Why I Oughta...

I planted a small, native dogwood - a Pagoda Dogwood - that I bought at a local plant sale back in October of 2021 .   I put it back by the firepit area, in front of the Yew hedge, and left it alone for couple of years.  It was small and I wasn't sure how it was going to grow, so no pruning was done until last Summer ( June 2023) when I took back all the lower branches to just a few pairs of leaves.  The goal was to get it to focus a bit more on the taller/higher section and begin to take on a more tree-form shape (vs a shrub with low, wide branching).   I was out in the garden today taking an inventory and noticed that the Pagoda Dogwood has produced long, thin buds that are beginning to burst.  See below for the current state at the end of March 2024: This tree puts out a lovely-looking foliage - here's last Summer's view of the lined, almost-ribbed leaves that emerge out of these buds . According to the Morton Aboretum, this will eventually get up to 15' tall along

Fall planting is here.  At least...for me it is.  I have two real gardening/planting seasons:  Spring - when I can't help myself and get busy in the garden/at the garden center/at the Morton Sale.  And then Fall - when I divide and transplant and buy things that go on end-of-season sales.  This is the first planting of that 'fall planting' period and is something that I've been thinking about for years.  And, finally did something about it. I'm talking about the northside of our garage, where we get full shade and have a narrow, foundation bed that borders the bluestone chip path that leads to our backyard.  All the way back in 2018, I started posting about what to do with this area  in terms of trees and shrubs.  There are really two parts that *could* be addressed.  First..against the house to sort-of soften-up the large, white, blank wall.  And, then (potentially) against the property line to provide a sense of 'privacy' or screening from the driveway nex

The weather is showing snow this week, but that doesn't mean Spring isn't already here in the mind of a gardener.   Between the tulip foliage emerging and my first bloom via a Snow Crocus , you can't blame a plantsman for thinking that the time for planting is near.  And, the inventory folks at the Orange Big Box store nursery think the same thing.   I was on a quick run to the hardware store when I noticed two things;  first...the parking lot nursery wasn't quite set up.  But...they did put out a couple of shopping carts turned over on their side to sort of 'mark' the boundaries of where they're going to build their nursery - in an attempt to keep cars out of there.  And...when you walk up to the entrance, you can see the nursery tables set up on either side of the main entrance and all the way down to the garden center.   Second thing of note:  they have some early trees in their inventory along the sidewalk.  Of course, I couldn't help myself and had

I planted a tiny, native Pagoda Dogwood tree back by the fire pit area last Fall (October of 2021) .  I decided to protect this with a ring of chicken wire because I feared the dang rabbits would destroy it all Winter.  This was the first Spring and it leaf'd out really early.  See the photo below for the very interesting lined foliage that is adorned on all the tips of this tiny tree.  NOTE: This is the tree that leaf'd out the fastest of any tree in our garden.   I took this photo in mid-May, but posting in June of 2022. So, call it mid-May for this tree reaching full leaf-out.  Some of our other trees have broken buds, but none are full.  (London Planetrees, Ginkos, Walnuts, Catalpas, Kentucky Coffee trees haven't broken bud just yet.) I'll water this in during the heat of the Summer with hopes that it grows up and out to provide a little bit of layering and screening back by the firepit.  

I've talked about how our yard, beds and even view of our house from the street has changed since we moved in back in 2017.  At that time, we had a house next door (to the north) that was sitting closer (than our house setback-wise) to the street and had a driveway that wasn't right on the property line.  With our new neighbors building and moving in a couple of years back, that changed.  They upgraded the property and house in a MASSIVE way.  And...they're just good neighbors and nice people.  But, they did upgrade the property in so many ways.  In doing so, they built their new house a bit further back from where the old, smaller house was situated.   As a result, that 'view from the street' that I mentioned changed a little bit.  It changed when you are coming south on our street/sidewalk and 'see' our house.  What used to be hidden (mostly) due to landscaping and the old house was the side of our garage.  It is a big, mass of wall with no windows.   Here

When I posted last week about the replacement (tiny) Ginko tree that I planted 'ib2dw', I mentioned that the Ginko wasn't the last tree for the year.  There are a few more coming this week - starting with my very first Dogwood tree.  When I bought the small Chinkapin Oak tree from the Conservation Foundation in late September , I also bought another small native tree:  A Cornus alternifolia (Pagoda Dogwood).    Below, you can see the tag for the tree. This dogwood is different than the ones I've seen in the big box nurseries where I typically see Cornus kousa and Cornus florida.  You can read up about those various cultivars around the Web - but the main takeaway is that florida is the standard that has been around for a while, but kousa is a new(er) sport that is more disease resistant.   The dogwood tree that we selected is known as the Pagoda Dogwood.  Morton Arboretum has a tree listing up here for the Pagoda Dogwood - Cornus alternifolia . They describe it an '