likely candidate for a treehouse/playhouse that will mostly be built on legs in our #newoldbackyard.  Oh, and a zipline, too.  Nat has found some inspiration photos and I've been trying to plan the design, but there are a bunch of variables that I'm trying to figure out like how high the platform needs to be - both for the zipline and ability to utilize the space underneath the it, but also for the stability of the structure More on this project - like the others - as I find time to get after it.

I came across these Sky Pencil Holly at Fast-Growing-Trees.com (that's where the photo above is from) and I found myself going down a Sky-Pencil-Holly-rabbit-hole to figure out if we could grow these in the Chicago Suburbs (Zone 5B).  The folks at Fast Growing Trees list them to be hardy down to zone 5B.  But the team at the Missouri Botanic Garden list them down to Zone 6 .  These things are super narrow and grow perfectly upright, so they have a lot of appeal to me.  But, I'm afraid that multiple sources (besides the folks who are selling them!) are concurring about Zone 6 hardiness.   Check out the video here: In particular, I was thinking about them alongside the north property line, in front of the fence where our (eventual) walkway would direct people back.  Check out this area I've circled in red on our landscape plan.  It is a tight area that would call for something very slender, yet would provide a sense of 'entrance.  These Sky Pencil Holly woul