Why I Oughta...

The multi-trunk Saucer Magnolia Tree that we have planted in our Northern Illinois, Zone 5B suburban front yard put on a spectacular pink show this Spring with the most productive flower bloom we've had since the tree went in back in Summer of 2017.  As I've done in previous years, I've treated this with a systemic insecticide to help protect it against scale that seems to creep in/on in most growing seasons.   The tree has a nice dark color to the foliage and seems to have handled the early Summer drought just fine in our area.   See below for a current view of the tree and the full, dark foliage in mid-Summer 2023: On a recent morning when I was setting up the sprinkler to handle the lawn in front, I noticed some spots of pink high up in the canopy of the Magnolia tree.  See below for a look at those pink tufts near the tips of the tallest limbs:  A closer look (below) shows one of the blooms: What do we have going on here?  Seems like a small...

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 ...

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 w...