Why I Oughta...

How old are our pair of Greenspire Linden trees that are in our yard? I'm NOT sure.  But, I know that we have them in our yard for  (coming up on) six full years - and this will be our seventh growing season.  Planted in the Summer of 2017, the have grown into their own across those six growing seasons.    The last time I showed these trees was in October when they were putting on a fall show with orange and yellow foliage .   This past September, I documented via caliper sizing the overall growth of these trees:  they are both greater than 3" calipers now.  They went from a little bit over 1.5" to more than 3" - doubling in size since 2020.   My plan for this year is to plant underneath these and remove the frames.  But, before I do that, I went out this weekend and began to prune some of the tops of these trees.  That top layer of the espalier is thick and full of new growth.  What kind of growth?  What woul...

Posting a photo here in the tree diary to show that the young London Plane Tree that I planted in Spring 2020 is exhibiting some Winter foliar marcescence with a series of brown, dry leaves clinging to the branches.   This tree - the Grampy tree ( because I used some $$$ from him for my birthday to buy ) was planted in the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 .  After a brief period of transplant-stress, the tree seemed to get on just fine.  This past season, I was able to water this due to it being inside the footprint of some of the 2022-planted Green Giant Thujas - so it seemed to be in a fine spot with growth.  However...this is the first year that I've really noticed - or documented - the tree holding on to some dead leaves.  See below for a photo of the tree in early January 2023: Seeing this tree cling to some of the leaves is a good note for the tree diary - and something that is going to cause me to look over the rest of these trees - including the o...

At the top of this post is a look at the row of Frans Fontaine Fastigiate Hornbeam trees that we planted back in 2018 along the northern border of our property.  These trees were planted as a screen between our backyard, our screened porch and our neighbor's house.  When we put them in, our neighbors to the norther were in a small ranch that was set pretty far back from the property line.  A few years back, a new house was built and the screening was needed more than ever.   [NOTE:  If you are here reading about the really amazing Frans Fontaine Columnar Hornbeam Trees and want to know the full history we've had with planting a row of eight of them, you can head to this post from August of 2021 that includes links to their full history dating back to being planted in 2018.  Alternatively, you can poke around at this [ Frans Fontaine ] post tag.  Or start here with my post showing them being planted as 2" caliper trees in 2018.] The last time tha...

We're now five full growing seasons in with our pair of Greenspire Linden trees  ( Tilia cordata 'Greenspire' ) that we've espaliered into a four-tier horizontal cordon.  Planted in 2017 , I initially went one way with the layout of the branches (at one time, I had six tiers and was even planning on shaping it into a candelabra form ), but last Spring (2020), I finally had a cogent thought (after looking at these trees for years) and made a call to prune A LOT back and go with a simple, four-tiered horizontal cordon.  In the Summer of 2020, I got busy pruning things back and because I was SCARED to really go for it, I ended up leaving a few little branch 'nubs' 1 with some growth on them just to make sure I wasn't pruning off TOO MUCH of the tree at once.  You can go look at this photo here and you'll see the little orange things that I left (at the time).   With all the leaves dropped from these trees, I can start to look at the form they've crea...

Back at the end of April, I went on an early morning socially-distant Home Depot run and bought a tree with some birthday money that reminded me of Paris .  Yeah..Paris.  Despite it being named the London Plane Tree.  It was a tall tree on a 50% off deal that I jumped at.   This post shows the label for the tree that includes the name Platanus x acerfifolia .  I stared at this tree for a week as it sat on our patio before we finally planted it around mid-May.  It went in the ground a day or two BEFORE the super-late HARD frost that arrived and shocked everything ( including our ferns ).   This London Plane tree had some tender leaves that were emerging from the buds on the tree when that frost arrived.  And...I think it got hit.  Or...some combination of the hard frost AND the transplant shock hit the tree hard.  All of the little leaves went brown and turned pretty limp.  They didn't dry out and were still pliab...

We planted our first Oak tree in our yard this month.  You can see it above - it is a Northern Red Oak tree and it is REALLY small.  I'll get the caliper dimension later this Summer, but I think this might be the thinnest tree that we've planted. Why an Oak tree?  Because of this Washington Irving post from last year . I know we won't be living in our home by the time that this tree - if we nurture it - grows up to be significant.  In ten years, it will be a small tree.  In 20 years, it might be an eight inch or 10 inch caliper tree.  We'll be gone from here. But, we have two huge Oak trees on our lot - that planted a long time ago.  And we are the ones - the future ages - that are enjoying the trees. We plant this small tree without the expectation that we'll enjoy the shade that it will create.  But, this little tree will 'benefit mankind long after we shall have ceased to tread our yard'. We planted it on the south side of our l...

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...

I was out puttering around the yard on a mild Winter day recently doing a little bit of bud inspection to see what trees had put off when I found this break in this Japanese Kwanzan Flowering Cherry Tree in the backyard.  I bought this tree in May of 2017 when it was a small (maybe .75" caliper) tree from Menards after I had just come back from my first trip to Tokyo where I saw *their* Cherry Blossom trees.  The tree (in the garden center at Menards) caught my eye because it was flowering these beautiful, puffy, almost-peony-like pink flowers . At the end of June/early July of 2017, right when we were moving into our house in Downers Grove, I got around to planting the tree in the yard .  About half-way back in the yard, on the southside of the property.  Not sure, exactly why it ended up there.  Just *felt* right at the time.  Looking at the tree now, I think it is in a good spot and the placement ended up being appropriate. The first season it wa...

Last year, I discovered a few smallish, but growing trees that had been through some heavy pruning in our yard.  The previous owner had cut most of the little cluster of trees back to stumps at some point before we acquired the property.  Two or three of them are tall (15' or so) and I couldn't figure out what they were, so I sent a few photos in to the U of Illinois Master Gardener program .  They identified them as American Elm trees and provided some details about Dutch Elm Disease and pests that weaken these trees.  With my recent interest in bonsai including the purchase of a few pieces of nursery stock ( here , here  and here) , I've discovered that one of the *other* ways to get bonsai trees is through the collection of natural bonsai species.  Or...what I think they call "Pre-Bonsai" species.  Collecting bonsai (or...again pre-bonsai) is about going out in nature, finding and selecting potential trees that can be dug up and potted....