Why I Oughta...

We're officially in Fall.  Calendar-wise, at least.   We have football on the tv.  The temperatures are dropping.  And, the stores already have their Christmas stuff out.  So, it was time to transition our front porch container into Fall. One of my annual to-do list goals (#16) is to do 'better containers'.   Our Wintertime container is done by a porch professional:  Churchill Garden Design .  And Elise Churchill (of Churchill Garden Design ) does a GREAT job.  MUCH, MUCH better than I could ever do with these containers.   Here's our 2025 version  featuring evergreens.  We've had her do a Fall container before and it looks so good.  Here is her 2024 version that featured some kales, an ivy, some mums and I think some hot pepper plants.  Like I said...she has such a good eye and a nice touch with porch containers.   Using her Winter 2025 container as inspiration and recycling some of the thi...

Yesterday, I posted a photo of the small Skylands Spruce in our front yard island bed.  Today, is a photo showing its companion:  the Spring Grove (dwarf) Ginkgo tree that was planted this season, too.  Unlike the Skylands Spruce, the Spring Grove Ginkgo tree is naked right now; it dropped all its leaves earlier this Fall.   And that's revealed a STRIKING structure.  Pointy and sharp.  The branching provides a bit of 'Winter interest' with a handful of main branches and dozens of short, straight secondary branches emanating like spikes.  See below:

I've posted about my pair of horizontal cordon Greenspire Linden trees a number of times over the years - talking about their structure, how I train them, what I train them with , etc.  Most of those photos are show during some part of the growing season when they're covered with leaves or buds .  But, winter interest is a lot of why I've fallen in love with the idea of espalier.  I've always thought that the structure is never more clear than when the trees have shed their leaves.  Just look at this post from last month . But, it turns out, there's a little nuance there.  See below, a photo that I took a few days back.   I'm not certain that I have a new answer:  when do espalier'd trees show the most structure?  When they're dormant, yes.  But, more so:  when they're covered in a little bit of snow. Set against the grey cedar fence, the snow capped branches are highlighted and stand out.  I have a few other trained trees tha...

I was out puttering around the yard on a mild Winter day recently doing a little bit of bud inspection to see what trees had put off when I found this break in this Japanese Kwanzan Flowering Cherry Tree in the backyard.  I bought this tree in May of 2017 when it was a small (maybe .75" caliper) tree from Menards after I had just come back from my first trip to Tokyo where I saw *their* Cherry Blossom trees.  The tree (in the garden center at Menards) caught my eye because it was flowering these beautiful, puffy, almost-peony-like pink flowers . At the end of June/early July of 2017, right when we were moving into our house in Downers Grove, I got around to planting the tree in the yard .  About half-way back in the yard, on the southside of the property.  Not sure, exactly why it ended up there.  Just *felt* right at the time.  Looking at the tree now, I think it is in a good spot and the placement ended up being appropriate. The first season it wa...