Why I Oughta...

In the Winters since we moved in (and after we planted our Saucer Magnolia tree in our front yard), I've looked at the buds as they are set to burst ahead of Spring.  It started in our first Winter with this post in February of 2018 .  In January of 2019, I posted a series of photos with all of the different front yard tree buds.  And last Winter (January), I decided to wire-up one of the trunks (this is a multi-trunk tree) and posted about that decision and included photos of the buds .  With all of the DEEP snow in our yard, I haven't been able to get close enough to this tree to catch some photos.  But, now, with the temperatures rising and the snow melting, I wandered out to check in on the tree.  And, the fuzzy buds are big and bulbous.  And about the burst.  This tree has, seemingly, grown in height.  Being planted in 2017, it navigated that initial transplant stress.  Then, entering the second and third year of the cycle , I'm thinking it went: 2017: sleep 2018: cr

The leaves have come off of our Oak trees.  The large ones have just a few clinging on, but this tiny one that I planted this year is naked.  This was planted back in May of 2020 and seemed to do just fine back in this location.   The larger trees looked like this all the way into December - thanks to foliar marcescence.  That now has me thinking that I should get a post up in the [garden diary] showing the leaves being off the Oaks by late November this year.  But, back to this small Northern Red Oak tree - and the buds in has set in particular.  Like the other trees in this [tree buds] series, these ones are unique ( thanks Rutherford Platt !) and have some unique characteristics.  First, the color - is what I'd call caramel.  Reminds me of the newish high-end vehicle interiors that you are seeing.  Kind of like a brand new, unused football.  They're also pointy.  In the image below, you can see how there are three of them at the tip of one of the branches with some other o

We had a storm come through last week that dropped all the remaining leaves - and I mean ALL - in the yard.  With the leaves off the limbs, I've started to investigate the structure of some of the trees and noticing that most of them have set buds before they head into dormancy.  The first tree that I looked at was our new (this year) London Plane Tree.  The brief history of the tree is that I bought this with some birthday money from Nat's Grampy in early Spring , planted in May and it was immediately stressed , it seemed to recover and full leaf out this Summer, only to return to a stressed-state during the late Summer heat .   Below is a look at one of the limbs of this tree that shows off what are quite pointy buds: The London Planetree buds you see above are almost thorn-like at this point, but based on what I see online, they'll continue to grow out and get a little bit 'bent' in the appearance of their tips .    It also says that the Plane Tree (or Maple-leaf

This is the second year in a row that I've posted a photo of these beautiful multi-color buds on our Greenspire Linden trees that have been espalier'd in our backyard.  Here's last year's post showing the same buds .   I think that these are my *favorite* buds on trees that we have.  Each of them are a little different - the Hornbeams are neat, too - but I think these are the largest, most colorful ones that really just SCREAM Spring to me.  Last year, I made the call to think about changing t his set of espalier to candelabra shape , but this Spring, I'm thinking that I'm going to go back to just a formal cordon and remove the tips that bend up.  Once I get around to wiring and pruning this Spring, I'll post some additional photos. 

I planted a pair of common lilac shrubs in our yard back in Spring of 2018 on the fence line of the southside of our property.  Back when we lived in Elmhurst, our neighbor Greg had a hedge of lilac that bordered our property that produced some big, fragrant flowers.  Nat always liked them and said that we should be growing some lilac.  Although they weren't called for in our plan, I found a couple of small lilacs at Home Depot and stuck them in the ground.   They were small, but I planted them fairly close together.  And didn't really think much about them since then. You can see where these are planted in this look at priority area #1 . Last year, they didn't do much. This year, they're set to be in year three of their cycle:  sleep, creep and leap.  This year could be the leap. The tips of the very ends of the tallest limbs are in the photo at the top of this post.  They're beautifully tight, two-toned buds of green and purple. Below, you'll see

A series of garden diary posts that I've been sharing for ten years now features the moment when our peony plants emerge from the mulch each Spring.  The first time I posted photos of the redish buds was all the way back in 2010 here .  From then, I've posted about this: 2011 peony post 2012 peony post 2013 peony post 2014 peony post 2015 peony post 2016 - doesn't appear that I posted 2017 - one of our foster peony plants in Naperville 2018 - one of our *new* Downers peony post 2019 peony post   And another one here . That's 9 of the past 10 years.  Including this year, that makes 10 of 11 years. This peony in the photo is located back by our Dawn Redwood - it is a 'teardown peony' - either from our house before they tore it down or from The Fox Family Den's yard before they built their own house.

A couple of days ago, I posted a couple of photos of our Flowering Japanese Kwanzan Cherry Tree that had suffered a little bit of winter damage here on the blog.  Today, I'm documenting a few of our front yard trees and their buds (or lack thereof).  I wanted to capture a few of the trees and how their buds were coming along in the heart of Winter.  If you're looking for a layout of our front yard trees that is a companion of this post, you can view it here on this 'tree dreaming' post from a week ago. First up, is our small Bald Cypress.  Last I covered it here on the blog was back at the end of August of this Summer (2019) when it was showing nicely with green, lacy needles.  Today, you can see it (below) clinging to a lot of brown/orange needles on the trees small frame.   Here (below) is a closer look at one of the branches that have some thorn-like (but not thorns!) raised bark, but not what I'd consider normal 'buds'.  However, look close

Just like the pair of rhododendrons on either side of our back stoop , our small (but growing!) Saucer Magnolia multi-step tree in our front yard is preparing itself for hibernation by setting buds this early Fall.  This Saucer Magnolia tree didn't flower this Spring - which was a disappointment - but grew (according to my tree height inventory) by almost two feet in height .   I documented the first year of flowers - in Spring of 2018 - here .   This year, the tree leaves stayed green and didn't get any Sooty Mold like it has had in previous years .   I'll try to document the buds after all of the leaves fall off this Fall/Winter to provide a comparison against what the naked tree looked like in February of 2018 here .

On the right is the southern Rhododendron and on the right in the image collage above is the northern stoop one.  They look different, don't they?  The one on the left is larger, taller, has less broned/curled edges.  And it also kinda looks a little brighter green, doesn't it? They looked different last Fall, too, when I applied Wilt-Pruf to one of them as a test .  And again this Spring when they came out of Winter .  What was most interesting to me is that NEITHER of these flowered this year.  Not a single flower.  Last Summer they flowered beautiful pink flowers .  See this post for the flowers , but also note how tiny they were last year.  They're really filled in that space more this year. They both set buds in the Fall, but just like our Flowering Cherry Tree and Saucer Magnolia in the front, we ended up with no flower show. The hard, cold Winter - including a long Polar Vortex - is likely to blame for those buds not blooming this year. These Rhododendrons

Day three of tree buds in Spring today.  First was the Dawn Redwood tree that I have high hopes for this year.  Then, yesterday, I posted a photo of the Weeping Cherry tree that is in the far part of our yard.  Today comes the Frans Fontaine European Columnar Hornbeam trees.  Welp, this photo is of just one of the trees, but if you've been following along, you likely know that there are a bunch of these trees.  And these are clearly the most handsome buds of the bunch.  Look at those beauties all wrapped up and ready to explode.  Compared to the Cherry ones - who look angry and jagged - these are perfectly positioned at the end of the branch tips and almost egg-shaped.   These trees are not quite a year old (in our yard), so I'm still holding my breath to ensure that all of them survived.  For now, I'm taking these buds as a strong sign of health heading into Spring of 2019. 

Last we checked in on our Saucer Magnolia in our front yard was back in September before it shed its leaves and went to bed for the winter.  I also talked about it potentially having sooty mold a few days later.    The first time I posted a photo of this particular tree was in August - about 45 days after we moved in - when it was growing and happy after being watered all summer.  I had decided to do some early in the growing cycle, preventive pruning to 'limb up' the tree and remove some suckers in order to allow the tree to put all of its energy into the main trunks.  With some decent weather recently, I went out and looked at a few of our trees.  I'll post some other photos of the other trees in the coming days, but today, let's look at the Saucer Magnolia.  Officially, it was the 9th tree added to our 'arboretum' , but it was actually in before some of the others.  I just didn't get around to posting about it because it is in the front yard.  It