Why I Oughta...

One of the great joys of keeping a garden journal or garden diary is that it allows you to see how much you've changed over the years.  The changes happen with growth and die-back of the plants, but also in your tastes and preferences of plant materials.  That's certainly happened to me as I've gotten to know trees and plants and both what works and what doesn't.  But also, what is the *right* plant (natives, drought-tolerant) and what might be the *wrong* plant (invasive or short-lived).   Take for instance the flowering pear tree.  When I started, I was so excited and proud to plant a small, $5 Cleveland Pear tree in our old yard.  It thrived .  So much so, that I bought even more of them.  Little did I know (at the time) that they're both NOT great trees in terms of longevity, but also...if you get the wrong variety...they're invasive.   I even went so far as to plant a couple at our new house when we moved.  Would I plant t...

2022 is shaping up to be a pretty light year in terms of planting trees on our property.  And that's, ok in my book.  Why?  Because there are fewer and fewer spots that trees make sense left AND that means I'm becoming a little bit more picky in what I want to do.  The last tree that we planted this year was in late May when we dug in a VERY SMALL Saratoga Ginko tree that one of the kids bought at the Morton Arboretum Arbor Day sale .  When I say "very small", I mean very.small.   We tucked this tree (more like a seedling) into an existing small, curved bed in our front yard.  It is planted almost *amongst* a little cluster of Little Henry Sweetspire by our front walk.  I put it there on purpose - because the tree WAS so small, I thought it needed both a little bit of protection both from damage as well as the conditions.  This way, it can put on some new growth, get established and do that all in the shadow of the shrub.  I also di...