Why I Oughta...

Day three of the front-yard tree buds in Winter - first with the Saucer Magnolia fuzzy flower buds and then yesterday with the Red Fox Katsura .   Today, is the Chanticleer Pear flowering tree that is in the 'in between two driveways' island and planted pretty close to the Katsura.  This was a replacement tree that was planted in 2018 after our first one died.  This one STRUGGLED.  By October of 2018 (four months after planting), it was in bad shape .  Turns out, it was planted in a 'clay bowl' and the roots were drowning in what is called the ' bathtub effect ' where water had no where to go.   It seemed to continue to decline in 2019 - but by Spring 2020, I was seeing the very FIRST flower buds .  Not everywhere.  But, some flowers.   Then, last Spring - 2021 - we seemed to have a big part of the tree that had died back.  And a bunch of the tree that looked to be back on track - and flowering .    I ended up cutting off all the dead stuff and created a prett

Yesterday, I started with the first of the late-Winter tree bud photos.  I like to document these things throughout the year so I get an understanding of how things are going and what is struggling to return from dormancy (and which trees I shouldn't worry about because they're right on schedule).    I posted the current state of the buds on the vase-like Saucer Magnolia tree in our front yard .   Medium-sized, fuzzy and starting to crack open.  They're fun to look at right now. One of the other front-yard trees that I haven't tracked the buds and their setting/swelling/opening series on in the diary here is the Red Fox Katsura.  Planted in the Fall of 2020 , this is a tiny, whip-like tree that hasn't grown much at all and has very few limbs.  It suffered a bit from heat and drought stress last year, but it has - as of now - set some buds on the limbs that *do* exist.  Below you can see them.  To me...they kinda look like buckthorn tips - but on the middle of the br

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&

Last Spring, our neighbors to the north began framing their house and once the window placements were set, I came to the realization that our row of Frans Fontaine Hornbeam trees were doing a pretty great job of screening between our houses.  But, there was an edge spot - closer to the front of the house - that was going to be exposed to one of their new windows.  So, on Earth Day 2020, we decided to plant a columnar flowering pear tree (yeah...I know.  they're not great trees.  But, I needed to put in something that was inexpensive, narrow in habit and, ummm, fast growing.  The Chanticleer Pear tree fit the bill . When I planted it , the tip top of the tree was right at the fence level.  But, by the time Fall came around , it had put on more than 18" to the top.  Have a peek at it in October of last year .   The tree was beginning to do its job.   I've had mixed luck with these trees.  I had a large (3"+ caliper) planted in our front yard in 2017.  It died that firs

Yesterday, I mentioned that we don't get A TON of fall colors in our yard - mostly due to the variety of trees that we inherited, but posted a photo of our small Bald Cypress in the front yard that was showing some fall colors .  We have a couple of Chanticleer Pear flowering trees in our yard (I know, I know...) that normally retain their leaves for a good part of Fall - leading into Winter.  There have been a number of years that I've tried to wrap a couple of these trees with Christmas lights to only have to deal with the leaves that have stuck around.  This year, however, two of these trees (We technically have four with two in decline) have decided to put on a really great Fall Show with oranges and reds.  Here is the one on our north fence line you can see below: I'll get out and measure the caliper of this tree this Winter, but I'm thinking this tree has grown just a little bit this year.  

Back at the end of April, we planted a tree on Earth Day outside of our screened porch.  It is a Chanticleer Pear - which, I know....I know...isn't the best tree to be planting in our landscape, but we were facing a set of circumstances that warranted this approach.  Our neighbors to the north were building their house all this calendar year and while we had planted our row of eight Frans Fontaine European Columnar Hornbeams to provide screening from our back patio and screened porch , we planted them without knowing where the house was going to be built.   By Earth Day, the new house next door had the framing done and - much to our surprise - we had *most* of their windows screened with trees.  But, there was ONE new window - closer to the front of the house that was basically unblocked by the Frans Fontaine Hornbeams. Have a look at this post from back in April - where you can see the window I'm talking about . And now, have a look at the same view as it looks now - in late O

A few days ago, I posted about suckers on some trees in our backyard that were struggling and didn't leaf-out on time that included one of our Chanticleer Pear trees.  At that time, I talked about how each of these trees seemed to be healthy when they went dormant last year, but all had different issues this Spring.  One of them (the Dappled Willow) started and then shut down.  The Chanticleer Pear tree was the most strange - as it was still green (under the bark), but had some suckers show up a foot or so from the root flare.  And, just as I posted that, I noticed some weird activity on that tree.  It seems that *some* of the branches started to leaf out.  Sparse-ly. But, you can see in the photo below that there are SOME leaves and even one white flower. If you look at the photo above, you'll also see the sucker about a foot from the rootflare.  This is the second Chanticleer Pear tree that had trouble like this.  Our driveway tree was troubled and confused and fl

Back in April, I posted some photos of a handful of trees that appeared - at the time - to be late in terms of coming out of dormancy for the year .  They were a Chanticleer Pear tree that was planted on Earth Day 2018.  A small Red Valley Sun Maple planted the same day.  And a Crimson King Maple that I planted in 2017.  Something weird is happening with two of them.  And it is now happening with another tree. First, the bad news.  The Crimson King Maple appears to be lost.  I'll post about it separately.  But, let's look at the other three.  Here, below, is the Red Valley Sun Maple.  The top of the tree never broke bud.  And the limbs became dry and brittle.  But, this Summer, this growth shot out from the base of the trunk.    If the tree was healthy, I'd call these things "suckers". They sure look like "suckers", don't they? From this post,  suckers are normally a sign of stress : Suckers are a tree’s attempt to grow more bra

We have three young trees that were all bought as nursery stock that haven't broken dormancy in our yard.  On a walk around the yard yesterday, I was surprised by the small Chanticleer Pear tree that had not joined the other ones in flowering out.  Below, you can see that tree for garden diary reference.   Here's one of the buds on the tips of the tree.  I've scraped away some of the bark and I see plenty of green underneath it, so maybe this one is just late in waking up? On the other hand, why isn't it showing even ONE flower?  The tree across the yard is in full bloom.  That has me concerned. The Crimson King Maple tree is also showing no signs of life.  If I look around at other Maples, I see some buds bursting open on *some* of the tips, but a further look around the neighborhood and I see plenty of trees that haven't broken dormancy yet.  A scrape on this one shows a little bit of green, but the tree itself feels a little 'hollow'.    This

One of the traditions that I've enjoyed keeping up with each year with our kids is the annual Earth Day planting of a tree in our yard.  We started with one - a Dawn Redwood in 2017 - that we planted in our new lot while our house was being built.  This was a few months before the construction was going to be done.   The next year - 2018 - we planted three Earth Day trees. One for each kid.  We did a weeping cherry (that we lost), a Red Maple Sun Valley tree that we planted all the way in the back and a flowering pear tree that we planted on the south fence line .  Those two have survived since then, but they were VERY small trees.  I wasn't measuring them at the time, but when I measured them in January of this year (which would have made these 1.75 years *in the ground* at our house), the maple was just .87" caliper and the Chanticleer Pear was up to 1.20".   They were similar when we put them in, so guess it was something like .65" or .70" when p

This troubled tree - in our front yard - appears to finally have overcome transplant shock and a clay bowl to get back on schedule.  At least....that's my hope.  You can see the flower buds that are set to explode in the photo above.  This is the second tree in this location after the first one that was installed when we built the house died.  This one , too, would have died if I didn't intervene.  I'm pretty sure that digging out a little channel that broke up the clay bowl underneath this tree is what saved it from drowning itself. The last time I posted about this pear tree was last Summer when it was leaf'ing out .  It didn't look super healthy and robust, but was green.  I trimmed many of the dead limbs off, but left everything else that was leaf'ing.  Prior to last year, this thing was all out of cycle.  In November of 2018 - YES!  November... it flowered .  In terms of timing, this flowering pear tree is showing buds about the same size/timing as

Back in early January I picked up a new caliper measuring tool from Amazon and started to set some baselines on the trees that we've planted around our yard.  After deciding on following the "6' from the ground rule", I marked each tree with a Sharpie.  Then began to measure them.  First up were the eight Frans Fontaine European Hornbeam trees that went in near the fenceline in Spring of 2017.  I then went around and took an inventory of  the nursery stock in the remaining part of our backyard .   I have done a 'height' inventory of the past few seasons, but with the tree heights growing, it has become a little bit less scientific/precise on some of the trees. I thought that I had posted about the small front yard trees we have, but in looking back in the archives, it appears that I forgot to include a post about them.  So, here's the baseline for two of the three small trees we have out front in the [ garden diary ].  The multi-trunk Saucer Magno

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

Last week, I shared a couple of photos of our stand of Frans Fontaine Fastigiate Hornbeams and talked about how they were retaining their leaves to provide some Winter screening.  They're not the only trees in the yard that has foliar marcescence occurring.  Above you see one of our three Chanticleer Flowering Pear trees that has almost all of its leaves still on the branches.  This tree grew a ton this year - based on the tree inventory post  - but I'm not sure if this foliar retention took place last year, but I do remember that one of our old flowering pear trees in Elmhurst held on to most of the leaves through Winter because I wrapped lights around it and had to contend with the leaves obscuring the lights shining through.  I planted this tree early in our time here in Downers Grove, but, unfortunately, I don't have a post showing it going in the ground.  It has grown quite a bit and I placed it strategically based on a neighbor a few doors down having a light on

The last time we checked in on this large caliper Chanticleer Flowering Pear tree that is planted close to our front driveway was last Fall when it was totally off-cycle.  It flowered in early November .  But, I took that (oddly-timed) indicator as a potential sign of progress.  Looking back at this same tree in June of last year, I think that this year the tree is healthier.  It isn't perfect as there are still plenty of thin spots and some dead tips.  But, look at the photo from last year .  The leaves are a different color.   Darker green.  Seemingly more healthy, right? The culprit was the clay bowl that this tree was planted in and how it was drowning the tree.  At least...that's what I *think* was happening.  I dug out part of the tree on the low-side of the planting bowl and then used a post-hole digger to dig through the clay layer to make a kind-of drainage spot so the water had a place to run.  After I did this excavation project, it didn't take long for the

About a month ago, I posted a photo of what appeared to be 'new' growth on our struggling Chanticleer Pear Tree that we had planted out front of our house.  Here's that post that shows new green leaf growth emerging on the tree in early October .    The full history of this tree is long, despite that we've only been in our house a little bit over a year.  It starts with the first tree - a 3" caliper version of this tree - being planted before we moved in our new house in June of 2017.  That tree didn't survive the year and was ripped out and replaced earlier this year .  The new tree struggled, too.  But I worked at it.  I did some radial trenching and used a post hole digger to break down thru the clay layer to allow the tree to breath a bit.  I took a very similar route with the Bald Cypress we planted this Summer - you can see the details here .  And the tree managed to survive all Summer.  I stopped watering it all together and just monitored it for