Why I Oughta...

A year ago, I planted twelve Fanal Astilbes in the backyard - in the south bed - according to the placement spec'd by our landscape plan.  They suffered some transplant shock and had a tough go of it for the first month or so.   I baby'd them for the rest of the Summer in hopes that they'd come back this Spring.  By April of 2021, I was starting to see them come back and emerge from their dormancy .  I knew that I planted these in the wrong spot, so when I expanded the new backyard beds, all twelve of these needed to be transplanted out closer to the border in May of this year .  I've been watering this area in pretty good this Summer because there are a series of things that have been transplanted (these + the Oakleaf Hydrangeas) and some new items ( Butterscotch Amsonia that I planted in May, too ). And, all that watering has paid off with these Fanal Astilbes as many of them have come up big and bold with red flowers and quite a bit of foliage.  Se...

Last month, I posted some photos showing off the new shape of our backyard beds - in a curvilinear form - and talked about how these were the 'final form' of the beds.  The idea that this was the final shape/form of the beds lasted about three weeks.  We decided we need to add another area and cut out even more turf.  Before we talk about what we're doing, let's first understand the backstory, current state and a little bit of inspiration that Nat found that we're trying to bring to life. We've had a sort-of DIY firepit area in the far backyard that was made up of wood chips that I picked up from the Village Mulch Pit and bricks that we scavenged from our neighbor's house when they tore it down.  You can kind of see that area in this post about some hostas and this post where I showed off the latest firewood rack back there .   That is in one back corner.  And the kids' trampoline is in the other back corner.  We also have a gate in one corner t...

I added three new All Gold Japanese Forest Grasses to this little curve in our backyard bringing the border total to six with three more in the back.  Back on May 9th, I posted a photo showing how I moved three of these to the edge of the new bed .  These three new ones are from the Arbor Day Plant Sale from the Morton Arboretum.   Here's what the sign looked like at this most recent sale - where they were asking $18.95 each. I bought eleven (11) of these last Fall at the Morton Arboretum Fall Plant sale for $16 each .  That means that I now have nine of these back in this spot and five up front - in between two driveways.  I have these planted by themselves in a border, but seeing them now I think I should move the back three a little closer to these front three to make more of a drift.  This pdf describes a drift as 'a colony' and I kind of like that description.   Here's what I'm thinking in terms of some transplanting in this area with last y...

 In the order of operations for this Spring, I continue down my transplanting plan.  First were the Fanal Astilbes that I moved out to the edge of the bed.  Then, I divided and transplanted 15 hostas in a border .  Today, posting a photo showing three newly transplanted All Gold Japanese Forest Grasses.  I planted six of them back here in the Fall and they all came back this Spring.  With this new bed created (and extended), I took three that were in the back and moved them up to the front edge of the bed - that you can see in the photo below: If I come across more of these grasses this year, I'm thinking I can use a couple of them on either side of these three to create a nice grass border.  I planted them far enough back to account for a full-size adult grass to live within the bed.  Posting this in early May, but I did this work on April 24, 2021.

Yesterday, I posted a photo showing the new location of the dozen Fanal Astilbes that I transplanted out to the edge of their new bed and commented that that was the FIRST of a few posts showing the transplanting that I have been doing this Spring.   Today, the photo below shows the new location of 15 teardown hostas that I planted on the southside of the yard in the curved border of this new bed.  You can see the first three on the left taking the 'second row' spot and if you look closely, there are two more in the 'second row' under the Oak tree at the top of the photo: Here's an annotated version of that photo showing the 15 hostas: A few important notes: 1. These hostas are (I'm pretty sure) Lanifolia Hostas .  Based on this "What hosta do I have?" page , I found this Lancifolia page in the Hosta Library.  Things check out.  I inherited them when we moved in.  They're plain green with glossy leaves.  2.  They get to a nice size - if left...

Now that we've set the final edges of our backyard beds using the notion of curvilinear design/layout , I'm able to begin to transplant some of the items that I have on hand to put them in their final spots - closer to the edges of these new final beds.  The first set that I took on were the dozen Fanal Astilbe plants that I planted last year.  I was happy to see that all twelve came back this Spring and below you can see the twelve holes where I transplanted them further out.  You can see in the photo below the pole of the bird feeder and some of the pink circles.  So, these are moving up about 24" but also not TOO CLOSE to the edge of the bed to be sure they have some room to spread out. This is the first of a bunch of transplants - including hostas, ferns and grasses that I'll be making in the next week or two ahead of mulch.  As a reminder (to myself) that I laid out an 'order of operations' with my beds this year - that starts with removing the Automowe...

Here I was...thinking I'm writing a post that is going to knock a HUGE item off my 2021 to-do list in the yard.  But, when I went to go look up what number "cutting new, larger curvilinear beds" was on the list...imagine my disappointment that it isn't one of the 25 things.  Womp, womp.   But, it is still a big deal for me and a big milestone for the yard.   First, a review of a few things:  Starting with curvilinear bed design .  I covered where I wanted to go with our bed layout and how we had a bunch of "little" curves/bumps in our current beds - while the ideal state is very few, larger, swooping edges.  As Sue from Not Another Gardening Blog pointed out, these big, swooping curves are hard to pull off . I went through three colors of spray paint trying to get the curves right.  And, I think I got them like 90% there - with just a little bit of cleanup having to come in the next few seasons.   Second:  a note about th...