Why I Oughta...

For Mother's Day this year, Nat's Mom gave her a small Flowering Tobacco Jasmine plant that came in a little plastic capsule.  There was very little instructions with it other than that it was potentially poisonous (see ASPCA page on it being poisonous to dogs here !).  Nat's Mom has given us a few Disneyland Roses ( first one in 2017 and two more in 2018 ) and a couple of hydrangeas , but this is the first annual that she's gifted us. I wasn't sure where to put it, so I ended up sticking it on the side of our house on the southside - near where I put the 2018 Disneyland roses and was planning to do a Belgian Fence.  I didn't pay it much attention and didn't even water it consciously.  And look at it above:  beautifully tall and graceful.  But, this isn't just a looker.  Nope.  It does a couple of things that are interesting.  First...it transforms from day to evening.  The listing on Select Seeds calls it a "night bloomer" .  Then it

Our first Disneyland Rose bush is in bloom.  And it is a stunner.  We received it as an anniversary gift in September of 2017 and I planted it that Fall .  Wasn't totally sure it was going to make it.  But, survive it did.  And now the area where I planted it is a lush garden of green.  You can kind of tell from the photo above that it is surrounded with hostas and ferns.  But, compare this June 2019 blooming photo with the same Disneyland Rose plant one year ago .  Quite a different view. Not just because of the filling-in of the rest of the bed, but also the height and bloom numbers of this particular plant.  It is doing really well and provides a great pop of orange and pink in the sea of green.  Love it.   Last Fall, Nat's Mom gave us two more and I planted them on the side of the house .  They're, umm, not doing as well as this one.  But they are one year younger.    I'll snap a couple of photos of those as I get around the yard in the coming days. 

Last May, I planted the first peony tuber in our backyard after having quite a few varieties in our old backyard in Elmhurst.  This first plant was a Sarah Bernhardt variety and is supposed to have big, beautiful pink blooms.  Here's the post showing how I planted it in May of 2018 .   It seemed to establish itself in the Spring because in June of last Summer it showed some signs of life with little purple shoots coming up for the first time .   But, that's about all the 'action' we saw out of this plant during the Summer.  But, I'm thinking that it was busy establishing itself under the mulch because if you peek at the photo at the top of this post, you'll see that we now have a strong leader popping up this Spring.   This is still an immature peony and I'm hoping that we get one flower out of it this year, but we might not get any.  If you want to see what a very mature (7 year established) peony plant looks like at this time of year, have a lo

Last year, Nat's Mom gifted us a Disneyland Rose for our anniversary and this year she did the same thing, but gave us two of them.  They arrived recently in a box from Jackson & Perkins that you see above.  Here's the post showing the rose plant from 2017 and includes the description of the variety.  I revisited our Disneyland Rose in June when it came back for the year and produced some small, but spectacular blooms.  I ended up planting the first one underneath the kitchen windows amongst some hostas and grasses.  I think that ultimately, I'm going to have to transplant it next year to a different spot, but for this season, it did well. Below you can see the two new Rose plants that were shipped in the container. I ended up planting them on the south side of our house - on either side of the window well that is out there.  Again, I'm not certain that this is where they're destined to go, but it is pretty much a blank canvas out there and these t

Nat's sister sent us this photo of our 'fostered' peony plant that is in Nat's Mom's garden out in Naperville that we planted in 2015.  As you can see, it has grown up quite a bit and seems to have recovered almost completely from the harsh transplant.  It is even blooming with two small blooms, but more importantly, the green foliage looks quite strong.   I posted a photo of this same peony emerging last Spring , but didn't followup with another post.  The peony struggled and didn't flower last year, but I knew it would take a few seasons to recover. That's the good news.  The bad news?  I'm going to take it back this September and restart that recovery cycle.   The foster care, has indeed, worked, but now that we're ready for this beauty, I'm eager to bring it home.  About a week ago, I posted about how the Sarah Bernhardt variety was starting to emerge this Summer (after planting this Spring), so I'm already thinking about

Late last Summer/early last Fall, Nat's Mom gifted us three plants: an Everlasting Revolution Hydrangea , a Tuff Stuff Red Hydrangea  and a Disneyland Rose .  I planted the two Hydrangeas along the south fence line where the plan called for them, but I stuck the rose in the rear foundation beds outside of our kitchen windows .  It is located right in between where I planted the teardown Hostas  last Fall and the Karl Foerster Grasses that I planted this Spring . What you see in the photo above is the Disneyland Rose - that has not only survived the winter, but is about to burst with it's first flowers.  What good news to see this thing flourishing in our first Summer here.  Those pointy buds are really quite cool, aren't they? Those of you who aren't familiar with the Disneyland Rose, check out this post I wrote when we acquired the plant .  Nat has expressed an interest in more roses, but our plan is really light on them, so we'll have to figure out how to

At our old place in Elmhurst, we had a big, beautiful, sprawling Anemone plant that was a gift from Nat's Mom.  Turns out, Natalie had Anemone in her wedding bouquet and they were attempting to recreate it some time after our wedding and that involved the purchase of Anemone plants to take some cuttings from.  Nat's Mom ended up with a couple of these plants and gave us one - which I stuck in the sideyard of our house - right to the south of our front porch.  And it thrived!  Like, really thrived.   After a couple of years that is.  It started small, came back in year two and I think gave us just a couple of blooms.  But in year three and four and beyond?  It was big and wonderful.  Take a look at it blooming in 2013 here .  Just like the peony that the kids gave Nat for Mother's Day this year, they also picked out a set of Anemone bulbs - these St. Brigid Blend.  Which, I believe aren't the same plant that we had before.  Why?  Because this product listing says th

Back one month ago, I shared a photo of the Sarah Berhhardt peony tuber that I planted in our backyard and talked about how peonies are Nat's favorite flowers.  Unfortunately, before that one, we didn't have any peonies in our entire yard.  But, we *are* fostering one at Nat's mom's house out in Naperville and I plan on bringing that over to Hornbeam Hill early this Summer.  For Mother's Day this year, the kids all decided to buy a few bulbs/tubers for Nat and one of them is this Karl Rosenfield Peony  - which is a double bloom variety.  Around the side of our front porch, we have a couple of hydrangeas, but then a lot of blank, naked beds.  There is literally NOTHING in this spot on our landscape plan, so I decided to wing it.  It is south-facing, so peonies planted here would be getting some good sun and due to the downspouts and grading, this area gets a good amount of water.  So, just in front of the downspout off the porch is a spot that I stuck these

Woot, woot.  Spring has sprung in our New Old Backyard/Garden .  Or at least...signs of Spring have sprung.  Last fall, I planted 30 bulbs near the fence line on the southside of our property .  15 Yellow Triumph Tulips.  And 15 Orange Darwin Hybrid Tulips.  And on a recent walk around the yard, we discovered these tips emerging from the soil.  Above, you can see a close up a two of them.  And down below, you can see many more of them.   I didn't count them, but it didn't seem like 30 bulbs had broken through.  What is interesting to me is that the tips are coming up red.  They almost appear like peony shoots , don't they?  I've documented tulips (and other bulbs) emerging from the ground for the past few Springs.  Here's a look at them from 2017 that I posted in late February .  These mature bulbs are way further past the new ones in this post.  And here's the photo from 2016 .  Both of those were at Equation Boy/Man's house.  And speaking of

In addition to the Disneyland Rose , Nat's Mom also gifted us a few other plants that were shipped this fall including this Everlasting Revolution Hydrangea that you see above.  I mentioned in the post a week or so back that the #newoldbackyard landscape design called for hydrangeas on the south property line tucked in front of a few new hemlock trees .   And that's where I ended up placing this one. This one is three posts down from the tall 6' section of fence on that side.    I planted it fairly close to the fence and if you look at the drawing in this post , it is where one of the Oak Leaf Hydrangeas are placed and I also planted another one (that I'll post about soon) in a similar location.  I've never planted hydrangea in the fall, so I'm not sure how these are going to turn out, but the nursery shipped them knowing our USDA Zone, so I have my fingers crossed that this one survives the winter. Also, if you are following along closely at home, you kn

A few days ago, I posted some photos of a handful of Purple Sensation Allium bulbs that we did a fall bulb planting with around one of the big oak trees in our #newoldbackyard.  Photos here .  I mentioned that we also planted some tulips on that same day.   Today's post shows off the bulbs of the two varieties that we put down.  I picked up 2 15 packs of tulip bulbs at Menards that were on sale (they also had the 11% rebate thing going on...which....seems right now to be an almost constant thing??).  The first set was 15 Darwin Hybrid Tulips in orange.  You can see the packaging below: According to Longfield Gardens , Darwin Tulips have some special characteristics:  Darwin hybrids produce big, showy flowers with a classic tulip shape: broad at the base and slightly narrower at the top. They come in a rainbow of rich, saturated colors that range from white through yellow, orange, red and pink, including several lovely bi-colors.  Darwin hybrids are reliable performer

For our anniversary this year, we were gifted this beautiful rose bush from Nat's folks.  And at first look, it is just a nice looking peach/orange rose plant.  We don't have any roses and have never cared for one, but we've always admired them.  So, at first blush, it was a nice, simple gift.  But take a closer look at the tag and this suddenly becomes a really thoughtful gift: Yeah!  A Disneyland Rose.  Or a Disneyland Floribunda Rose from Jackson & Perkins to be precise.  I actually didn't even know there *was* a Disneyland Rose.  But it is a perfect gift for us, right?  Hits us right where we swoon:  in between our love for all-things-Disney and gardening in our #newoldbackyard.  As I said:  thoughtful.  Gift giving isn't easy.  But when you find someone who is good at it, they continue to surprise and delight you over time.  There are people who are 'good' at the internet.  They post the right comments on Instagram.  They send you the rig