Why I Oughta...

At the Morton Arboretum Fall Plant Sale, they had a series of trees for sale including some shade and fruit trees as well as large trees and 'understory trees'.  You know that I can't go to a nursery with a tree sale and not come home with a tree for our yard.  I couldn't decide what tree to buy (I was considering an Ironwood tree), but I asked the staff at the Arboretum which tree they liked the best and BOTH of the arborists that I asked pointed me toward a set of trees that had the fewest there.  There were just three of these Red Fox Katsura trees, but both arborists told me that this was the tree that they'd bring home.  You can see the price above ($24), so it isn't a budget buster. The description from the sign reads:   A purple-leaved selection of the Katsura tree, this specimen has a narrow upright, columnar growth habit and is relatively low maintenance.   Columnar?  Check.  Red?  Check.  And, turns out...it is Japanese.  So, check.   Below is the tag

Those are four of our eight Carpinus betulus Frans Fontaine Columnar Hornbeam trees as they looked 750 days ago.  This was right after they were planted in the end of May 2018 .  There is a lot to notice in this photo besides the trees.  The cedar fence was still showing some signs of brown in the color.  The mulch is, umm, perfect.  The grass next to the trees seems pretty stressed due to the planting.  Also, at the left of the photo, you can barely make out a tree with a TreeGator watering bag around the trunk.  As for the trees?  Well...they look pretty far spaced apart. This, below, is what these same four (plus the Chanticleer Pear on the left) look like today. There are plenty of things to pick up on in the latest photo, too.  The trees have filled out and are wider and thicker.  They've grown taller, but hard to say how much.  The hostas at their base are all new - compared to their planting day in 2018.  And for an even more nuanced view, here's the &#

A couple of days ago, I posted photos of the new growth on our tiny Canadian Hemlock trees .  Today is another conifer - the Weeping White Spruce tree that I planted last year.  It has put on some Spring growth, too.  The new, bright green tips are clearly visible in the image above.  On the far left of the photo in this post, you'll see one of the Summer Beauty Allium that we planted last month .  The last time that this tree was featured in a post in the [ garden diary ] was last Fall when it had not put on any new growth , but seemed to have gotten through the hot Summer.   It was coming in at 47" tall in November, but you can see some of the new growth is right.on.top, so it is a little taller today.  If you look back at the photos from May 2019 when I bought the tree , it had green tips, then, too.  In that post , you can also see what the mature tree will look like as it continues to climb upwards and stays columnar in form. One other note:  I sprayed this tre

A couple of weeks ago, we planted a fast-growing Lombardy Poplar tree in our far backyard and had high hopes that it would provide a little bit of screening in a quick way.  But, today I went by to inspect the tree a little and was surprised to see it was having some trouble.  Look at the photo above to see the leaves that are wilting and browning out.  This is certainly NOT a good sign, but I'm not calling it yet with this tree and I hope it can bounce back.  I'm pretty certain that this was a recently-planted bareroot tree that came in a burlap sack.  This was the first tree that we received in one of those burlap sacks and I decided to NOT plant the sack.  I think that was a mistake.  It *could* be frost damage like what we've seen on some of our ferns , but I'm not sure.  On the next tree - which I'll post about soon, I trimmed the burlap sack down to be pretty small and planted the sack to try to keep the soil around the tree roots a bit more.  I'

A couple of weeks ago, I posted photos of one of our Earth Day 2020 trees (a Chanticleer Flowering Pear) that we planted in the side yard as a screening tree for our Screened Porch .  That was our 36th tree planted in the yard, this post is about the 37th tree:  a Lombardy Poplar. This was an inexpensive tree that I bought at an online nursery that is about six feet tall from the soil, but very thin - caliper-wise.  I didn't measure it when I planted it, but I'll do a new-tree roundup for calipers later this Summer.  It was a bareroot tree based on the root structure. We planted this one all the way in the back - where I've been putting the wood chips - and it is located just to the north of where I planted the Corkscrew Willow three years ago .  That tree died, but you can still see the trunk of it on the left side of the photo at the top.    When I dug up the hole for this tree, I seem to have left some of the soil/loam on top of the chips that I'll have to re-

It is sure feeling like Spring around these parts.  But, this columnar Oak tree that I came across on a walk sure isn't in the mood to bud out.  It is still clinging to it's Fall leaves.  This is a parkway tree, so it was planted by the forestry or arborist division of the Village of Downers Grove public works department as part of their parkway tree program.  I mentioned/covered the species that they have available in this post about our own parkway tree at the very end of 2019 and sure enough...one of the Spring-planted trees are Oaks.  They list them as (various species) in their handout . Might be a Columnar English Oak?  This Monrovia listing shows it down to Zone 5 .  This is a lovely parkway tree and the marcescence adds some drama to the curbside that's for sure.  I've covered the concept of marcescence (trees like this one retaining leaves through all of/part of Winter) on the blog.  And we see it with our own Oak trees and the row of Frans Fontaine H

Two days ago was the latest in the run of [ tree dreaming ] posts featuring this columnar Japanese Larch called "Paper Lanterns" that throws off these beautiful - and delicate - paper-y cones .  In that post, I mentioned that I while I haven't covered Larch trees before, in looking at columnar Larches, I came across a tree that checks a couple of really desirable boxes for my tastes in trees. Is there a tree that is: a deciduous conifer.   Puts on a 'Fall show'. Is Japanese-inspired. Grows in a narrow, columnar form. Displays a weeping branching structure. And...is considered contorted.   Turns out, there's a tree that checks all six of those boxes.  It is called the Diana Weeping Larch .  I found it when I was looking around at columnar larches and found this story on FineGardening about trees in tight spaces .  They showed this photo (below) of the Diana Weeping Japanese Larch.  This is a special tree, isn't it: This is not my photo.  Fo

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  here on Flickr .   Looks

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.com : Park

A few days ago, I posted my latest [ tree dreaming ] post about the Van Den Aker Weeping Narrow/columnar Alaskan Cedar and in doing the poking around on the Web about that very tree, I came across a few other trees that are worth documenting here for future contemplation.  This post is about two trees:  The Oregon Green Austrian Pine and the "Joe Kozey" Narrow Japanese Umbrella Pine tree.  The Austrian Pine isn't (I think) necessarily a columnar tree, but it has narrow/columnar varieties.  But the Umbrella Pine certainly is columnar in habit. First the Oregon Green Austrian Pine.  It has these interesting 'candles' that emerge on the tips of the tree. Via Monrovia comes this photo: Photo above via Monrovia.  Source .   Kinda cool, isn't it? Monrovia describes the tree thusly : Via the Monrovia product listing .   Next on the list of tree specimens that are worth dreaming about is this 'Joe Kozey' Narrow Japanese Umbrella Pine.  Here&#

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

Another day, another 'tree dreaming' post here on the blog.  And guess what? It features another columnar form tree , of course.  But this one is a conifer.  If you've followed along on the blog, you'll know that I'm pretty far behind when it comes to conifers in the landscape.  I included this note in my 2019 "to do list" that called for 'adding more conifers" .  I added eight in 2019 (see results here ), but six of them were TINY.  I mean... TINY .  Those six Canadian Hemlocks ( now five ) aren't going to be meaningful in our garden for many years.  Still have quite a bit more work to do, I think - and especially as I think about replacing the (LOST) Weeping Cedar . This post is about a variety of tree that we haven't planted yet: a pine.  This is called a Columnar Eastern White Pine tree that Monrovia lists as being hardy all the way down to Zone 3. Here's a photo from Gertens : Note: This is not my photo.  Found it via Ger

With the hard gardening days on me in mid-January (and not being a seed catalog guy), I've turned to dreaming about trees, shrubs and grasses.  And that means that today, I'll post another 'tree dreaming' post to create a document/reference post for future use in my landscape/garden/backyard planning.  A few days back, I shared two deciduous columnar trees that I wanted to create reference posts about here on the blog: the Columnar Swedish Aspen and the Dakota Pinnacle Birch . Today, I'm posting about the Slender Hinoki Cypress .  I'm filing this under [ columnar trees ], but I suppose this is technically a 'narrow, upright form' and not necessarily columnar.  And...technically, this is a shrub, not a tree.  But...this is my garden diary, so I'm calling the shots. The Slender Hinoki Cypress is 'pyramidal form' that has new growth with  'ferny appearance'.  Love that. Via Monrovia : Description via this Monrovia listing .  

Since the new year, I've posted about a couple of spots that I'm thinking about for trees in 2020.  That started with the five trees that I want to plant in the front yard ( including five new trees ) and a small section between the espalier Linden trees and a Cleveland Pear along the southern fence line.  In both of those pieces, I talked quite a bit about columnar trees.  At this point, you're probably like:  we get it, Jake.  You like columnar form. Yes indeed.  But, because this is *my* blog, you're going to have to bear with me.  Over the course of the next few days and weeks, I'm going to use this space as a reference guide for some columnar trees that I've come across that are work referencing back as I add more inventory. This post is about a pair of what I'm calling 'white trees'.  Birch and Aspen. First up is this Dakota Pinnacle Birch Tree . The folks at  Fast Growing Trees are currently selling a 5-6' version for $99 right no