Why I Oughta...

Of all the trees, shrubs and other plants in our garden, the row of Frans Fontaine European (Columnar) Hornbeam Trees that are planted as a screen along our property line in our suburban backyard get by-far, the most comments and reactions.  The last time that I posted about these upright trees was in late April, just about a month ago , when the trees were still bare and emerging out of winter dormancy.  I posted that photo because someone commented on a different post asking to see what the trees look like this Spring.   There has been a lot of change in the garden the past thirty days as everything wakes up.  And, the Frans Fontaine Hornbeam Trees sure are showing signs of that awakening.   Below is a photo from this week showing the current state of these trees.  They're filling-up and the green leaves are screening our patio from our neighbor.  I expect them to continue to thicken-up over the coming weeks to fill-in even more than they ...

At the bottom of my 2025 to-do list post , someone posted this comment - asking to see the latest with our Frans Fontaine European Hornbeam trees: The last update I showed on this row of eight columnar trees was in November of 2024 when they were still holding onto their Fall leaves all the way to November 30th .  I wrote a post in 2022 that showed the full history of these Frans Fontaine Columnar Hornbeams (to that date) including their planting in 2018.    That makes 2025 their eight growing season ('18, '19, '20, '21, '22, '23, '24 and now '25).  They've grown from (in 2018) two-inch (2") caliper trees that barely peeked over the top of our six-foot-tall fence .  To today - where they're providing the full screening we've always wanted.   Today, they're not doing that much screening, though.   They're getting ready to break bud and leaf out.  But, right now, they're mostly bare.  Below are a few photos - showing the trees...

In the Fall of 2021, I was on a "Hicks Yew High" - where I planted these tiny shade-loving evergreen shrubs all over the backyard.  I put six of them in the south bed with designs to 'replicate' the undulating hedge from the back border .  Here are the six in winter when the contrast with the snow shows how small they really were in January of 2022 .  In Summer of 2022, I did a 'garden edit' where I pulled out some Lilacs and replaced them with some Green Giant Thujas.  At at that time, I also relocated three of the Hicks Yews .   Three remained.  Set on sort-of 'an angle'.   I set up my wine barrel 'water feature' next to them.  And, haven't thought about them much at all.  (that is the wine barrel that I've turned over for the winter in the photo...) Have they grown?  Yep.  The photo at the top shows their current state.  I'm hoping that - with time - the gaps will close and a small 'hedge' of sorts appears here....

In 2021, I planted two 1# small Hicks (upright) yews in the backyard - sort of near the understory garden on the north side.  I planted them somewhat close together with eyes on (eventually) shaping them up into a 'Block I' Illinois topiary .  Earlier that year, I posted about this University of Auburn topiary frame and dreamed of a 'Block I' .  The two Hicks yews were probably 12" tall in Fall of 2021 .  They've now had three (2022, 2023 and 2024) growing seasons and have put on some size.   Here are the two Hicks Yews - below - after those three growing seasons.  They've grown up (a little bit) are are still mostly columnar. It isn't easy to determine their height, so here below, is a shovel stuck in the ground to provide a height comparison.   I CLEARLY still have time to create the 'Block I' frame out of Chicken Wire, so I'm not concerned about that.  I am, however, concerned about the 'fullness' of these.  Are they going to ge...

Skylands Spruce - Picea Orientalis 'Skylands' is a tree that I've been thinking about for years.  I've only come across a couple of them in the nursery trade in all my years looking - at the Hidden Gardens nursery.  Hidden Gardens is now solely focused on bonsai, so their nursery is closed, but I grabbed these couple of photos of a couple of trees - a #6 and a #10 container.   But, before we get to the photos, what is Skylands?  Missouri Botanic Garden has a page up that lists the details of the tree : 'Skylands' is slow-growing, upright, conical-pyramidal form that typically grows 8-10' tall over the first 10 years. Over time, it may eventually reach 35' tall with a spread of 10-12' wide. Exterior needles are bright yellow in full sun or yellow-green in part shade. Regardless of sun exposure, the yellow needle color typically tends to fade as the summer progresses. Interior needles are green. Foliage may burn in full sun locations in hot summer clim...

One of the conifers that we have in our backyard is *supposed* to be a really lovely columnar evergreen tree:  a Weeping White Spruce.  I planted it in 2019 along the fence on the southside with hopes that it would grow up-up-up and be a sort-of 'exclamation point' in our garden bed.  Here's what it looked like in Fall of 2019 : it was 46" tall from the soil to the top of the leader.   Then, this thing suffered a little bit from drought.  And, I lost the leader .  That was Summer of 2020.   Now...four years later, the tree is...well....ABOUT THE SAME.  See below: I took out the tape measure because my eyes weren't telling me if this thing actually grew.  This tree was 46" to the tip in Fall of 2019.  Five years since planting - and four years since the leader was lost - this tree is NOW 49" tall.  That means....we're up 3".  Just 3".  But, because of pruning of the 'lost leader', I don't think that tells the full...

Planted early this year - with MUCH fanfare - my Columnar Scotch Pine tree is dead.  I yanked it out and returned it for a store credit.   Earlier this Fall, I noticed that it was *really* struggling, so I decided to do something pretty drastic:  transplanting it.   I also decided - as part of the transplant process - to lop-off all the dead parts.  I thought that maybe it wanted more sun, so I put it by the boardwalk.  Here's what it looked like when I transplanted it in September:  some green needles, but not doing well: Six weeks later, it was gone.  Below is what it looked like before I dug it out:  no more green needles. I've talked about how I haven't, historically done enough with conifers.  But, part of the reason for that negligence is because I've had such bad luck with them.  This is another lost conifer in a long-line of them.  Have I made up for things with my new Conifer Garden?  Maybe.  But, ...

At the top of this post is a look at the row of Frans Fontaine Fastigiate Hornbeam trees that we planted back in 2018 along the northern border of our property.  These trees were planted as a screen between our backyard, our screened porch and our neighbor's house.  When we put them in, our neighbors to the norther were in a small ranch that was set pretty far back from the property line.  A few years back, a new house was built and the screening was needed more than ever.   [NOTE:  If you are here reading about the really amazing Frans Fontaine Columnar Hornbeam Trees and want to know the full history we've had with planting a row of eight of them, you can head to this post from August of 2021 that includes links to their full history dating back to being planted in 2018.  Alternatively, you can poke around at this [ Frans Fontaine ] post tag.  Or start here with my post showing them being planted as 2" caliper trees in 2018.] The last time tha...

Yesterday, I posted a photo and took a HUGE, deep breath and walked past a second Japanese White Pine tree that I saw at the big box nursery .  Why did I have to take a breath?  Because, I *really* wanted one of those trees.  Why did I walk past it?  Because I bought one last year.  And it seems to have failed this Winter.  But, what else did I see on that VERY SAME visit?    A tree that - like the Japanese White Pine - is also something that I've lusted after for a while.  In fact, I even posted an entire "Tree Dreaming" post about this species on the blog back in 2018.   What's that tree?  It is a columnar Norway Spruce - Picea abies 'Cupressina'.  Here's that post from 2018 .  Here - below - is the tag on one of these that I saw at the big box nursery showing the $99 price tag. Back in 2018, I said that there was A LOT to like about this tree: columnar, vertical, fast(ish) and unique.  At the time, I also sai...

Yesterday, I shared a couple of photos of the very young Japanese White Pine tree that has a ton of brown and orange needles .  The tree is either in severe decline and will be dead soon.  Or, it is going through a normal process of needle drop to get ready for some new Spring growth.  I have no idea.  I *do* know that the tree was stressed before I planted it and the cones were already present at the top - indicating that (I think) the tree was concerned for its own wellbeing, so it threw out a good crop of cones based on the size of the tree.  In that post, I mentioned that the small (and adjacent) Weeping White Spruce appears to have stabilized after suffering some heavy drought damage this Summer.  It seems like the needle loss has stopped and the remaining sections are green and well-connected.  I shared a mid-Summer update on this tree where you can see the needle loss, but when you compare the photos from September to now , it is clear that even...

For the better part of the Spring and beginning of Summer, our area was in a drought.  We had very little rain.  Then, starting about three or four weeks ago, we had TONS of rain.  The problem is that the drought we experienced was hard on a lot of our garden and yard.  I kept up on watering as best that I could, but since we don't have built-in irrigation, I was bound to miss some things.   One of the trees that has suffered from the lack of water this year is our little Weeping White Spruce.  Here, below, is a photo showing how it has dropped a bunch of needles and has a lot of brown on it.  I'm very concerned about it not being able to recover and is on the way towards browning out completely.   I noticed it browning out when we came back from a week in Wisconsin and since then, I've tried to baby it with water - every few days a direct watering from the hose. This story from the University of Minnesota Extension office talks about th...

 The folks at The Growing Place in Naperville and Aurora have recently posted a list of some "new" or at least "new to them" plants and trees that they will be carrying this season .  There are a few things that I'm seeing on the list that are interesting to consider, but one item in particular made me go and do more research.  It is all.the.way.at.the.bottom of the list they published.  Go ahead, click here .  And scroll down.  There, you'll find the Lindsey’s Skyward Bald Cypress tree.  Here's how they describe it on their site: What's that?  Narrow form?  Oh, you know me, I'm a sucker for narrow, columnar-form trees.  A quick look around the Web reveals even more details including: "fern-like needles", "very upward facing branches", "Winter interest", "dramatic symmetrical columnar habit", "showy bronze carpet".   You hand me at fern-like + narrow.  And, here (below) is what it looks like in t...

Yesterday,  I posted about the purchase of a Red Fox Katsura tree from the Morton Arboretum Fall Plant Sale and talked about how it has a columnar habit and purple-ish leaves that turn green as they mature.  This is the 52nd tree that I've now planted on our property and the 17th of the year - matching the high-water mark of 2018 when I planted 17 trees, too.   This tree is VERY thin.  Like, VERY thin.  I was told it is a two-year old tree and has very little limb activity going on.  The top of it is so tall and thin that it is now drooping over in what you would think was a weeping habit.    Here, below, is a photo showing the tree with the top weeping over and the one branch that exists.  I dug a nice hole, removed the clay with the post-hole-digger and heavily amended the soil with composted manure.  I need to buy some bamboo and straighten out the top.   Below is the tag that shows the height (40-60') and spread (25-4...

Despite it being February, it is still dark and cold and the gardener and tree-planter in me is still dreaming about other trees to think about adding to our backyard.  Just yesterday, I featured this Parkland Pillar Birch that is the second columnar Birch tree in the series.  Today, I'm turning back to the list of 'narrow trees' from Savvy Gardening for another tree in my dreaming series.  I've already featured #10 on the list in the  Van Den Akker Narrow Weeping Alaskan Cedar  - on my [ tree dreaming ] list at the end of January. Now comes a post about their #8 on the list:  The Slender Silhouette American Sweetgum . Here's what it looks like via this photo below from this post courtesy of the University of arkansas system extension : This is not my photo. Sharing it as a good look at the American Sweetgum Slender Silhouette tree form.   Found it here via the U of Arkansas System Extension Office .  Original source seems to be...

Yesterday, I featured two pine trees in my latests [tree dreaming] series post: a cool pine with 'candles' on the tips and a super narrow Umbrella pine that has Japanese influence .  Today, is another post about a tree that I'm dreaming about:  a columnar birch tree called the Parkland Pillar Birch . I've shared a few posts about birch trees on the blog over the years. Just in mid-January, I posted a tree-dreaming post about two 'white' trees:  the Dakota Pinnacle Birch and the Swedish Aspen .  Both of them feature white-ish bark and have a narrow, columnar growth habit. If you go look at that post, you'll see that those two trees (Dakota Pinnacle and Swedish Aspen) are kinda similar.  This, Parkland Pillar Birch is very (to my eye) similar to those other two.  From this product listing, we find out that the Parkland Pillar Birch can go all the way down to Zone 3 - which is nice.    About the Parkland Pillar Birch from FirstEditionPlants.c...

Another day, another columnar tree that I've come across that is worth documenting here on the blog.  This time, it is from a different source.  I've posted about the list from Amy @ Pretty Purple Door in the past, but I recently came across this list from Savvy Gardening that lists a series of "Narrow Trees for tight spaces" .  On the list are some of the trees I've covered before including the Sky Pencil Holly and the Amanogawa Japanese Flowering Cherry .  But, there are also a couple of new (to me) trees that I think are worth documenting here in my [ tree dreaming ] file. I'll post one today and cover the other one in a separate post. The tree that I'm documenting today is the "Van Den Aker" Narrow Alaska Cedar.   It is a narrow (very narrow!) columnar conifer that Savvy Gardening has at #10 on their list . From SavvyGardening.com comes this description : "Skinny" is how they describe it in their piece and talk about ho...