Why I Oughta...

This is the seventh post in the series on this year's (welp...technically, I suppose they're *last* year's) amaryllis bulbs.  The last time we looked that them was right before Christmas on December 21st and 20th .   On the 20th, I showed how the Star of Holland was blooming in a spectacular fashion with four blooms on two stems.  Then on the 21st, I included a few photos showing the progress of the other three amaryllis for the season; Cherry Nymph, Apple Blossom and Red Lion . We went away for a couple days for the New Year and came home to the four pots you see at the top of this post.  On the far left is the Apple Blossom.  Has fully bloomed and is a beautiful white with some red/pink lines running through it and a light green center.  It is much more pale than the Star of Holland.  I also had just one stem come up on this bulb.   But, it also was the one that was timed the best.  It had it's first open bloom arrive and open fully on Christmas Eve.  N

We have two very large Oak Trees in our backyard.  One of them has been documented here on the blog last Summer - and has our tree swing hanging from it .  The other is on the southside of our property and is almost as massive as the first.  I posted a photo of it's trunk when I was talking about a potential tree house here .  We also have a few medium-sized and a few MASSIVE Black Walnut trees in our yard.  Having these trees around means that come mid-to-late August, our yard starts to transform into a nut wonderland.  Above you see three of the green acorns that I picked up.  They were among HUNDREDS of their brethren.  Some in good shape. Others that have been already worked over by various critters including the Acorn Weevil .  These things aren't falling of their own accord.  Or at least...most of them aren't.  They are being released by squirrels.  It is kind of fun to watch these guys climb up into the extremities of these trees, hang on for dear life and gnaw a

Yesterday, I posted about how after seeing the French gardeners use cocoa bean shell hull mulch in the gardens and beds in Luxembourg Gardens, I decided to try the stuff myself.  But, it wasn't just the mulch that made an impression on me during our visit.  So, too, did these large green tree containers.  They are all over Luxembourg Gardens and other parks/gardens.  They're really quite striking. A little digging on the Web and I discover that they're actually called Château de Versailles tree-boxes.  There are a couple of sources that offer them.  But...brace yourself, they're not cheap. What looked initially to me like wooden boxes turn out to be cast iron frames with wooden slats that make up the sides.  The corners and braces are all cast iron.  See here below: Photo via Jardin du Roi Soleil - this is their photo and product .   If you've been following along on the blog, you might have seen the little planter box that I made for Natalie for our p

The photo above is from the plans at Gardener's World that were our inspiration Back in April of this year, I published a list of seven additional or addendum items in my Spring/Summer To-Do List that included: "Work out the patio container situation" .  We had a hodgepodge of containers in our back patio and Nat wanted to do something about it.  She shared a few photos of planters that she liked and we came across this plan from Gardener's World that featured a simple timber planter .  You can see it above and how it features a two-tiered planter with three sections. After noodling it a bit and altering the plans a little, we ended up trying our own hand at making a similar patio planter.    Off I went to Menards and I ended up coming home with a van full of 2x3's of treated lumber. That 'altering' of the plans included Nat's decision to lop off the top level and just make it a flat-topped planter.  Here's how it ended up: Because I

Just like I did last year, I planted a few Elephant Ear bulbs in containers on our back patio.  I like the way they add a little bit of tropical interest and large leaf contrast to the pots and I think that I'll likely continue to add them (or something like them) going forward because this is the second year that I've had success with them.  Above (and below), you can see the first of our ordinary Colocasia start to unfurl.  I also planted a blackstem variety, but I don't remember which container that was in and I'm *pretty sure* that this isn't it.  At least...the stem isn't currently black, ya know? Here's a look at similar Elephant Ears in a container on our back patio last Summer (2018) .  And here's a peek at all of our containers from our back patio last July .  If/when the Black Stem Elephant Ear makes an appearance, I'll post a few photos.    

Early last Spring, I found a large cast iron urn planter on Craigslist in LaGrange and added it to our front yard landscape .  It is BIG and HEAVY and it hasn't moved since we filled it last year.   Nat has expressed that she doesn't love it in this location, but I haven't moved it yet.  And, the bad news is that I filled it this season already.  This post is to document what this thing looks like in June of 2019. You can see that I've gone ahead and applied the whole thrill/fill/spill thing.  As we get later into the heat of the Summer and Fall, I'll swap these out for something else. 

We've been growing Sweet Potato Vines for the better part of ten years.  Basically ever since I started to buy and plant containers of my own, we've found a home for one of these.  Or six of them.  With their rock-bottom price (usually $0.99 a piece), I naturally grab one of these and a spike or two and check the box on the "spill" and "thrill" in the fill-spill-thrill container philosophy trio. But in all of that time, I have never had a Sweet Potato Vine flower.  Until now.  And I have not one vine flowering, but two!  In two different containers .   Here, below, you can see both of the wine barrel containers that I used on our patio and you can see that both of them have a very healthy/robust purple sweet potato vine and both are flowering! (also note how happy the Lemon Coral Sedum is, eh?) The flowers are quite striking and add some drama to the normally boring vine. From this DIYNetwork post , it turns out that the reason I haven'

Back in July, I posted a photo of our mid-Summer containers on our back patio and mentioned that I somehow failed to mention/post the details of the grapes that we planted in one of our wine barrel planters.  Above, you can see the variety:  Somerset grapes.  They're self-pollinating and so far, I don't have any fruit coming in this first season. I'm hoping that they'll overwinter in the barrel and come back next Spring.  I'm posting this mostly because I want to write something here on the blog that I'll post tomorrow showing the current state of this vine. 

Back in March, I shared a photo of a set of Night Queen Dahlia tubers that I picked up and planned to put in a container this Spring.  This year, I planted two different varieties of Dahlias including these Firebird Semi Cactus Dahlias that I've shared an update on in early June.   Above you see a photo of the blooms from the Night Queen variety that I took this week.  There are about a dozen or so blooms that have sprung up - some on strong stems - others on thin stems that can't quite handle the weight of these colorful blooms. I posted this same photo earlier this week on my backyard/garden Instagram handle @HornbeamHill . Night queen Dahlia's in bloom. #containergardening A post shared by Hornbeam Hill (@hornbeamhill) on Jul 23, 2018 at 6:36am PDT Nat thinks that we need to have these dahlias in the ground, not in pots next year and that might be right, but I do like having them grace our patio with their beauty, not to mention that our patio ge

Right before we went out of town for a few days recently, I gathered all of our patio containers and put them together in order to assist the watering - which was being done by one of our neighborhood kids.  I snapped this photo of all of them in one spot to text to Nat to share with the girl's Mom so she knew what needed to be watered, but I figured I'd post it here to mark what our patio containers looked like in July of this year. In the far back, in the yellow pot 1 you can see the Chicago-hardy fig tree 2 that my Sister Vic and Equation Boy/Man gave me for my birthday this year.  Right in front of that is one of my wine barrel planters with a grapevine 3 growing on the trellis.  That's also the pot that has the Lemon Coral Sedum growing in it . In front of that wine barrel, but mostly obscured is my large basil plant.  It is sharing a pot with one of my Elephant Ears .  Then, buried under the foliage is the other wine barrel planter.  That's this one wi